Are you ready to celebrate World Letter Writing Day on September1? Writing something down may seem like     1     out-of-date idea in this day and age, but it can be one of the most interesting things for you to do. The letter can be a love letter, or even one     2     (simple) written to create memories.

The day     3     (found) by Australian author and photographer Richard Simpkin,     4     loves writing letters. It all started when he began writing to individuals     5     (consider) to be Australian legends, and he also received their    6     (reply). Later, his experience of exchanging ideas with these celebrities (名人) by letter made     7     possible for him to print the book Australian Legends.     8     (honor) handwritten letters, he created World Letter Writing Day in 2014.

Letter-writing itself     9     (be) present for centuries. In ancient times, letters were written on special objects, such as wood and even metal. In the 17^th and 18^th   centuries, letters were a     10     (power) tool for people to communicate. This is why a few letters gathered from the past can serve as documents of personal or diplomatic (外交的) communication for historians.

Pu’er tea is a kind of dark tea only found in China’s Yunnan Province. It’s     1     (original) produced in the “Six Famous Mountains” in Xishuangbanna and gets its name from Pu’er, a town     2     most of the tea is processed and sold. Pu’er tea has a long history. Early in the Tang Dynasty, the tea trade between Pu’er and other areas already     3     (begin). Now a 2,700 year old wild tea tree still produces tea leaves. Every year, locals go to tea planting fields     4     (pick) tea leaves. Usually it starts at 9:00 am     5     finishes by 3:00 pm from February to December. Spring tea leaves are the best of the whole year.

Pu’er tea is big and rough in shape, black or brown red in color and the soup tastes mellow (醇厚),     6     (leave) a sweet aftertaste. The tea is mild in nature and does no harm to the stomach. At the same time, it has medicinal effects of “fat removing, body slimming and digestion promoting” and     7     (call) “slimming tea”.

The taste     8     the tea varies the taste changes with the     9     (long) of time it’s stored; the longer it’s stored, the     10     (good) it tastes. Thus, Pu’er tea not only makes a good drink, but also a valuable collector’s item. Pu’er tea has always enjoyed the good reputation of weight-loss tea, beauty tea, slimming tea and health tea.

I walk into Prince’s Hot Chicken, and order hot fried chicken legs. “Oh, enjoy it,” says the hostess. Her reply is a commonly     1     (hear) Southern expression.

My chicken arrives and is too hot     2     (touch), but I don’t care about it. As I take a bite, the taste hits my mouth. It’s     3     (horrible) spicy. There’s sweetness before the heat hits. The taste is surprisingly amazing, as the spices dance inside my mouth. Although I’m sweating (出汗), I can’t stop     4     (eat).

How does a dish so challengingly hot become well-received? Like so many Southern foods, fried chicken has a long history. Hot chicken first appeared in the 1930s, when a man     5     is named James Thornton Prince     6     (begin) serving it at his BBQ Chicken Shack.

After a few years,     7     restaurant moved close to the Ryman Auditorium, where it became popular     8     the city’s country music stars. In the following years, Prince relocated his restaurant several times around the city, eventually changing     9     (it) name to Prince’s Hot Chicken in 1980, when André Prince Jeffries, his great-niece (侄女), took over.

These days, you’ll find hot chicken all over the city. I feel at home with the     10     (taste) food as it is a symbol of the city’s culture.

Nowruz, also known as the Iranian New Year or the Persian New Year, is a holiday     1     (wide) celebrated in Asian countries like Iran. The holiday is believed to have been celebrated since 555 BC. But it was not until 2010 that the United Nations General Assembly officially     2     (recognize) it as a holiday.

Being     3     holiday marking the first day of spring and the renewal of nature, Nowruz usually falls around March 20th on the Gregorian calendar. As with most     4     (holiday), it comes with its own set of traditions. They include the “Haft Sin” table,     5     is made up of seven symbolic items starting with the Farsi letter “S”, all representing a     6     (vary) of hopes for the new year, including health, wealth and prosperity. People also welcome the new year     7     sparkling (闪亮的) homes and new clothes. They visit friends and neighbors and share meals and host parties. Communities come together     8     (celebrate) the beginning of spring and do so in hopes they will be surrounded by healthy and clean surroundings in the new year.

Nowruz plays a significant role in     9     (strengthen) the ties among peoples. Its traditions reflect the ancient and     10     (culture) customs of the civilizations of the East and West, and they’ve influenced those civilizations through the interchange of human values for thousands of years.

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

The example of a foreign teacher     1     volunteered to help fight the wildfires in Chongqing’s Beibei district with other local residents has touched many.

The local government issued     2     urgent call for volunteers with certain skills and experience, such as chain saw (链锯) operation,     3    (join) in the firefighting. Chain saws     4     (use) to create fire barriers.

“I was     5    (extreme) happy to help,” said Francis Stonier, 42, associate professor in the Education Department of Southwest University. He said he     6    (volunteer) many times in the US in the past years—for example, building houses for homeless people after big stom

“It was great to see such an outpouring of help in the extreme heat,” he said,     7    (note) that he was impressed     8     the number of locals who came to help. Motorcyclists gave up their jobs to carry materials and people up and down the mountains. Others gave their time to carry heavy     9    (supply), prepare and serve meals or help organize.

Looking back, Frank was glad enough to have made a significant     10    (contribute) and expressed his willingness to help anytime. “This was the first time in my life I got to race through town and up a mountain on the back of a motorcycle carrying a chainsaw, I wish I could have done more, but I did my best.”

