China’s Grand Canal(大运河)

For centuries, the power of Chinese emperors rose and fell with     1    (they) control of the Grand Canal. Today, this important waterway is shorter than it once was,     2     it is still the longest man-made river in the world and continues to play an important cultural and     3    (economy) role in modern China.

The original canal system began around the year 605,     4    Emperor-Yang realized that-in order to feed his army--he needed a way to move food quickly from China’s southern rice -growing region to the country’s north.     5    (complete) in 611, the canal grew more and more important throughout China over the next 500 years. In 1279, Kublai Khan began to repair and build new parts of the canal. This rebuilding work created a more direct north-south route to and from Beijing. Future     6    (rule) then continued to expand and improve the canal. In addition to     7    (move) rice around China, the Grand Canal was also an important cultural waterway. Ideas, regional foods, and cultural practices were transported from one part of China     8    another along the county’s watery highway.

Today, boats still carry tons of coal, food, and other goods to points between Hangzhou and Jining. In 2014, the historic Grand Canal was made a UNESCO World Heritage site.It     9    (hope) that Grand Canal, one of the world’s great engineering accomplishments, will continue to link north and south China for centuries     10    (come).

Do you know the story how Alexander Graham Bell invented his famous invention-the telephone? In fact, he invented it accidentally.

It was the exploring around problems and his dynamic spirit     1     led to his most famous invention - the telephone in 1876. Bell never set out to invent the telephone and     2     he was trying to design was a multiple telegraph. This     3     (origin) telegraph sent a message over distances     4     (use) Morse code. But only one message could go

    5     a time. Bell wanted to improve it so that it could send several messages at the same time. He designed a machine that would separate different sound waves and allow different conversations to be held at the same time. But he found the problem difficult to solve. One day as he     6     (experiment) with one end of a straw joined to a deaf     7     (man) ear drum and     8     other to a piece of smoked glass, Bell noticed that when he spoke into the ear, the straw drew sound waves on the glass. Suddenly he had a flash of     9     (inspire). If sound waves could be reproduced in a moving electrical current, they could be sent along a wire. In searching to improve the telegraph, Bell had invented     10    (one) telephone!

Mount Vesuvius is an active volcano located just east of Naples, Italy. It is the only volcano on the continent of Europe that     1     (erupt) in the last one hundred years, though other volcanoes have erupted on islands in the Mediterranean Sea. Vesuvius's earliest     2     (record) eruption is now its most famous. In the year A. D. 79,     3     little or no warning, Vesuvius erupted and completely buried the ancient city of Pompeii. For two days the mountain shot     4     (volcano) material into the air, spreading     5     blanket of ash over the landscape. Pompeii, located seven kilometers from the volcano,     6     (bury) under five meters of ash. The destruction was so complete that it was not until sixteen hundred years later     7     the city was discovered. Evidence of the religion, culture, and everyday life of the Pompeiians, all     8     (leave) behind in the sudden panic of the volcano's catastrophe, are     9     (remarkable) well preserved. And everywhere there are     10     (remind) of its sudden eruption and the shadow of Vesuvius. Even the forms of the citizens remain. Their bodies lie much as they did on the day of their death almost twenty centuries ago.