1 . Every year about 40,000 people attempt to climb Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. They _______ with them lots of waste. The _______ might damage the beauty of the place. The glaciers(冰川) are disappearing, changing the _______ of Kilimanjaro.

Hearing these stories, I’m _______ about the place — other destinations are described as “purer” natural experiences.

However, I soon _______ that much has changed since the days of disturbing reports of _______ among tons of rubbish. I find a _______ mountain, with toilets at camps and along the paths. The environmental challenges are _______ but the efforts made by the Tanzania National Park Authority seem to be _______.

The best of a Kilimanjaro ________, in my opinion, isn’t reaching the top. Mountains are ________ as spiritual places by many cultures. This ________ is especially evident on Kilimanjaro as ________ go through five ecosystems(生态系统) in the space of a few kilometers. At the base is a rainforest. It ends abruptly at 3, 000 meters, ________ lands of low growing plants. Further up, the weather ________ — low clouds envelope the mountainsides, which are covered with thick grass. I ________ twelve shades of green from where I stand. Above 4, 000 meters is the highland ________: gravel(砾石), stones and rocks. ________ you climb into an arctic-like zone with ________ snow and the glaciers that may soon disappear.

Does Kilimanjaro ________ its reputation as a crowded mountain with lines of tourists ruining the atmosphere of peace? I found the opposite to be true.

3 . Earthquakes are common; thousands of them happen each day. But most are too _________ to feel. During a _________ earthquake, there is often a great noise first. Then the earth _________ terribly and many houses _________ down. Railway tracks break and trains go _________ lines; a great many factories are _________; thousands of deaths are caused, and many more lose homes… _________ the great damage and deaths caused by the earthquake _________, other disasters such as fires often _________. More buildings are destroyed and more __________ caused.

Man knows the __________ of a possible earthquake, and for centuries man has been making researches on earthquakes. More than 2, 000 years ago, __________, a Chinese scientist named Zhang Heng __________ a machine which could find out from which __________ the seismic waves had come, and this machine is still __________ by scientists today. Now we know much more about earthquakes and __________ they happen, but we still cannot __________ exactly when and where an earthquake will happen, and cannot __________ it from happening. So earthquakes are among the __________ disasters in the world.

No one can stop natural earthquakes. __________, scientists can help stop earthquakes destroying whole cities and causing too many deaths.

4 . Ask people to name the world's tallest peak and anybody with sound general knowledge will name Mount Qomolangma. But quiz them on its exact __and many will be not sure.

In 1975, Chinese surveyors __ that Mount Qomolangma （Mount Everest） was 8848. 13 meters high. As __ improved, satellites, photoelectricity, radars and gravity measurement technologies were __ to get more exact figures. Of course, someone still had to carry __ to what is the world's rooftop.

In 2005, a Chinese team scaled Qomolangma and found that it was not as high as that, as they __ the height to be 8844. 43 meters. Scaling Qomolangma is no __ task. The average air temperature there is -29 degrees Celsius, even four degrees_____ than in Antarctica. The snow there is 4 —5 meters thick and hurricane-like __ blow all the time. Team members were training to __the extreme conditions.

In a nutshell, measuring the Qomolangma's height is a tall order, __ huge amounts of money and human resources, But it is worth the_____. Qomolangma is the perfect __ for observing crustal （地壳的）movements. And changes to the peak's height could __ whether the two plates are heading toward or away from each other.

Besides, the condition of snow and other natural materials at the top is an indicator of upcoming climate change on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau. That's __ measuring the Qomolangma's height is so significant. Put to good use, it can benefit mankind.

5 . The beauty, majesty, and timelessness of a primary rainforest are indescribable. It is impossible to ________ on film, to describe in words, or to explain to those who have never had the awe-inspiring experience of standing in the heart of a primary rainforest.

Rainforests have ________ over millions of years to turn into the incredibly complex environments they are today. Rainforests represent a store of living and ________ renewable natural resources that for ages, by virtue of their richness in both animal and plant species, have ________ a wealth of resources for the survival and well-being of humankind. These resources have included basic food supplies, clothing, shelter, fuel, spices, industrial raw materials, and medicine for all those who have lived in the majesty of the forest. ________, the inner dynamics of a tropical rainforest is an intricate (错综复杂的) and fragile system. Everything is so ________ that upsetting one part can lead to unknown damage or even destruction of the whole. Sadly, it has taken only a century of human intervention to destroy what nature designed to________ forever.

