2 . History has some very special and influential qualities about it. It is a _______ of what has happened in the past, and the really interesting thing is that much of history has repeated itself time and again. It allows us to learn from the past, both the _______ made and the successes achieved.

One of the _______ of history is that it allows us to know how famous people _______ when they were faced with challenges in their life. _______ these challenges happened at a certain time in the past or in a different country or culture, all of them can teach us something _______.

Take the story of Thomas Edison and how many times he _______ while on the road to finally inventing the light bulb, for example. He could be held up as an example of a person who _______ stopped trying. I am sure he was _______ by those difficulties but he did not let them stop him. He had a ________ and he just kept trying until he reached success.

Or, think about the story of Abraham Lincoln who ________ to become President of the United States even though he suffered personal losses. Most of us only know about his success. In fact, his life was notan easy one. His story makes us keep moving forward no matter what ________ we have in life.

These true history stories will make you stop to reconsider ________ or going after your dreams even though you may not think you have the courage or the ________ for now to get what you have always wanted. They could help you make decisions and ________ when you have no idea what to do. They could inspire you to be all that you can be.

3 . People live in the present. They plan for the future. History, _________, is the study of the past. Given all the demands and pressures that come from living in the present and _________ what is yet to come, why bother with what has been? Given all the available branches of knowledge, why insist — as most educational systems do — on history? And why encourage many students to study even more history than they are _________ to?

Any subject of study needs to be _________: supporters must explain why it is worth _________. Like most widely accepted subjects, history attracts people who simply _________ the information and modes of thought involved. But for people who are less interested in the subject and more _________ about why they should bother with it, a clearer explanation of its purpose is required.

_________do not perform heart transplants, improve highway design, or arrest criminals. In a society that quite correctly expects education to serve useful purposes, history’s functions can seem more _________ to determine than those of engineering or medicine. History is in fact very useful, actually ____________, but the products of historical study are often less ____________ and immediate than those of other subjects.  

History helps us understand people, societies and how they____________. For example, how can we ____________ past wars (and future threats) without using historical materials? Unfortunately, major aspects of a society’s operation cannot be set up as precise experiments. ____________, history must serve, however imperfectly, as our laboratory, helping us understand who we are and why we do what we do. This, fundamentally, is why we cannot ____________ history.

4 . Unearthing the Importance of the Life-Sized Terracotta Warriors

The unexpected unearthing of the Terracotta Army is renowned as one of the world’s greatest archaeological events. Discovered in northwestern China and dating back to its first dynasty, the ceramic(陶制的)figures have shed light on the country’s ancient artistic practices and age-old burial traditions.

In addition to offering a glimpse into Imperial China’s distinctive approach to_______art, the sculptures are also celebrated for their scale ---both______each individual sculpture’s height and the group as a whole.

Here, we present the history of the Terracotta Army, including its creation in the third century BCE and its_______in the 1970s.

In 246 BCE, Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, took________the empire at just thirteen years old. As ruler of the first Imperial Empire, he is credited with several accomplishments, including standardized scripts and coins, the construction of the Great Wall, and the_______of the state.

To celebrate his triumphs and_______his life, he ordered the construction of a necropolis(陵寝)in Xi’an. He filled his necropolis with precious possessions as well as thousands of specially-made terracotta soldiers to _______ him in the afterlife. Though 7,000 laborers devoted decades to constructing the over-the-top necropolis, the_______ was left unfinished when Qin died in 210 BCE.

Historians theorize that the heads and bodies of the warriors were made through________ production. This means that each individual part, such as the arms and legs, were made independently of one another to speed up manufacturing. Then, after being________in the kiln, a large furnace for burning, baking and drying, these various parts became one figure.

For centuries, Qin Shi Huang’s massive necropolis remained undetected. However, in 1974, workers stumbled upon a large_______ of a terracotta warrior while digging a well. Inspired by this surprising find, archaeologists began to explore the area, resulting in the discovery of thousands of similar soldiers in four pits.

Designed with an impressive level of detail, each figure is a one-of-a-kind work of art. The life-sized sculptures are______in height according to military ranking --- some as tall as Yao Ming, while some as short as 1.77 meters, with their uniforms, hairstyles, and even facial shapes and expressions following suit. Though they appear the same shade of grey, the figures would have originally been______painted, highlighting their lifelike features and drawing attention to their eye-catching artisanship.

________the 8,000 soldiers themselves, 130 ceramic chariots and 670 horses were also found in the necropolis._______, clay figures of dancers, acrobats, and musicians were also unearthed, though these vivid figures are greatly outnumbered by the stoic army.

5 . How did poetry begin?

Poems can make you feel emotions, like anger or sadness, depending on the words and how they are put together. That is the ___ of poetry.

Poetry ___ even before humans knew how to read and write, ___ back to around 3000 BC. Some of the earliest poetry was recited or sung, and was used as a way to record and pass down historical and religious stories and cultural ___ from one generation to the next. Since writing was not ___ then, certain sounds and rhymes were used to make these stories ___ and therefore, memorable.

There are ___ three types of ancient poetry. The first was an epic (史诗) or long narrative poetry usually about a(n) ___ event. The second type was lyric (抒情的) poetry or poetry that ___ personal feelings. Finally there was drama or stories written in verse and usually ____ like Greek tragedies and Shakespeare’s plays.

The____ of the printing press (印刷机) in the 15th century brought poetry to the common people. This was ____ by several major literary period, during which poetry ____ dramatic changes. It started with Europe’s Renaissance period from the 14th to the 16th century, which first helped poetry and poets like Shakespeare and Sir Walter Raleigh become ____.

The Romantic period saw personal poems that expressed a poet’s joys, hopes, and sorrows ____ a conversational tone. Then came the Victorian era, which saw the ____ of structured poems and the birth of modern “____ verse” poetry. American poet Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is ____ to be the first example of free verse poetry.

Modern poetry is a ____ of all of these styles. We still see rhymes in children’s poems and in the popular African American styles of hip hop and rap music, which are a ____ of rhymed poetry put to a musical beat.