1 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there is one sentence more than you need.

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, has an ancient rivalry with Chongqing, a city to its south-east. Residents of Chongqing accuse their Chengdu cousins of being pompous(自大的).    1    . Both cities share a love of spice-laden Sichuan cuisine, which in recent decades has conquered Chinese palates(味觉). But they are at war over which has the best Sichuan hotpot—a type of DIY-cooking that involves boiling vegetables and slices of meat in a communal broth with chillies and numbing peppercorns.

    2    It describes how it developed from a method used to make cheap offcuts of meat taste delicious. But Chengdu is playing catch-up. In January the city sold a plot of land on condition that the developer build a hotpot museum on part of it. Such presumptuous behaviour will test the famous fiery tempers of Chongqing-ites. Chengdu may be the capital of Sichuan cuisine’s eponymous province, but Chongqing was part of Sichuan for long periods of history until 1997. It is now the capital of its own province-sized region, which is also called Chongqing.

The two cities are among many in China with their own styles of hotpot. The stories behind these dishes reveal how different regions like to see themselves. Chongqing’s is said to highlight the ingenuity(心灵手巧) of the proletariat(工人阶级). Other places describe their hotpots as the sophisticated food of emperors. Some say theirs have military origins: warriors on the march boiling scraps in their helmets. Hotpot contents are equally diverse. To keep warm in winter, Beijingers boil fatty lamb in a berry broth.     3    

    4    Some older Sichuanese disown it altogether. They complain that it is causing an escalation of chilli-use in other dishes that drowns out subtle flavours. Chua Lam, a celebrity food critic based in Hong Kong, caused a stir in December when he wished hotpot would disappear from the face of the Earth. He dismissed it as “the most uncultured form of cooking”, requiring no real culinary knowledge.

A．A private museum in Chongqing, opened several years ago, makes the case for Chongqing-style hotpot.

B．But Chengdu’s plans for a museum suggest that Sichuan hotpot is not only growing in popularity, but is also becoming iconic.

C．Not all Chinese warm to hotpot.

D．The people of Chongqing are hotheads, Chengdu dwellers shoot back

E．Because Sichuan-style broths are the most commonly savoured in China.

F．Mint-suffused Yunnanese hotpot reflects the province’s links with South-East Asia.