Xuexiang Village, formerly known as a forestry farm, has been transformed into a booming tourist resort. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (locate) at the southern foot of Changbai Mountain, it has much snow. The snow here starts falling in October and begins to melt in April. A unique scene is the “snow mushrooms”, {#blank#}2{#/blank#} are formed after snow falls onto wood piles. Together with log cabins, pine trees and snowy mountains, {#blank#}3{#/blank#} place looks like a fairy tale world. Several decades ago, people {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (come) here as loggers. Years of excessive logging resulted {#blank#}5{#/blank#} a resource-shortage problem. After the natural forest protection project {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (launch) in 1999, the forestry farm stopped logging and started to make good use of the snow to develop the tourism industry. Amateur photographers first promoted the beautiful scenery, then, with the help of the internet, it {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (gradual) became famous and tourists began coming. {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (sense) the new opportunities, loggers started to open family hotels and restaurants. Nearly 80 {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (family) are now involved in tourism business. “My family can make 200,000-300,000 yuan each year, which {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (able) us to live a much better life”, said Fan, a used-to-be logger.

A Bite of China

    No trip would be complete without experiencing the local food culture. Actually, China has various kinds of delicious food,{#blank#}1{#/blank#} (include) a wide variety of local snacks (小吃).

    Without a doubt, for the majority of the foreigners I contacted, and myself included, Peking Duck, Dim Sum, Mongolian Hot Pot were the favorite Chinese {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (dish). China is a place{#blank#}3{#/blank#} the food is not only delicious, but the {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (cheap) I've ever found.

{#blank#}5{#/blank#}my last night in Beijing before returning to the States, I went to a Peking Duck restaurant that had been suggested for me to try. What a beautiful place! Splendid woodblock prints on the walls, fresh flowers in the vases on the table,{#blank#}6{#/blank#} (attract) silverware (镀银餐具) and beautiful chopsticks. I was handed {#blank#}7{#/blank#} menu and found most of the prices{#blank#}8{#/blank#}(be) especially low for the high quality of the food. The duck came in whole or half, along with all the little decorations that you know if you've ever eaten Peking duck—a little tortilla (玉米饼) to put the sliced duck and vegetables in chopped onion, sauce.

    Anyway, I ended up ordering a whole duck and thought I'd just take the rest back to my hotel{#blank#}9{#/blank#}(eat) later if I couldn't finish it. Unbelievably, in the end there was none of the whole duck{#blank#}10{#/blank#}(leave) on the plate. Umm, yummy!

    Many English language learners believe that the {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (great) difficulty with listening comprehension (理解) is that the listener cannot control how quickly a speaker speaks. They feel that what the speaker says disappears {#blank#}2{#/blank#} they can follow. This frequently means that students {#blank#}3{#/blank#} are learning to listen cannot keep up. They are so busy working out the meaning{#blank#}4{#/blank#} one part of what they hear that they miss the next part. Or they {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(simple) ignore a whole section because they fail to catch it quickly enough. Another difficulty is that the listener is not always in a position to get the speaker to repeat what has been said. And, of course, repeats cannot{#blank#}6{#/blank#} (ask) for when listening to the radio or watching TV.

    Besides,{#blank#}7{#/blank#} (choose) of vocabulary is in the hands of the speaker, not the listener. Very often, for people listening to a foreign language, an unknown word can be like a suddenly {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (drop) stone making them stop and think about the meaning of the word,{#blank#}9{#/blank#} (cause) them to miss the next part of the speech. In listening, it really is a case of “He who{#blank#}10{#/blank#} (stop) to work out the meaning is lost.”

    Once there lived a rich man {#blank#}1{#/blank#}wanted to do something for the people of his town. But first he wanted {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (find) out whether they deserved his help.

    In the centre of the main road into the town, he placed{#blank#}3{#/blank#} very large stone. Then he {#blank#}4{#/blank#}(bury) himself behind a tree and waited. Soon an old man came along with his cow.

    "Who put this stone in the centre of the road?" said the old man, but he did not try to remove the stone. Instead, with some difficulty he passed around the stone {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (slow) and continued on his way. Another man came along and did the same thing ; then another came, and another. All of them complained about the stone but not tried to remove {#blank#}6{#/blank#}. Late in the afternoon a young man came along . He saw the stone, {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(say) to  himself ,"The night will be very dark. Some {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(neighbor) will come along later in the dark and will fall against the stone."

    Then he began to move the stone. He pushed with all his {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(strong) to move it. How great his surprise was at last! He found a bag of money {#blank#}10{#/blank#} the stone.

This is where my kids grew up

    For years now, I've been wanting to sell our home, the place where my husband and I raised our kids. But to me, this house is more than just a building. In the front room, there's a wall that has hundreds of pencil lines. Every growth stage {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(mark) in pencils, with each child's name and the date.

    Of all the objects and all the memories, it's this one thing in a home that's {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(hard) to leave behind. Our kids grow in so many ways, but the wall is physical evidence of their progress. Friends I know have visited their previous home only {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(discover) their wall of heights has been freshly painted over. Over the years, I've talked about how much I would hate leaving that wall behind when I moved, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} the last marks were made 10 years ago when my kids stopped growing. So one day, while I was at work, my children decided to do {#blank#}5{#/blank#} about it.

    They hired Jacquie Manning, a professional photographer {#blank#}6{#/blank#} work is about capturing the beautiful things in life. She came to our house while I was at work, and over several hours, {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(take) photos of the hundreds of drawings and lines, little grey fingerprints, and old marks. Somehow, she managed to photograph {#blank#}8{#/blank#} we had experienced in all those years. Afterwards, she put all the photos together into one image, {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(transform) them into a beautiful history of my family.

    Three weeks later, my children's wonderful gift made its way to me —{#blank#}10{#/blank#} life-size photo of the pencil lines and fingerprints that represents entire lifetimes of love and growth.