The Dragon-Head-Raising Festival falls on the second day of the second lunar month every year, with the dragon     1     (wake) up from its winter hibernation (冬眠) and after the day, rainfall increases.

Traditionally, the dragon is believed to live in the sky     2     he takes charge of bringing rain, which is an important factor in ancient agriculture society. There is an legend     3     one year a drought     4     (strike) a village. Blue Dragon, having compassion for people, gave them some rain without permission. To punish the Dragon, the Jade Emperor imprisoned it in a mountain and said he would never release it     5     gold beans bloomed.     6     clever villager found that com kernels (玉米) were golden like soy beans and more importantly, they could bloom when     7     (roast). Then the man led all the villagers to worship the Jade Emperor with bloomed corm kernels. To keep his word, the Jade Emperor had to release the Dragon on the second day of the second Chinese lunar month. Since then, the Dragon-Head-Raising Festival     8     (celebrate) in various ways in China to show     9     (admire) for the Dragon. The most famous tradition is getting a haircut,     10     (mean) getting rid of bad luck.

7 . On US TV shows, you may sometimes see rubber balls on people’s desks. These balls are known as “stress relief balls”. People can squeeze them when they feel stressed out. It’s believed that by concentrating on the act of squeezing, they can let go of the negative energy in their bodies.

“We don’t all get the big, sunny corner office, the super ergonomic (人体工程学的) chair, or four weeks of vacation at work. A focused activity helps take your mind off the problems of your day,” wrote Joseph Shrand, a professor at Harvard University, in his book Manage Your Stress.

Indeed, stress is a big problem for many people. Fortunately, we have many ways to deal with it. In fact, the rubber stress relief balls that are so popular today in the US are believed to date back to ancient China. Back in the Han Dynasty (BC 202-AD 220), soldiers used walnuts (核桃)to get rid of stress. By squeezing them during moments of anxiety, soldiers were able to calm themselves down before going into battle. And in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368-1644), people started rotating (转动) the walnuts in their hands. Ordinary citizens — not just soldiers — developed the habit of rolling two walnuts, or balls made from iron or stone, around in their hands. This helped them relax as well.

And today, we have many gadgets (器具) and toys that are designed to reduce stress in addition to stress relief balls. One example is the popular fidget spinner (指尖陀螺), which keeps your hand busy with an easy task — spinning the gadget around. There’s also the fidget cube, which features different “gimmicks” (机关) on each side of the cube. You can click, spin, pull, push and rotate different parts of the cube.

These gadgets may look like simple toys, but perhaps we should take them more seriously than they are given credit for. “After all, the history of stress balls is a history of modern-day coping (应对),” reporter Nadia Berenstein wrote for Woolly magazine.

8 . 下列文段直接来自所学课文。请根据课文内容，填入符合课文含义的词，使文段意思完整。

In ancient times, silk from China found its way overland to India, the Middle East and Rome, along what became known as the Silk Road. A trading route across the sea was also     1     along the coasts of the Indian Ocean centred around Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Here, merchants from China and many other places met to     2     trade deals, which also led to more     3     of each other’s cultures. Over the centuries, further trading allowed more exploration of the regions to the west of China, as     4     in Du Huan’s Record of My Travels in the eighth century.

Later, the Ming Dynasty further     5     relations with these regions. Between 1405 and1433, seven large fleets sailed west on voyages of trade and exploration. These fleets were a sight to behold and were in a league of their own at that time. Under the     6     of Zheng He, they set sail from the South China Sea across the Indian Ocean to the mouth of the Red Sea, and then to the east coast of Africa. African     7     families sent gifts such as giraffes as gestures of friendship in     8     for gold, silk, and spices. Although China     9     from further expeditions after 1433, these land and sea routes remained     10     channels between other cultures for centuries.

The Silk Road was a network of ancient trade routes,     1     joined East Asia to the Mediterranean. The most important network is the Chang’an- Tianshan Corridor,which     2     (stretch) over a distance of around 5,000 kilometres     3     covers a total of 8,700 kilometres of trade routes. The starting point of the corridor and the entire Silk Road network is Chang’an (present-day Xi’an), in Shaanxi Province of north-west China. It was famous as the capital of the Han and Tang Dynasties. The Silk Road was beginning     4     (develop) in the 2nd century BCE.     5     (assign ) by the emperor,the ambassador Zhang Qian journeyed from Chang’an to Central Asia and     6     (seek) to build bridges between the Han Dynasty and the Western Regions.     7     the initial stage of the Silk Road development, silk was the main item in the trade list thanks to its light weight and high value. In addition to trade exchange, the network served as     8     bridge for cultural exchange. All of these     9     (activity) contributed to a great age of     10     (expand) as trade and cultural exchanges gave people access to new goods, knowledge and ideas.

10 . Remote controls are one of the most common symbols of our modern technologies. In fact, remote controls are an invention born in the 1800s. Famous inventor Nikola Tesla created one of the world’s first wireless remote controls, which he exhibited in public at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1898.

Tesla called his system a “teleautomaton”, which could be used to control a mechanical device. For his demonstration, Tesla employed a minitype boat, which had a metal air wire that could receive exactly one radio frequency. He showed how his remote-controlled boat worked and whole process attracted many people. However, financially, Tesla’s remote-controlled boat was a failure. His intended client, the U.S. Navy, thought the technology was too easily damaged during use. But the concept of remote control caught on and quickly spread to many other types of equipment.

In the 1930s and 1940s, a new consumer electronics, such as garage door openers and model airplanes, arrived with remote controls. In the mid-1950s, Zenith engineer Eugene Polley designed his Flashmatic TV remote control, which used directional flashes of light to control the television. In 1956, Polley’s colleague, Robert Adler, created the Space Command control, which employed high-frequency, ultrasonic (超声的) sounds instead of light. This style of remote control increased the price of a new TV by a third, but that didn’t stop people from buying in mass quantities. Remote controls kept evolving, too. Ultrasonic sound remote controls were the standard for TVs until the 1980s, when remote controls began using the infrared (红外线) light signals that are very common today.

These days, you can find remote control capability built into a huge array of products such as toy cars and helicopters, video game consoles (控制台), ceiling fans, etc. There’s a good chance you can find a version that’s controlled by remote control. You can even buy a remote-controlled toilet.

Remote controls have allowed humans to perform many tasks that would be difficult, if not impossible. And although remote controls have a long history, they are anything but over. As we continue to introduce technology to every aspect of our lives, it’s very likely that we’ll need remote controls to keep things under control.