For the rest of March,a disease will sweep across the US.It will keep kids home from school. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Employees will suddenly lose their ability to concentrate.

    The disease, known as “March Madness”, refers to the yearly 65－team US men's college basketball tournament (锦标赛). {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Teams compete against each other in a single－elimination (单局淘汰) tournament that eventually crowns a national champion.

    Nearly 20 million Americans will find themselves prisoners of basketball festival madness. The fun comes partly from guessing the winners for every game. Friends compete against friends. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}  Colleagues against bosses.

    Big－name schools are usually favored to advance into the tournament.But each year there are dark horses from little－known universities.

    This adds to the madness.Watching a team from a school with 3,000 students beat a team from a school with 30,000,for many Americans,is an exciting experience.Two years ago,the little－known George Mason University was one of the final four teams. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    College basketball players are not paid, so the game is more about making a name for their university and themselves. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} About $4 billion will be spent gambling (赌) on the event.According to Media Life magazine,the event will bring in $ 500 million in advertising income this year,topping the post －season income of every US professional league,including that of the NBA.

A. Husbands against wives.

B.The players will go all out for the games.

C.But that doesn't mean money isn't involved.

D.College students will ignore piles of homework.

E.People are willing to spend more money on watching it.

F.It begins on March 15 and lasts through the beginning of April.

G.Many people had never even heard of the university before the tournament.

    S                                        ome Ways to Have an Amazing Day

    Here are a few tips for making sure you can answer the pop quiz of life confidently:

    Be kind.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} How often do you stop to talk to the people you encounter every day? Do you know the names of the people at the bank, the grocery store, or restaurant? One great way to get more out of your day is to fill it with people you know. The best way to know more people is to be kind to everyone you meet. Take a moment to learn a little about them.

{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    I avoided saying “Stay Busy” because sometimes we can fill our day with meaningless activities and feel busy but then at the end of the day we look back and realize we accomplished nothing. A great way to stay productive is to look at the things you would like to accomplish today, this week, this month, etc. and then plan some time to work on each of them.

Look for ways to serve.

    I truly believe that giving meaningful service to other people is the greatest key to our personal happiness. It may be just a smile and a “hello”.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} It may be just a phone call to tell them “thank you for being a friend.” When we serve other people, we develop personal joy.

Find a purpose.

    The happiest people have one or more big “life goals”.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}When we have a big goal that we feel passionate about we become more excited to work on that goal every day.

{#blank#}5{#/blank#} When you give yourself the pop quiz at the end of the day, you will be ready to say you did everything you could.

A. Keep learning new things

B. Make the most of every day

C. Stay productive all the time

D. Try to do more in your everyday life

E. It may be helping them with their work

F. It has been said that you can measure a person by how they treat the people who can do nothing for them

G. It may be to run a marathon, write a book, start a business, develop a product or learn a new hobby or profession.

Every art lover has a dream—to buy an old painting at a low price and later discover that it's worth millions. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} But this dream can become a nightmare if it turns out that the painting is stolen.

    The following true story happened in London. An art collector was walking around an outdoor market in the East End when he saw two interesting paintings.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} He decided to buy them after they got the price down to 145 pounds. The art collector knew it was a good deal, but he wasn't sure how much his paintings were really worth.

    He decided to take the paintings to the Sorheby's, a famous auction house.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} They were painted by two of England greatest painters Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. They had been stolen from Lincoln's Inn, a famous historical building in London and were worth about two million pounds.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Experts at Sotheby's were convinced that he was an art thief and called the police. Within minutes the police arrived. They arrested the frightened man and took him to the police station. After hours of questioning, the police realized that they had made a mistake and let the man go.

    The art collector returned them immediately because he was worried about his good name.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} So the stolen paintings are now back at Lincoln's Inn.

