One day before my final exam, my dad gave me a gift. It completely changed my life.

    On that day I had a {#blank#}1{#/blank#} with my friends and it was a difficult time with my studies. I was unhappy. Then I noticed the gift. I {#blank#}2{#/blank#} it and saw a DVD inside. Its name was “THE SECRET”. However, I was in no mood (心情) to watch it. I sat down to study, but the {#blank#}3{#/blank#} in my life—the fight, the sleepless nights and my poor health … Everything came to my mind. I wanted an answer but I wondered {#blank#}4{#/blank#} there was any. Just then, I saw the DVD again. Maybe it would be helpful. I {#blank#}5{#/blank#} my DVD player. I had no words to describe the feelings I experienced while watching it. The moving stories of human beings made me so moved that I wouldn't {#blank#}6{#/blank#}any of them.

    Thanks to my father's gift “THE SECRET”, I discovered {#blank#}7{#/blank#}. Everybody has difficulties in their lives. The important thing is that you should be {#blank#}8{#/blank#} enough to face them. Now I have started {#blank#}9{#/blank#}my studies and my friends. And I'm in good health, too. I often hear people say, “Wow! {#blank#}10{#/blank#} a perfect life you have!”

    Chess is called the game of kings. People have been playing it for hundreds of years. The chess we play today is believed to first {#blank#}1{#/blank#} in Asia.

    Some people think that chess is more than a game. They think that it can make the mind stronger. Good chess {#blank#}2{#/blank#} use their brains. They take their time and think about what will happen next. These skills are {#blank#}3{#/blank#} in life too.

    You don't always have lots of time to think when playing chess. There is a kind of chess with short time limits(限制). It's {#blank#}4{#/blank#} blitz chess. In blitz chess, each player gets ten minutes to play a whole game. Your clock runs during your turn(机会). You hit the time clock after your move. This {#blank#}5{#/blank#} your clock and starts the other player's clock. If you run out of {#blank#}6{#/blank#}, you lose. Games of blitz chess are fast - paced( 快节奏的)

    Chess is not {#blank#}7{#/blank#} for people. Computers have been playing chess since the 1940s. At first they did not play well. They made {#blank#}8{#/blank#}. As time went on they grew {#blank#}9{#/blank#}. In 1997, a computer beat the best player in the world for the first time. It was a computer called Deep Blue. Deep Blue was {#blank#}10{#/blank#}, which took up a whole room. By 2006 a mobile phone could beat the best players in the world. Chess sure has come a long way.