Aesop (伊索) was a slave living around 550 BC. We call the stories he wrote fables, as every story has a moral. Almost all the fables he wrote are {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (humor) and entertaining, appealing to people {#blank#}2{#/blank#} all ages. Till now, Aesop's fables {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (translate) into many languages and are known all over the world. Not only {#blank#}4{#/blank#} the fables themselves lived for nearly 1500 years, but the {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (express) from them have entered various languages.

    One fable, for instance, is about a farmer who was driving his cart along a country road. The cart got {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (stick) in the mud, but the farmer made {#blank#}7{#/blank#} effort to get it out. Instead, he began to pray to the gods for help. The god Hercules finally appeared and told {#blank#}8{#/blank#} man to get busy and push {#blank#}9{#/blank#}. “Push your shoulder to the wheel.” Hercules advised.

    The moral of the story is clear. We mustn't rely on others for help. Another saying which has come from the fable is “God helps those {#blank#}10{#/blank#} help themselves.”

    Increasingly, Americans are becoming their own doctors by going to diagnose their symptoms, order home health tests or medical devices, or even self-treat their illnesses with drugs from Internet pharmacies(药店).Some avoid doctors because of the high cost of medical care, especially{#blank#}1{#/blank#} they lack health insurance. Or they may stay away because they find it{#blank#}2{#/blank#}(embarrass) to discuss their weight, smoking, alcohol consumption or couch potato habits. Patients may also fear what they might learn about their health, or they distrust physicians because of negative {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (experience) in the past. But{#blank#}4{#/blank#}(play) doctor can also be a deadly game.

Every day, more than six million Americans turn to the Internet{#blank#}5{#/blank#}medical answers— and most of them aren't nearly sceptical enough of what they find. A 2002 survey by the Pew Internet &American Life Project found that 72 percent of those{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(survey) believe all or most of what they read on health websites. They shouldn't look up “headache” and the chances of finding {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(rely) and complete information, free from a motivation for commercial gain,{#blank#}8{#/blank#} (be) only one in ten, reports an April 2005 Brown Medical School study. Of the 169 websites the researchers rated, only 16 scored as “high quality”. Recent studies found faulty facts about all sorts of other disorders, causing one research team to warn that a large amount of incomplete, inaccurate and even dangerous{#blank#}9{#/blank#} (inform) exists on the Internet.

    The problem is most people don't know the safe way to surf the Web. “They use a search engine like Google, get 18 trillion choices and start clicking. But that's risky, because almost anybody can put up a site that looks authoritative ( 权威的), so it's hard to know if what you're reading is {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(reason) or not,” says Dr. Sarah Bass from the National Cancer Institute.

    Xu Lizhen, a 74-year-old lady, has been acting as a tour guide for nearly 20 years in Yang Shuo, Gui Lin, {#blank#}1{#/blank#} is a city known both in China and abroad for its beautiful landscape. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} she attended only primary school when she was young, she can now speak approximately 11 foreign languages {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (fluent).

    Since 20 years ago, tourists {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (show) affection for Yang Shuo, including a great many foreigners, In order to make a {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (live), Xu Lizhen began to sell water. However, she could hardly make any money at first because foreigners didn't understand her accent. She tried to imitate the {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (pronounce) of the foreigners, take notes and learn them {#blank#}7{#/blank#} heart. If she came across tourists who can speak both Chinese and a foreign language, she would ask them to translate their words many times so that she could remember them {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (well). It is in this way that the old granny masters 11 languages, such as English, French, Russian, Korean. Now, she has no difficulty at all {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (communicate) with foreign friends in simple oral English. She is also {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (refer) to as Mother Moon for her kindness among tourists.

    A lady, who found it not easy to wake up early, bought an alarm clock. These clocks are so made as {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (strike) with a loud noise at any hour the owner pleases to set them. The alarm clock {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (perfect) did its duty, and went off at the right time. She {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (rise) at once, and felt better all day for it. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}, after a time, the lady grew tired of early rising. When she {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (wake) up by the noise, she merely turned over in bed and slept again. In a few days, the clock spoke just as loudly as ever, but she didn't hear {#blank#}6{#/blank#} because she had been in the habit of not obeying it, {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (find) that she might as well be without it, she was determined that when she heard the sound she would jump up.

    So it is {#blank#}8{#/blank#} conscience. If we will obey its voice, even in the smallest things, we can always hear it, clear and strong. But if we allow ourselves to do {#blank#}9{#/blank#} we fear or may not be right, we shall grow more and more {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (sleep) until the voice of conscience has no longer the power to wake us.

In China, the history of people planting and using bamboo can date back to as far as 7,000 years. The {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (apply) of bamboo in science and technology is thrilling. In 251 BC, Li Bing, in Sichuan, {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (lead) the local people in building the Dujiang Weirs, in which bamboo played an important role. During the Han Dynasty, the people in Sichuan {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (success) sank a 1,600­-metre-­deep well with thick bamboo ropes. This technology did not spread to Europe until the 19th century, and it was by using the technology {#blank#}4{#/blank#} the Americans drilled(钻) the first oil well in Pennsylvania in 1859.

Bamboo culture contributes to encouraging people to hold on when {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(face) tough situations.