On a grey afternoon on 19 November 1863, Abraham Lincoln mounted a platform in a field in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He was there in memory of the    1    (die)soldiers. The place was the site of a recent battle     2    thousands of soldiers had died.

At that time, America was    3     (bitter) divided. For two years, its people had been deep in a civil war. The Union side won but    4    a great cost. Over 50,000 soldiers    5     (kill)or wounded, and people lost hope and purpose.

Lincoln understood the feelings of the civilian people. His speech gave them hope, belief and a reason     6     (look) to the future. He gave them    7    new vision of what the United States of America should be     8     (base)on the ideals set down by its Founding Fathers 87 years before. It was what the soldiers had died for. Now it was up to the    9     (live) to remove not only the divisions between North and South, but the boundaries between black and white, and work step by step towards the    10     (equal)of humankind.

At the beginning, written Chinese was a picture-based language. It dates back several thousand years to the use of animal bones and shells on which symbols    1    ( carve) by ancient Chinese people. Some of the ancient symbols can still be seen in today’s hanzi.

By the Shang Dynasty, these symbols    2    (become) a well-developed writing system. Over the years, the system developed into different forms，as it was a time when people were divided geographically,    3    (lead) to many varieties of dialects characters. This,    4    , changed under the rule of Emperor Qinshihuang of the Qin Dynasty.

Emperor Qinshihuang made the seven major states into one    5    ( unite) country where the Chinese writing system began to develop in one direction. That writing system was    6    great importance in uniting the Chinese people and culture. Even today, no matter where Chinese people live or    7    dialect they speak, they can all still communicate    8    (easy) in writing.

Written Chinese has also become an important means by    9    China’s present is connected with its past. People in modern times can read the classic    10    (work) which were written by Chinese in ancient times. The high regard for the Chinese writing system can be seen in the development of Chinese characters as an art form, known as Chinese calligraphy, which has become an important part of Chinese culture.

At 3:42 a.m. everything began to shake. It seemed as if the world was at an end! Eleven kilometres     1    (direct) below the city, the    2    (great) earthquake of the 20th century had begun. It was felt in Beijing,     3    is more than two hundred kilometres away. One-third of the nation felt it. A huge crack that was eight kilometres long and thirty metres wide cut       4       houses, roads and canals. Steam burst from holes   in the ground. Hard hills of rock became rivers of dirt. In fifteen terrible seconds a large city       5     (lie) in ruins. The       6     (suffer) of the people was extreme. Two-thirds of       7     (they) died   or were injured during the earthquake. Thousands of families were killed and many   children were         8     (leave) without parents.

    9     number of people who were killed or injured reached more than 400,000. Then, later that afternoon, another big quake shook Tangshan. More buildings fell down. Water, food, and electricity were hard     10    (get). People began to wonder how long the disaster would last.