The scale of human ________ on ecosystems everywhere has increased enormously in the last few decades. Since 1980 the global economy has tripled in size and the world population has increased by 30 percent. Consumption of everything on the planet has risen — at a cost of our ________. In 2001, The World Resources Institute estimated that the demand for rice, wheat, and corn is expected to grow by 40% by 2020, increasing irrigation water demands by 50% or more. They further reported that the demand for wood could double by the year 2050; ________, it is still the tropical forests of the world that supply the bulk of the world’s demand for wood.

In 1950, about 15 percent of the Earth’s land surface was covered by rainforest. Today, more than half has already gone up in ________. In fewer than fifty years, more than half of the world’s tropical rainforests have fallen ________ to fire and the chain saw, and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is more than 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres lost every year! More than 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest is already gone, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year. If nothing is done to curb (抑制) this________, the entire Amazon could well be gone within fifty years.

Massive________ brings with it many ugly consequences—air and water pollution, soil erosion, malaria epidemics, the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the________ of biodiversity through extinction of plants and animals. Fewer rainforests mean less rain, less oxygen for us to breathe, and an increased threat from global warming.

6 . Now elsewhere in the world, Iceland may be spoken of, somewhat breathlessly, as western Europe's last pristine wilderness. But the truth is, once you're off the ______ track of the low-lying coastal areas where everyone lives, the roads are few, and they're all bad, ______ Iceland's natural wonders have been out of reach and unknown even to its own ________For them the land has always just been there, something that had to be dealt with and, if possible, _______—the mind-set being one of land as commodity rather than land as, well, priceless art on the scale of the " Mona Lisa".

When the opportunity arose in 2003 for the national power company to enter into a 40-year ______ with the American aluminum company Alcoa to supply hydroelectric power for a new smelter （冶炼厂）, those who had been dreaming of something like this for decades ______ the opportunity. For a long time, life here had meant little more than a hut, dark all winter, cold, no hope, children dying left and right, plagues, starvation, volcanoes erupting and destroying all vegetation and livestock, all spirit— a world ______ almost entirely around the welfare of one's sheep and, later, on how good the cod catch was. In the outlying regions, it still largely does.

Ostensibly, the Alcoa project was intended to save one of these dying regions— the remote and sparsely populated east— where the way of life had steadily ______ to a point of desperation and gloom. After fishing quotas (定额) were ______ in the early 1980s to protect fish stocks, many individual boat owners sold their allotments or gave them away, fishing rights ended up mostly in the hands of a few companies and small fishermen were virtually ______. Technological advances drained away even more jobs previously done by human hands, and the people were seeing everything they had worked for all their lives turn out to be ______ and their children move away. With the old way of life doomed, aluminum projects like this one had come to be perceived, wisely or not, as a last chance. "Smelter or death."

The contract with Alcoa would infuse the region with foreign ______, an estimated 400 jobs, and spin-off service industries. It also was a way for Iceland to develop expertise that ______ could be sold to the rest of the world and ______ an economy historically dependent on fish. “We have to live,” Halldor Asgrimsson said. Halldor, a former prime minister and longtime member of parliament from the region, was a driving ______ behind the project. “We have a right to live.”

7 . Antarctica is the continent which is the most southern area of land on the Earth and is mostly ________ with ice. This is one of the driest and ________ places in the world. But people from all over the world come to ________ there. Near the South Pole, three thousand people live together in a place ________ Amundsen­Scott Station.

The Station ________ libraries, cinemas, shops, sports rooms, canteens and laboratories. There is electricity, and they have telephone — the system ________ they use to have a conversation with someone in ________ place. And they have     ________ — electronic machines that store information and use programs to help them find, organize, or change the information.

But the people here ________ travel by car, or train or bus, because there aren’t any roads or railways near the Station. They ________ by ship, helicopter, plane, or snow tractor, or ________ dogs.

