The use of chopsticks has been     1     big part of Chinese food culture for centuries. When cooking food or picking it up, a pair of chopsticks always comes for use.

So how did chopsticks come into being? It’s said that a leader of ancient China, Dayu,     2     helped his people fight floods, invented them. In those days, people     3     (eat) only with their hands. But Dayu was busy    4     (prepare) for flood control work and often had his meals     5     the wild. In the summer in particular, he hurried to deal with unexpected accidents and didn’t want to wait to eat. The meat     6     (cook) in the pot was too hot to pick up with his hands. So one day Dayu picked up some twigs (细枝)     7     (help) him hold the meat. Then the twigs     8     (final) became the chopsticks we know today.

But of course, this is just a story. The     9     (early) chopsticks archaeologists (考古学家) have found so far are more than 3000 years old, dating back to the Shang Dynasty. The six bronze chopsticks were found in Yinxu, one of China’s oldest archaeological     10     (place), in Anyang, Henan province.

The story of The Farmer and The Mule (骡子) makes us smile.     1    , it does have wisdom in it. It reminded me about defeating adversity (逆境).

    2     we handle adversity determines our success in life. One of my     3     (thought) on adversity is, “Adversity is a fact of life. It can’t     4     (control). What we can control is how we react to it.”

When     5     (face) with adversity, we can give up the negative attitude. Or we can look on adversity     6     an opportunity to find other ways to do things. We should be     7     (determine) and persistent. It all comes down to your choice and it is a choice of attitude!

You see, the farmer thought the mule was not worth     8     (save) when it fell into a well accidentally, and he just put it out of its misery by burying it. Despite the farmer’s best efforts to bury it, the mule resist (抵抗) until it was able to climb out of the well on top of all the dirt that was thrown in after it.

The mule, despite the fact that it was     9     (constant) in a deep well, would not give up. The mule simply     10     (shake) the dirt off little by little, never giving up the will to live by climbing out of the well.

Yu Rong, a Chinese artist, thinks of a new way to introduce     1     ancient story of Hua Mulan in her picture book. In the book, I Am Hua Mulan, she tells the story by     2     (combine) Chinese paper-cutting with international artistic styles. She places Shaanxi papercuts over western-style pencil sketches (素描)    3     (create) typical presentation of Chineseelements (要素), which turns out to be a     4     (success) and impressive breakthrough.

Hua Mulan,     5     story has been told by generations in China, was a fighter from the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534). As a devoted daughter, she dressed herself as a man to serve in the army     6     place of her father. Mulan’s character, such as courage, kindness and a disinterested attitude towards fame and fortune, made     7     (she) one of the most respected historical Chinese heroines. Mulan’s story has been adapted     8     (frequent) in modern media. For example, in 1998, Disney produced a film named Mulan, which     9     (consider) a great success by critics and the public right after its release.

To better tell the story, Yu Rong takes inspiration from her several     10     (visit) to sites of ancient battles and Henan Province’s Yu Opera. After years of preparation she finally makes this extraordinary work.

If you stop a random person on the street in China, there’s     1     pretty good chance that their surname would be either Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu or Chen.

That’s because those are the five most common surnames in China. There are a few reasons for this: China is less racially diverse than countries such as the US,     2     quantities of minority groups increase surname diversity. It also     3     (have) to do with language. You can’t just add a stroke to a Chinese character     4     random and create a new surname, like the way you can add a letter to an English name. But there’s also another factor at play: technology. China’s digital revolution has     5     (dramatic) transformed daily life, and many of these systems rely on a     6     (limit) list of standardized Chinese characters. To try to address this, experts have increased the database from 32, 000 characters to 70, 000 characters. They’re still working to expand it     7     (include) more than 90, 000 characters.

“The culture of surnames     8     (pass) down in our country for thousands of years with a deep and broad influence,” said the Ministry of Public Security. By the Song Dynasty, a book called the Hundred Family Surnames     9     (list) several hundreds of the most common surnames, had become a classic text taught to children. Chinese surnames are central to people’s     10       (identity); they hold origin stories, reveal historic patterns of migration, and represent a direct tie to a person’s ancestry and heritage.

Lionel Andres Messi was born in Rosario, Argentina in 1987. As Messi grew up playing soccer     1     his older brothers, his controlling and kicking the ball became as natural and easy as breathing, and he was quite    2    (satisfy) with his progress. At the age of 4, Messi joined a local team     3     (accompany) by his father. Starting at age 6, he played for six years with     4     older boys’ team. Around the age of 10, he     5     ( find) to have a growth hormone deficiency (生长激素不足). Because of this condition, he would never grow taller than 170cm.     6     Messi never stopped     7    (improve) his soccer skills or scoring goals.

In 2000, at the age of 13, Messi went to Barcelona, Spain. Futbol Club Barcelona (Barca), one of the great European     8     (team), was impressed with his skills for such a young player. In his very first game, he started making soccer history. He scored a goal, becoming the    9     (young) Barca player to do so in an important league match.

Messi is now a master in soccer     10     has led his teams to win over 30 medals, including an Olympic gold medal. The soccer’s little superstar will achieve more goals in the future.

I will never forget my first assignment as a foreign reporter in Brazil to cover the Rio Carnival. It is one of Brazil’s largest cultural     1     (event), drawing up to two million tourists to Rio every year.

I was out on the streets on the first day of the Carnival,     2     (arm) with my camera and notebook, ready to do some work. Being there     3     (be) a constant assault(冲击)on my senses. Hundreds of people were singing and dancing,     4     Brazilian samba music filling the air. I wandered. fort hours, from one block party to another. At one point, someone offered     5     (trade) me an alcoholic beverage(饮料)and-a golden feathered headdress for my camera. I`m still not sure why, but I agreed to the deal. It was     6     (probable) a question of getting swept up in the Carnival spirit. Unfortunately, my boss did not accept this     7     (explain), so I had to pay for     8     new camera in the end.

It was worth it, though. I still have that golden headdress, as     9     reminds me of those unforgettable days. The Rio Carnival is without doubt something     10     everyone should add to his or her bucket list.

Many great people in the world devote themselves to     1     (improve) society in their own ways. For example, Jane Goodall, a woman from Britain, would rather spend time studying chimps in the wild in Africa than lead     2     comfortable life. For 40 years she     3     (be) outspoken(直率的) about making the rest of the world understand and respect the life of chimps. Lin Qiaozhi, a specialist in women’s diseases, is another woman who has made great     4     (achieve). There was story after story of no matter     5     tired after a day’s work, she went late at night to deliver(接生) a baby for a poor family. It was because of her hard work and great consideration to her patients     6    hundreds of babies were delivered     7    (safe) by her. A third example is Yuan Longping, the first     8     (agriculture) pioneer in the world to grow super hybrid rice. Using his hybrid rice, farmers can produce harvests twice as large as before.     9     now the UN has more tools in the battle to reduce hunger in the world. In short, so impressive is their work that they all deserve praising and    10    (learn) from.