Six months ago, 19-year-old Xie Lei said     1     to her family and friends and boarded a     2     for London. It was the first time     3     she had left China. “I was very excited but also quite     4    . I didn’t know what to expect,” Xie Lei     5    .

As a Chinese citizen (中国公民), I’m proud to experience how my motherland took actions to protect her citizens. I never thought Chinese citizenship     1     (save) our lives until I saw the government try everything it could to save overseas Chinese citizens. In 2011, the situation in Libya was tense. When the government learned of this situation, one warship, twenty civil aircraft and four military aircraft were sent there immediately and all 35,860 Chinese citizens     2     (move) out of Libya within a week. These actions have been highly praised around the world. The world isn’t peaceful. It’s just someone     3     carries the burden for you!

Once upon a time, there lived a young boy named Hans Christian Andersen. He was very poor and had a long, ugly nose. All the other children t    1     him. But when little Hans grew up, he became an i    2     recognized writer. All over the world people of v    3     ages and backgrounds know his classic fairy tales.

Nearly 200 years ago, Hans was born in Odense, Denmark. His father was poor but he loved literature and the theater. He often took Hans to the theater with him.

When Hans was only 11 years old, his father died. Hans had to q    4     school and work in a tailor’s shop to support his family.

Hans was a very lonely child. He did not play with the other children. When he wasn’t working, he stayed at home, reading books and writing his own stories and plays.

When he was 14 years old, Hans moved to Copenhagen to try to begin a c    5     as a singer or actor. The next three years p    6     to be very painful and unbearable. He nearly starved to death trying to make a living.

At age 17, he met Jonas Collin, director of the Royal Theater. Collin read one of Hans’ plays and recognized his t    7     in spite of Hans’ poor spelling. He helped Hans by o    8     a scholarship from the king to continue the boy’s schooling.

When he was 23 years old, Hans began his university studies. In 1835, he began writing his famous fairy tales. A    9     from the “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, there were still a lot more. His stories are often surprisingly clever and contain deep moral teachings, therefore making him a s    10    storyteller all over the world.

At one time, experts were against raising children in a bilingual home. They thought their brains would become confused, which would result in their development delays and poor p     1       in studies. But we now understand that the exact o     2       is true.

Children can easily learn extra languages because of the higher ability of their brain to form new neural(神经的) connections and new brain cells throughout life. W     3       some studies suggest that learning two languages can l     4     to delays, these delays are short-lived. In addition, the brain of the children who learn two languages can benefit unexpectedly early. B     5     using a fun game with a disappearing puppet, researchers found that babies as young as 7 months old who are raised in bilingual homes got cognitive benefits! A study used a memory game and found that bilingual 5-year-olds answered questions faster and were more exact than their partners only learning one language.

According to a report given by the National Education Association, children who study a second language receive a r     6     in general development, do better in tests, are more creative, and have a better sense of achievement in school. Second language studies help kids do better in other areas of study, including i     7     their reading skills and social studies. Research shows that students who are a     8     to speak a second language have better listening skills and sharper memories, and are better at solving difficult problems. From primary school to college, they score higher in tests than those who c     9    . And results from the Scholastic Aptitude Test(SAT) also show that students who have studied another language for four or more years did better in both the spoken and maths problems of the test

In a word, learning more than one language contributes to the brain development in babies and the excellent school performance of students of all ages. Therefore, it is clear that it’s n     10     too early to learn a second language for children.

7 . Many elephants can paint. In fact, elephants in zoos sometimes draw on the ground     1     a stick. Seeing this, some trainers teach the elephants     2     they can hold paintbrushes, and encourage them to choose colors and paint. Of course, not every painting is good. Just like humans, only some elephants are very creative. Now, an online gallery sells paintings by these elephant artists. By doing this, the gallery hopes to earn money     3     (protect) elephants.

8 . As Victor Hugo once said, “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face”, and up to now nobody has been able to do this better than Charlie Chaplin. He brightened the lives of Americans and British through two world wars and the hard years in between. He made people laugh at a time     1    , so they could feel more content with their lives.

Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed and produced the films he starred in. In 1972 he was given a special Oscar for his outstanding work in films. He lived in England and the USA but spent his last years in Switzerland, where he was buried in 1977. He is loved and remembered as a great actor who could     2     .

Which theme park would you like to visit? There are     3     theme parks, with a different park for almost everything: food, culture, science, cartoons, movies or history. Some parks are famous for having the biggest or longest roller coasters, others for     4     and sounds of a culture.     5     , there is a theme park for you!