It doesn’t impress like George Washington’s plantation on the Potomac, but Lincoln’s home in downtown Springfield, Illinois,     1     （prove）irresistible to visitors since it opened to the public. Beautifully restored（修复）to its 1860 appearance, the house was Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s home for 17 years. In 1844 they bought it     2     $1,200 and some land from Charles Dresser, who performed their     3     （marry）ceremony in 1842.

When the house was built, it was much     4     （small）than it is today. Mary’s niece wrote, “The little home     5     （paint）white.” It was sweet and fresh. Mary loved it. She was extremely pretty, and her house was a reflection of     6     （she）, everything in good taste and in perfect order.

Although Mary loved flowers,     7     she nor her husband was known as a gardener. A long- time neighbor said they never planted trees and only kept a garden for one year. Mary’s sister, Frances Todd Wallace, often came over     8     （plant）flowers in the front yard.

    9     Lincolns enlarged the house to a full two-story in 1856 to meet the needs of their growing family. Three of the four Lincoln sons were born here. After Lincoln was elected President of the US in 1861, they rented the house and     10     （sell）most of their furniture.

The “24 solar terms” are a vital part of the Chinese calendar, which has     1     (it) origin with the ancient Yellow River basin. The Chinese calendar     2     (include) “24 solar terms”provides detailed guidelines and timetable for agricultural     3     (activity).

A complete set of “24 solar terms” first     4     (appear) in an ancient book The Huainanzi in early Han Dynasty. These 24 solar terms were soon absorbed into The Taichu calendar, the first well documented calendar in     5     history of China.

The Chinese Agriculture Calendar is     6     (actual) a combination of the lunar and solar calendar systems. There     7     (be) 365. 2422 days in one “sidereal year” while 12 lunar months add up to 354 days. To make both the lunar calendar     8     the solar calendar agree, a leap lunar month needs to be added every 2 to 3 years. Since the early Han Dynasty, a lunar month without a major solar term     9     (adopt) as a leap month (闰月) .

With more far-reaching cultural exchanges, the “24 solar terms” have been known     10     people in other parts of the world and were added to the “UNESCO World Intangible Cultural Heritage” list in 2016.

Bing Dwen Dwen, a panda in an ice shell    1    (choose) as the official mascot for the Beijing2022 Winter Games back in 2019.

According to Cao Xue, the chief designer of Bing Dwen Dwen, the idea first came from a traditional Chinese snack bingtanghulu — fruit    2    (coat) in syrup (糖浆), which turned into the ice shell in his design. Later, Cao’s team decided to incorporate (结合) an animal or plant, finally    3    (settle) on a panda. “What else can    4    (well) represent China than our national treasure? ” said Cao. “We don’t need to explain anything to have it understood across different cultures.”    5    , there were already too many cartoon    6    (image) of pandas out there so the mascot needed to be    7    (total) unique and innovative. They visited Wolong Sichuan, to look for    8    (inspire). Cao then decided that it should be a baby panda    9    determined the body proportions (比例) of Bing Dwen Dwen — its body is of the same length    10    its head.

Wood carving is a branch of carving. It is one of traditional Chinese art forms with a time-honored history. It originated in the Neolithic Period, and the     1    (begin) of the wood carving accompanied people’s everyday life demands. Later, when people had       2     ability to use their imagination to express ideas, it became a kind of art. The earliest existing wood carving       3    (dig) out in the 1980s in Hubei Province, which is believed     4    (have) a history of over two thousand years. Generally, Chinese wood carving in ancient times       5    (consist) of three major categories: architecture carving, furniture carving and artworks carving.

Wood carving serves practical purposes and at the same time is     6     decorative value. Chairs, tables, shelves, animals, flowers and human figures     7    (carve) out of wood are common examples of this form of art. In a poem by Han Yu,     8     was an outstanding poet of the Tang Dynasty, he described a wood-carving figure vividly.

Chinese wood carving is appreciated worldwide for its structures being     9    (true) detailed and the beauty of its themes. Today, many     10    (impress) wood carvings can be seen in private galleries and also on the decorations over residential areas on both sides of the Yangtze River.

It seems inhuman to care more about a building than about people. That the sight of the Notre Dame's     1    (go)up in flames has attracted more attention than floods in southern Africa which killed over 1,000 has aroused understandable feelings of guilt. Yet the widespread sorrow is     2    (definite)human—and in a particularly 21st-century way.

It is not just the economy that is       3    (globe)today, it is culture too. People wander the world in search not just of jobs and       4    (secure)but also of beauty and history. Familiarity breeds affection. A building     5     whose sunny steps you have rested or in front of which you       6    (take)a selfie with your loved one, becomes a warm part of your memory. That helps explain why the whole world is in deep sorrow.

However, the emotions are less about the building itself than about     7     losing it might mean. Notre Dame is an expression of humanity, having experienced 850 years of political turbulence(动荡)—through war, revolution and Nazi occupation.

And it will be rebuilt. It will never be the same, but that is as it should be.     8     Victor Hugo wrote in The Hunchback of Notre Dame,     9     three-volume love-letter to the cathedral: “Great buildings are the work of centuries. Art     10    (transform)as it is being made. Time is the architect; the nation is the builder.”