1 . It took brave European explorers less than 300 years, between 1420 and 1713, to establish that all the seas of the world formed an enormous and continuous ocean. This discovery encouraged them to _____ into areas which hadn’t been charted until then. With the discovery of new lands, new trade routes were _____. In many parts of the world, colonies and settlements were established and many odd-looking products were brought back to _____, arousing great interest and _____ wealth.

It was probably the irresistible desire for wealth that _____ persuaded Europeans of the fifteenth century to _____ their legendary dangers and explore further out into the open seas. They were also _____ by the love for their countries. Many explorers wanted to serve their kings and countries as well as gain personal _____ from their exploring.

The most effective way of gaining wealth was through _____. Silk, gold, silver and ______ stones, and more importantly spices, such as gingers and peppers, were the most profitable trade goods in Europe. Spices were of the greatest ______ because they enabled the Europeans to make their winter diet of salted meat more delicious. These items were ______ mostly from the East by a difficult overland route. The Italian ______, who bought goods from the Arabs of Alexandria, controlled the trade along this route. Other countries of the Mediterranean ______ the wealth which this trade generated and they were ______ to discover new routes which would allow them to share in it.

2 . Zheng He (郑和) from China Might Have Discovered America Before Columbus

In 1405, a Chinese eunuch, Zheng He, launched the first of seven voyages west from China across the Indian Ocean. During the next 30 years (till 1433), he was in command of the world’s largest fleet_________ by the Ming emperor, and sailed to the east coast of Africa into the Persian Gulf. This is_________ history.

But a map titled “General Chart of the Integrated World” shows that he travelled much further west and even reached_________, 74 years ahead of Chistopher Columbus. On the top right corner of this article is an 18th-century copy of a 1418 map, which claims to show the world that Zheng He_________. This map came to light in the year 2001 when a Shanghai lawyer, Liu Gang, claimed to have bought it from a local dealer for around $500. He believes that Zheng_________ the waters around both poles, the Americas, the Mediterranean and Australia, too.

This map shows two hemispheres of the world, a way to show the image of the round Earth on_______ paper. Continents are recognizable. Both North and South America are clear, and so are the rivers running from far inland. The Himalayas, among whose foothills Zheng He was born, are marked as the highest mountain range in the world. And according to experts, some aspects in the map are_________ Chinese: the blue, fan-like waves and annotations (注释) with textual descriptions of places are parts of China’s map-making tradition.

Though Columbus and Zheng He both sailed across the oceans, their_________ were quite different. Columbus’s mission was commercial, while Zheng He’s was_________— he was sent to bring back envoys (使节) from other countries to pay respect to the new Yongle emperor who had__________ power from his nephew and needed to find a way to assert his legitimacy (正统性). With the end of Zheng He’s life, China’s explorations on the high seas__________ as there was a new emperor with less needs to finance pricey expeditions.

For the next few hundred years, China largely__________ on itself and the Chinese have remained in their land for hundreds of years, which meant a lasting isolation from the ocean civilization. Europeans, __________, continued their expeditions and recorded their history. ________, mainstream western historians don’t want to believe Zheng’s map to be true and they are__________ that only their explorers’ maps had such details. “ It took many European sailors decades to travel across the globe to make such maps, how come Zheng He alone made it within 30 years?” said one of the historians.

3 . In 1961, President John F. Kennedy Jr. set a goal: he wanted to land a man on the moon to show America’s_________ in the Space Race.

_________ a decade later, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969. Aldrin later joined him on the moon’s surface and they_________a US flag, took photographs, and_________ the first samples from our satellite.

The Apollo crew of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins travelled 240,000 miles in 76 hours to reach the moon. During the mission, the food items the astronauts ate on the surface of the moon in the lunar module_________ the following: beef stew, bacon squares, date fruit cake, and grape punch.

Over 400,000 people supported the_________, including people from the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Armstrong’s famous first words “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”_________ on television channels and through newspapers around the world.

After World War Ⅱ_________ on September 2, 1945, a new conflict began between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States and the Soviet Union had_________ ideologies(意识形态): the United States was capitalist,__________ the Soviet Union was socialist.

The Space Race started when a Soviet missile launched Sputnik(Russian for “traveller”), the world’s first artificial satellite on October 4, 1957. Sputnik became the first man-made__________ to orbit Earth. The US decided to act quickly in order to prove __________. From 1961 to 1964, NASA’s budget __________ by 500 percent. When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, America was declared the__________ of the Space Race. The US had spent about $25 billion on the program, over $100 billion in today’s dollars.