On a recent Sunday afternoon, 15 young people lay comfortably on colorful carpets and throw pillows arranged in    1    circle. Their eyes were closed, some with their legs spread forward and    2    curled up, looking as if they were asleep.

Kong Yi sat cross-legged before them, using a special stick to hit lightly metal bowls in front of her, making a sound    3    reverberated(回荡)long inside the quiet room. Following Kong’s    4    (instruction), they went in for a two-hour sound treating and meditation(冥想)course. Listening to the slowly disappearing sounds of age-old musical instruments such as singing bowls and gongs, the members reached a deeper center and a semi-conscious(半意识)state.

After, they were guided into supposing that they    5    (talk) to a wise man dressed in white, during which they could ask questions and get answers from the wise man in half an hour. In the final part, they were pulled    6    (share) their heart conversations with other members. “In that class, many people asked the meaning of life in the end    7    everyone gave different answers from the wise man —     8    (actual) themselves, ” said Kong, who runs a work room offering treating courses connected with art forms    9    painting, music and dance.

Such spiritual, meditative experiences that can lower stress and worry have become the    10    (late) choice for the country’s stressed-out younger generation looking for relaxation and heart exploration.

A study in the journal Nature suggests that the color of our oceans is changing due to climate change. Over the past 20 years, low-latitude oceans     1     (become) greener. It’s well established that rising global temperatures,     2     (drive) by the burning of fossil fuels, are making dramatic changes to our oceans, from increasing sea levels and intensifying storms to acidifying (酸化) the water itself.

    3     NASA satellite known as Aqua just celebrated its 21st birthday in May, making it one of the longest still-running space probes. It has collected a lot of data on the color of our oceans, which is     4     (actual) an essential climate variable (变量) and can reflect changes in ocean ecosystems. After analyzing the data, researchers found that,     5     average, our oceans are becoming greener, with significant shifts in about 56% of the ocean surface.

The     6     (result) suggest that the effects of climate change are already being felt in surface marine microbial (微生物) ecosystems,     7     those effects have not yet been detected. Therefore, the findings might be useful for ocean     8     (conserve) and management. For instance, knowledge of places     9     the surface-ocean microbial ecosystem is changing might be useful for identifying regions of the open ocean     10     (set) up marine protected areas.

The kite is a symbol of the Chinese handicraft.     1     (fly) a kite is a very popular activity in all generations in China. It is easy to find the scene, where there are large numbers of people gathering to the squares and holding lines     2    (control) beautiful kites in the blue sky.

Making and playing kites became very popular in Weifang area, Shandong Province during the Tang and Song Dynasties. At that time, every year in spring     3     the Tomb-Sweeping Day came, the weather became warm. It was     4     good time to display the kites as well as enjoy the warm weather and the fresh air. The tradition has been well kept until today and has become the world-famous Weifang International Kite Festival, which     5     (celebrate) from 20th to 25th in April every year. Since 1984, dozens of countries and regions from all over the world     6    (join) in the festival.

Teams from home and abroad gather here to fly     7     (they) well-designed kites to the sky. Apart    8       the traditional patterns such as swallows, butterflies, and triangles, you will be amazed by the     9    (create) thinking shown in these kites. There are animals like fish, dragons, dolphins, cartoon     10    (figure) like Flower Fairies, Supermen, and other shapes like spaceships, and satellites. People say there is nothing you cannot fly to the sky in Weifang.

China will launch the three astronauts of the Shenzhou XV mission to the space station on Tuesday night, according to a program official.

Ji Qiming, assistant director of the China Manned Space Agency, said at     1     news conference on Monday morning at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China that the crew members-Major General Fei Junlong, Senior Colonel Deng Qingming and Senior Colonel Zhang Lu-     2    (schedule) to ride on board the Shenzhou XV spacecraft     3     will be lifted by a Long March 2F carrier rocket at 11:08 pm from the Jiuquan center in the barren Gobi Desert.

The rocket will soon be filled with propellants at the service tower, according to the official. The Shenzhou XV crew is     4    (stay) inside the Tiangong space station for six months and is scheduled to return to Earth in May. The     5    (astronaut) tasks over the six-month space journey will include their attempts to carry     6     three to four spacewalks during the process and mount     7    (equip) outside the station, he said.

Other major tasks     8    (current) include unlocking, installing and testing 15     9    (science) cabinets that will help with space experiments;     10    (conduct) more than 40 experiments and technological demonstrations; and performing six cargo orbital deployment operations, Ji said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday authorized “a special military operation” in response     1     the appeal of the leaders of the “republics” in the Donbass region. In the Ukrainian capital of Kiev (基辅),     2     (explode) were heard at Boryspil International Airport and other places across the city.

Putin on Monday signed two decrees (法令)    3     (recognize) “the Lugansk People’s Republic” and “the Donetsk People’s Republic”     4     independent and sovereign states. “Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force,” he said.

Putin called on “all people living on the territory of today’s Ukraine” to “       5     (independent) determine the future of their own and children.”NATO has created fundamental threats year after year, expanding to the east and bringing its military infrastructure       6     (close) to Russian borders, Putin noted, seeing it as     7     matter of time.

Russia will not allow Ukraine     8    (have) nuclear weapons, he said, adding that Russia’s actions are not connected with infringing upon Ukraine’s interests     9     with protecting itself from “those who take Ukraine hostage.”

The conflict     10     (arouse) grave concern in the international community.