A. Nothing is more exciting.

B. At this point the art collector was in trouble.

C. An auction house is a place where things are sold to whoever offers the most.

D. Although he wasn't an art expert, he saw that they were old.

E. Obviously, he did not want to be associated with stolen works.

F. The art experts who saw the paintings recognized them immediately.

G. He recognized that they were stolen works worth great value.

    China has been the birthplace of many of the world's greatest inventions. It was, for example, the first country to produce paper money. Before the invention of paper money and coins, people used many different kinds of things for buying and selling{#blank#}1{#/blank#}This exchange of goods and services for other goods and services is called bartering.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}In 1200 BC, people in China began to use shells (贝壳) as money. Usually the shells used as money were very small. This made it easier for people to carry money over long distances, and allowed for trade to develop between different parts of the country.

    In the years which followed this invention, many other countries around the world began to do the same.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    The next development was in 1000 BC, when China started making bronze and copper shells. It wasn't long before the Chinese made round coins out of metal.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}By 500 BC, metal coins had begun to appear in countries like Persia and Greece, and later in the Roman Empire.

    About 1,000 years later, leather was used as money in China, and in 806 AD, the first paper banknotes were produced by the Chinese people.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. People also began collecting foreign coins as souvenirs.

B. During that time, for example, buying a chicken might cost several potatoes.

C. It was still many years before paper currency appeared in Europe.

D. However, as economies developed, such exchanges became impractical.

E. They also used tiny shells as money for buying and selling.

F. As time went by, trade between countries increased.

G. The first coins often had holes in them so that people could string them together.

    The Qingming Festival is celebrated with a three-day national holiday, whose name originates from the saying "Plants start to revive and prosper at Qingming in a clean and bright way. Thus, the festival is called Qingming, "which means clean and bright. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Tomb sweeping aims to commemorate family ancestors while going on a spring outing allows everyone the chance to enjoy the beautiful scenery and enjoy the season.

    Traditional customs

    Tomb sweeping. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} On this day, the whole family gathers in front of their ancestral tombs. They offer fruit and wine to their ancestors and clean the weeds from around the tomb. Finally, they kowtow and pray, hoping for their ancestors' blessing for the rest of the year.

    Spring outing. The time around the Qingming Festival is one of the most suitable seasons for a spring outing, as plants are thriving and flowers are blooming. People can have a great time outdoors with their friends and family. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Traditional food

    Qingtuan, a green rice ball tiny enough to fit into your hand, is also called Qingmingguo or Aiguo. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} It is a mixture of sticky rice powder and green vegetable juice, stuffed with sweetened bean paste, Qingtuan tastes sweet with the fresh fragrance of Aicao, a green spring vegetable, In celebration of Qingming, people from Shaanxi make steamed buns, known as Huamo, made into different shapes. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Some are for peaceful family life while others represent the wish for health.

    The history of writing instruments, with which humans have recorded and conveyed thoughts and feelings, is the history of civilization itself. This is how we know about our ancestors and their life.

    The handy sharpened-stone was adapted into the first writing instrument. Around 24 000 BC, the cave man started drawing pictures with the stone onto the walls of his cave. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Walls at the Apollo site in Namibia are believed to be the oldest rock paintings to date.

    Before paper came along, people used clay or wax tablets on which they wrote with sharp objects such as metal sticks or bones. Around 6000 years ago, the Egyptians invented the first paperlike material called papyrus. The word "paper" actually comes from the word "papyrus".

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Bones or metal sticks were no longer useful as the papyrus could not be scratched. So the Egyptians created a reed-pen perfect for the papyrus. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} And thus, ancient Egyptians transformed bamboo stems (茎) into an early form of a fountain pen.

    Another writing instrument that remained active in history for a long period was the quill (鹅毛) pen. Introduced around 700 AD, the quill was a pen made from a bird feather. Goose feathers were most common. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} For making fine line drawings, crow feathers were the best.

    When writers had better inks and paper and handwriting had developed into both an art form and an everyday occurrence, man's inventive nature once again turned to improving the writing instrument. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. Now something was needed to write upon the papyrus.

B. The papyrus became the most popular material at that time.

C. Swan feathers were of a high quality, being rare and most expensive.

D. Bamboo stems were better and much more expensive than goose feathers.

E. This led to the development of the modem fountain pen in the 19th century.

F. These were mostly the stems of grasses, especially from the bamboo plant.

G. These drawings showed events in daily life like the planting of crops or hunting victories.