More than 50 years after Apollo, NASA vows to land the first woman on the moon with the Artemis program and with the help of an increase in NASA’s budget by $1.6 billion by former President Trump. The new mission,__________ the twin sister of Apollo and Greek Goddess of the moon, will be headed to the moon’s south pole where the craters(火山口)hold large deposits of water ice.

4 . Even today, kites are fun for the young and the old. Elderly Chinese _________ them in the middle of Beijing, cleverly avoiding trees and power lines. Many of the earliest records of kite-flying seem to indicate that, even when it began, it was done just for _________. The Chinese philosopher, Mo Di, who _________ from 468 to 376 BC, is reported to have _________an eagle out of wood and, after three years of perfecting the eagle, he got it to fly — one of the earliest kites in recorded history! Mo Di’s student, Gongshu Ban (also called Lu Ban) _________ his teacher’s technique, making his own bird, a magpie, and crafting it from bamboo rather than wood. His magpie could stay up for _________ three days.

Later in Chinese history, kites were used for more serious _________, such as communicating information and measuring the force or direction of the wind. During the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuan Zong was treated to a kite-flying show in Yichun County in Penglai Palace, Shandong Province. It was the invention of paper that brought kites to the _________ people. The name fengzheng _________ to the kite was due to a man named Li Ye during the Ming Dynasty. Once, to make his kite more interesting, he __________ a bamboo whistle to the top of the kite, so there would be a sharp zheng sound as the kite flew. Today, of course, with the availability of cheap paper and other lightweight materials, anyone can make as an unusual kite as he wants.

5 . For many people, the Renaissance means 14th to 16th century Italy, and the developments in art and architecture, music and literature which _______ there at that time. But there is one work which, perhaps more than any other, expresses the spirit of the Renaissance: the Mona Lisa._______ is believed to be the best example of a new life-like style of painting that _______ people when it was first used._______ by Leonardo da Vinci in the years 1503-1506, the Mona Lisa is a mysterious masterpiece. People want to know who Mona Lisa is, and why she is smiling. _______ people do not know much about the Renaissance, they have _______ this painting.

But the Renaissance is, of course, _______ just the Mona Lisa. Renaissance _______ a French word which means “rebirth” and it first appeared in English in the 19th century. The word was used to describe a period in European history _______ began with the arrival of the first Europeans in America, an age of exploration, and the beginning of the modern world. It was as if Europe was waking up after the long sleep of ________. From Italy, the ideas of the Renaissance rapidly spread northwards to France, Germany, England, and the rest of Europe.

Trade with other parts of the world meant that Europe was ________ richer, too. This meant that people had money to ________ on the arts; and it became easier for artists to find people who could afford to buy their works or employ them. Leonardo worked for important people ________ the Duke of Milan, and, towards the end of his life, the King of France.

Renaissance artists found new ideas for their work in classical Greece and Rome. But they looked forward, too, by opening new frontiers in the arts. Painters ________ how to use ________ and the effects of light; composers put different voices together and created polyphony (many voices); architects ________ designing buildings with more light which contrasted with the heaviness of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages.

________, Leonardo was ________ extraordinary genius, an example of what has been described ________ “Renaissance man”: someone interested in everything and with many different talents. But even if his only contribution to history ________ the Mona Lisa, it would have been genius enough for all time.

6 . Black people left the South for multiple reasons, including severe Jim Crow laws that denied black people their civil rights and economic conditions that made advancement next to impossible. They saw _______ for them to get in northern cities, where workers were needed during labor shortages _______ by World War I. Between 1915 and about 1960, northern industrial cities _______ five million black people, becoming majority black.

Many went to the northern city of Harlem - a New York neighborhood that had once been a rural _______ white area. During a real estate crash at the turn of the 20th century, the _______ of property became more willing to rent to black renters. Property values then _______ as white residents attempted to offload their real estate and move away. _______, the area became majority black, and Harlem tuned into an attraction for migrants _______ economic chance and a rich cultural and social life.

These _______ weren’t just from the American South: A group of people came from Caribbean countries like Jamaica, Antigua, and Trinidad, ________ economic downturns because of the decline of sugar prices throughout the West Indies.

That cultural ________ stimulated new types of expression and thought. Promoted by black churches and businesses, Harlem ________ life. There, a poor black worker could brush ________ with educated, wealthy black residents. They could take part in entertainment by black people, for black people. The Jamaica - born black, Marcus Garvey, even ________ the Universal Negro Improvement Association to ________ racial pride and economic independence.