W: What {#blank#}1{#/blank#} wonderful place!

M: I wanted the best restaurant {#blank#}2{#/blank#} your birthday. And I know you like French food. Let's begin with a cocktail(鸡尾酒) and then look at the menu.

W: I don't want to look at it because {#blank#}3{#/blank#} always takes me a year to make up my mind. Any suggestions?

M: I've never been here before, but everything {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (suppose) to be excellent.

W: They have snails(蜗牛)! But I wouldn't dare eat them. They might make me sick.

M: I feel the same way about snails. I think I'll have roast duck(烤鸭). It comes with vegetables and potatoes.

W: {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (sound) good. But {#blank#}6{#/blank#} I like seafood, I'd like {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (begin) with some seafood. And let's have the salad after the main course.

M: Fine. We should have white wine with dinner and champagne(香槟)with dessert since this is {#blank#}8{#/blank#}celebration.

W: Oh, don't forget the cheese. There's nothing like real French cheese.

M: I can see already this {#blank#}9{#/blank#} going to be an {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (enjoy) and delicious dinner.     

People eat rice all over the world

    Rice {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (believe) to have been first grown in China or possibly somewhere else in eastern Asia around 10,000 years ago. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} earliest evidence of rice farming comes from a 7,000-year-old site near the lower Yangtze River village of Hemudu in Zhejiang province in China.

    Rice is a kind of food which requires much labor. In developed countries, the planting and harvesting is done {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(most) with machines. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}, in much of the world, these things are still largely done by hand. It takes one farmer 1,000 to 2,000 working hours {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(raise)a rice crop on 2.5 acres of land. The fact that rice needs so much labor means{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(keep)a lot of the population on the land.

    Rice is also a crop {#blank#}7{#/blank#} need of lots of water. The wet rice grown in most of Asia needs hot weather after a period of rain and conditions provided by the rainy seasons affect many of the places {#blank#}8{#/blank#} rice is grown.

    Rice straws(稻杆）{#blank#}9{#/blank#}(leave)in the fields add nutrients(营养物)to the soil after rice is harvested(收割). For the next crop, rice farmers can often enjoy a good harvest by adding little {#blank#}10{#/blank#} no fertilizer.(肥料)

    China has always been famous for being a “State of Etiquettes (礼仪)”. According to {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (history) documents, as early as 2,600 years ago, this nation has already established a thorough set {#blank#}2{#/blank#} dining etiquettes. A famous 19th century Russian writer, Anton Chekhov, once invited a Chinese man {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (have) a drink in a bar. Chekhov said, “Before drinking from his cup, he held {#blank#}4{#/blank#} with his hands and presented to me and the bar owner and bar tenders, {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (say) “qing (please).” This is the custom of China. They are not like us to finish it in one drink, {#blank#}6{#/blank#} prefer to drink by taking a small amount at a time. With every sip (一小口), he {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (eat) some food. Afterwards he handed me some Chinese coins to show {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (grateful). This is a rather interestingly polite nationality. This was the most valuable opinion of a Chinese person {#blank#}9{#/blank#} was given by a foreigner two centuries ago. Chinese traditional dinner procedures used to be long and dealt seriously with. The {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (important) the occasion, the more complex the procedures were.

    No one thought that young Albert Einstein would grow up to change the world. He was so slow in learning to speak that he was considered a bit {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(fool).

    Albert Einstein was never happy in school. He answered slowly because he was very thoughtful, and he asked difficult questions, which made {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(he) teachers think that he was trying {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(make) trouble. The strict discipline(纪律)of a German school made him very unhappy.

    However, young Einstein {#blank#}4{#/blank#}(do) learn what interested him, and he was interested in what lay below the surface of  {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(thing). For instance, his father once gave him a compass(指南针). This made Albert curious {#blank#}6{#/blank#} the unseen forces that could keep a compass needle always pointing north. In his teens he read deep in science. He had already started to wonder about the mysteries of {#blank#}7{#/blank#} universe.

    At 17, Einstein entered the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, {#blank#}8{#/blank#} he studied mathematics and physics. He stayed away from many lectures and did not impress his professors, but he was {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(actual) studying very hard all the time. When he graduated in 1900, he asked to be appointed as an assistant in the physics department but {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(refuse).

    There is a tendency to think of each of the arts as {#blank#}1{#/blank#} separate area of activity. Many artists, however, would prove {#blank#}2{#/blank#} there has always been a warm relationship between the a warm relationship areas of human activity. For example, in the late nineteenth century the connections between music and painting were especially close. Artists {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (invite) to design clothes and settings for operas and ballets, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} sometimes it was the musicians who were inspired by the work of contemporary painters. Of the musical compositions as responses to the visual arts, perhaps the most famous is Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

    Mussorgsky composed the piece in 1874 after the death, at the age of 39, of the artist Victor Hartman. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} their friendship had not been a particularly long-lasting one, Mussorgsky was shocked by Hartmann's unexpected death. The following year the critic, Vladimir Stasov, {#blank#}6{#/blank#} decided to told an exhibition of Hartmann's work, suggested that Mussorgsky {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (try) to relieve his grief by writing something in memory of Hartmann.

    The exhibition served as Mussorgsky's inspiration. The ten pieces that make up Pictures at an Exhibition {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (intend) as symbols rather than representation of the paintings in the exhibition. Between each is a promenade (舞曲中 行进), as the composer walks from one painting to {#blank#}9{#/blank#} The music is sometimes witty and playful, sometimes almost alarming and frightening. Thought a range of surprising contrasts, Mussorgsky manages {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (convey) the spirit of the artist and his work.