4 . If you’ve ever eaten a free doughnut (甜甜圈) on the first Friday in June, you’ve celebrated the Doughnut Lassies — whether you realized it or not. National Doughnut Day was established to honor the Salvation Army volunteers who fried sugary snacks for World War I soldiers on the front line.

When the US entered World War I in 1917, the Salvation Army, a charity organization, sent about 250 volunteers (who were mostly women) to France, where the American army was stationed. The plan was to bring treats and supplies as close to the front line as possible. But the closer the volunteers got to the action, the fewer resources they could access.

Margaret Sheldon and Helen Purviance were credited with bringing doughnuts to the Wester Front. They had a handful of ingredients, including flour, sugar, animal fats, baking powder and canned milk. Doughnuts were one of the few sweet foods they could make without an oven, and once they had a fire hot enough to heat the oil, they could fry them up fast. The women had the pan to cook them in, but for other parts, they had to get creative. For example, grape juice bottles became rolling pins (擀面杖) when necessary.

Sheldon and Purviance’s pan could fit seven doughnuts at a time, and on day one, they made just 150 doughnuts for the group of 800 men. The soldiers even fought over a doughnut. Then they made some changes to their operation, and eventually made 5,000 doughnuts a day. The snacks were so popular that the volunteers earned the nickname “Doughnut Lassies”, while the soldiers they served were nicknamed “Doughboys”.

The Doughnut Lassies’ impact didn’t end with World War Ⅰ. The American soldiers’ experiences overseas made doughnuts a commonly eaten food for them back home.

At the end of the 16th century, about five to seven million people spoke English. Nearly all of them lived in England.They were native     1    (speaker). Later in the next century, people from England made voyages     2    (conquer) other parts of the world and English began to be spoken worldwide. Today, the number of people     3    (learn) English in China     4    (increase) rapidly. Besides, people of many other countries also speak English     5     their foreign language. 

The English language has been changing quite a lot over the last four centuries. Old English sounded more or less like German for it was based on German, but     6    (gradual) between AD 800 and 1150, English became     7    (little) like German because those who ruled England spoke first Danish and later French. 

Two people had great effects on the English changes.One was Shakespeare, who     8    (enrich) the English vocabulary, making English with more words;     9     other was Noah Webster, who wrote a dictionary     10     gave American English its own identity.

Have you ever watched a scene unfold before your eyes? That's    1    happens when you look at a form of Chinese arts. The image is painted on a roll of paper or silk and unrolled for viewing.

There     2     (be) two types of scroll (卷轴)painting： hand scrolls and hanging or landscape scrolls.

Hand scrolls are usually long and continuous. Each scroll is mounted on a wooden roller with a silk     3     (cover) around the outside, and stored in a special wooden box. The image, which often involves a scene or story, unfolds before you. Think of it    4     a book with pictures that tells a story as the pages are turned.

Unlike hand scrolls, hanging or landscape scrolls are vertical. They are unrolled, and can be hung on a wall and viewed     5     (complete) at one time.

Chinese scroll painting is a very old art. The    6    (early) known works were done thousands of years ago. Common themes include landscapes, people and birds.

A great hand scroll painted by Ma Yuan titled The Four Sages of Shangshan     7     (create) between 1220 and 1230 of the Southern Song Dynasty. It's    8     example of people combined with landscape as a subject.

The most famous one is the 12th-century work Along the River during the Qingming Festival by Song Dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan.    9     (know) as “China's Mona Lisa”， this work pictures the     10    (beauty) natural scenery of the city of Bianjing, today's Kaifeng, and the busy and lively life of people.