Windsor Castle is surrounded by a lot of green gardens in the English countryside. It looks out onto the River Thames and sits next     1     a hunting ground. It was built just outside of London     2     (protect) the capital from the enemies on the west side.

Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest castle     3     (occupy) in the world. The castle has a long, rich and troubled history.     4     the castle walls could talk, they’d have many stories to tell.

Kings were born and     5     (die) here. It’s been used as the home of kings and queens for centuries. However, it was also used as a prison during the English Civil War II, the royal family     6    (secret) slept at Windsor Castle because it was safer than London’s urban areas.

Today, Windsor Castle is the private home of Queen Elizabeth II. When she doesn’t meet guests at Buckingham Palace, she goes to Windsor Castle.     7     that’s not all. Windsor Castle is open to the public. It is now one of England's most popular tourist     8     (attract). Visitors can look at some of the finest artworks,     9     (include) the paintings of Rembrandt as well as the well-kept gardens. Is there a better way to learn about England     10     to enjoy some of the country’s finest scenery?

3 . A study of art history might be a good way to learn more about a culture than is possible to learn in general classes. Most typical history courses concentrate on politics, economics, and wars. But art history focuses on much more than this because art reflects not only the political values of a people, but also religious beliefs, emotions, and psychology. In addition, information about the daily activities of our ancestors ― or of people very different from our own ― can be provided by art. In short, art expresses the essential qualities of a time and a place, and a study of it clearly offers us a deeper understanding than what can be found in most history books.

In history books, objective information about the political life of a country is presented: that is, facts about politics are given, but opinions are not expressed. Art, on the other hand, is subjective: it reflects emotions and opinions. The great Spanish painter Franciso Goya was perhaps the first truly political artist. In his well-known painting The Third of May, 1808, he criticized the Spanish government for its misuse of power over people. Over a hundred years later, symbolic images were used in Pablo Picasso’s Guernica to express the horror of war. Meanwhile, on another continent, the powerful paintings of Diego Rivera, Jose Clements Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros ― as well as the works of Alfredo Ramos Martinez ― showed these Mexican artists’ deep anger and sadness about social problems.

In the same way, art can reflect a culture’s religious beliefs. Four hundreds of years in Europe, religious art was almost the only type of art that existed. Churches and other religious buildings were filled with paintings that depicted people and stories from the Bible. Although most people couldn’t read, they could still understand biblical stories in the pictures on church walls. By contrast, one of the main characteristics of art in the Middle East was (and still is) its absence of human and animal images. This reflects the Islamic（伊斯兰教的）belief that statues are unholy（不神圣的；亵渎的）.