2 . One of the most famous literary challenges in history was when Dr. Seuss received a challenge from his publisher that he could only use 50 words to write an entire book. That’s all well and good, but it’s a tough challenge, to be sure. However, Ernest Vincent Wright would no doubt turn up his nose, as he challenged himself to pen an entire 50,000-word novel without once using the letter “e”.

Wright managed to pull it off. The final product was Gadsby, which is about a man named, well, Gadsby, who tries to save his city with the help of a youth group. It took Wright nearly six months to complete the work, and in his introduction pages he mentioned the challenges along the way.

One of the biggest challenges was replacing pronouns, since it’s tough to write a sentence, let alone a novel, without words like “he” or “she” or “her” and so forth. Additionally, he was forced to find ways to work around using past tense words that typically end in “-ed”, which, as you might imagine, is more than a little tricky.

Still, Wright did manage to come up with 50,110 words and a full story without any cheats, making it one of the most successful lipograms (避讳某字之文) in the history of writing. Wright self-published the book in 1939 and it was read primarily by people who tried to find any cheats, so convinced were they that Wright simply must have used the letter.

The entire novel is available online to read for free, as it entered the public domain in 1968. It’s a good thing, too, as the storehouse that contained the majority of the copies burned down, destroying enough of the books that it has since become a rare book collector’s prize, with copies being valued at thousands of dollars.

At the end of the day, of course, it remains a truly great achievement. After all, “e” is the most commonly used letter in English, with more than 11 percent of all words in the Oxford dictionary containing at least one “e”.

Adisorn Sangkrajang     1    (arrive) early at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on Thursday evening for his flight bound for Shanghai. He has been long looking forward to his first trip to China, and when the plane touched down early Friday morning, he became one of the first     2    (benefit) from the “visa-free era” between Thailand and China that takes effect on March 1.

“I’m thrilled about my first trip to China, and the visa exemption (豁免) is     3     (incredible) convenient,” said the 42-year-old company employee    4    (travel) with 11 other    5    (colleague). “We had planned to visit China and the visa exemption made the decision easy.”

“China is a country with a rich culture,    6    I’ve always longed to experience. This is my first visit,    7    I might return for a second or third time,” he told Xinhua .

In late January, China and Thailand signed     8    agreement on mutual visa exemption and to be effective on March1. Since then, the booking of tours to China    9    (increase) significantly，said Thai tour operator Kavisara Charoenporn, who organized a chartered flight that departed Friday to Zhangjiajie, a picturesque tourist spot in Central China. The chartered flights     10    Bangkok to Zhangjiajie have increased from two to three times a week beginning in March, said Kavisara.

7 . It was a warm March evening, and I’d just taken a seat on the bus. A woman took a seat opposite me. Not speaking to anyone________, she tearfully________her story.

A thief had________one of her bags. It had contained half of the money she’d brought. The other half was rolled in a hankie and hidden under her blouse, so she________still had some money.

After a few minutes, an old man in ragged clothes got on the bus. The bus conductor started to collected ________. When he came to the old man’s seat, he became _______ and asked whether he had any money. The old man ________ that he had spent all his money this morning when he’d accidentally got on the wrong bus.

Upon hearing this, the bus conductor and the driver ________ the old man to get off the bus. The old man ________ them to let him take that bus.

The woman was observing the ________. When the bus driver and conductor raised their voices at the old man, she ________.

”Can’t you see he’s only trying to get home?“

”He doesn’t have any money!“ the driver shouted.

”Well, that’s no reason to throw him off the bus, she ________.

She reached inside her blouse, took out her ________ money. “Here’s his fare and mine.”

On the road of life, the ________ and smiles of strangers can lighten our loads and ________ our spirits. How much sweeter the journey when we make it a little smoother and richer for others!