There aren’t ________ trees or flowers there, but there are hundreds of different birds and other ________.

Most of the people here are________. They study plant and animal life and how ice ________. The ice can ________ us about changes in climate. Ray Kingman is an expert at Amundsen­-Scott Station, telling us ________ the phone, “This is my second year here. It’s a very interesting and beautiful place, but life is very ________ in winter. In summer we can go ________ in hot pools of water. We welcome newcomers here for further ________ of the continent！”

The 600-year-old Forbidden City is the world’s largest palace. It _______ more than 17 million _______ every year. If we were to travel back to the past, this _______ palace would be a _______ to us with a lot remaining to be discovered.

It was when all _______ in Beijing were low except for the Forbidden City, which was surrounded by high _______ and a wide moat (护城河). After _______ the golden roof (屋顶) from the outside, people could only _______ what it looked like inside.

_______ an area of 720,000 square meters in the heart of Beijing, the Forbidden City was built from 1406 to 1420 by the third   ________ of the Ming Dynasty. In the past, the Forbidden City was where the highest ________ of the country laid. Emperors were born, lived, fought and ________there. Various ________ events happened there. It saw the ________ and downs of the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as how feudal monarchy (封建帝制) ________ came to an end in China.

The lives of the royal families were ________ through many documents (文件). They ________a large amount of valuable material for today’s historical ________, as well as inspiration for literature and entertainment.

In 1987, the Forbidden City was ________ as a UNESCO World Heritage site. For world leaders who visit China, it is a must-see tourist ________. When they pay a state visit to China, our top leaders may show them around there.

9 . Keep Your Goal in Sight

Here I am in the town of Livingstone close to Victoria Falls _______ was named after an earlier Queen of England, Victoria. There’s only one large-sized hotel _______ it’s full of atmosphere. The Falls themselves _______ the widest waterfall in the world with the largest _______ of falling water. It’s African name means “the smoke that thunders” and it has the most diverse wildlife found close to _______ waterfall.

As soon as I got to my hotel I was _______ to get my first glimpse of the river, but as our tour group walked along the winding path _______ the rainforest, I began to feel _______

As we got nearer I became filled with anxiety. My hands were _______ in sweat and my legs began to ________. As you know I hate heights. ________ our guide had some appreciation of what I was feeling and did not ________ me to the front but let me approach the walkway across the Falls slowly. ________ I saw, when I did look, was spectacular. A fountain of water poured over the edge to a deep drop. A permanent rainbow ________ above the spray ________ by the water as it hit the bottom of the Falls. The small drops of water seemed to form a gentle, wet fog around the people ________ they approached the edge. I gazed in wonder across to the other side of Victoria Falls where Zimbabwe ________. ________we were in Zambia and only a short distance________was a country where David Livingstone had done much of his exploring.

So if you are planning a holiday this year, come and visit Victoria Falls. It would certainly be __________ it.

Much love,

Clive

10 . My husband and I just spent a week in Paris. Our aim was to see if we could live, in some way, like real Parisians. So the first thing we did was _______ a fantastically expensive sixth-floor apartment the _______ of a cupboard. It was so tiny that we had to leave our suitcases in the hallway.

The place wasn’t _______ authentic, though. Unlike a _______ Parisian apartment, the plumbing (水管) worked. There was a nice kitchen and a _________ bed. Our _________ even had a tiny lift with a female voice that said perfect French.

Parisians are different from you and me. They never look lazy or untidy. As someone once _________, they eat great food and never gain _________. The food is so delicious that you don’t need much of it to be happy. French strawberries do not taste like cardboard. Instead, they _________ in your mouth like little flavor bombs. That’s not the only reason why the French eat less than us. On our first morning in Paris, I went to the food market to __________ some groceries. I bought a handful of perfectly ripe strawberries and a little sweet melon. My husband and I agreed they were the best fruit we had ever eaten. But they cost $18!

In France, __________ of life is much more important than efficiency. You can tell this by cafés life. French cafés are always __________. Many customers are locals. When do these people __________? The French take their 35-hour workweek seriously — so seriously that some labor unions recently __________ a deal with a group of companies __________   the number of hours that independent contractors(承包商) can be on call.