Alexander Graham Bell was an influential scientist, engineer and {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(invent). He was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is widely credited with the invention of the first telephone. Bell's mother and wife{#blank#}2{#/blank#}(be)both deaf, which had an effect{#blank#}3{#/blank#}his work.

    When he was 23, Bell and his parents moved to Canada. Bell studied the human voice and worked with different schools for{#blank#}4{#/blank#}deaf. He experimented with sound, working with sound, working with equipment used to send different{#blank#}5{#/blank#}(message)and record sound. He worked on acoustic telegraphy(声报机)with an electrical designer {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(name)Thomas Watson.

    On February 14, 1876, Bell and Elisha Gray, an American electrical engineer, both filed patents(申请专利)covering the transmission (传送)of sounds telegraphically. Finally, Bel{#blank#}7{#/blank#}(give)the patent. A few days{#blank#}8{#/blank#}(late), he succeeded in{#blank#}9{#/blank#}(get)his telephone to work.

    Bell improved the design and by 1886 more than 150,000 people owned telephones in the United States. He once said, “The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to {#blank#}10{#/blank#}he is speaking.”

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!

    China has developed a unique festival food culture throughout the years. Eating dumplings is a common folk custom for many Chinese on the day of winter solstice(冬至), especially those{#blank#}1{#/blank#}live in the north.

    When midwinter comes, vital movement begins to decline and calm down. In this period,{#blank#}2{#/blank#}eaten in a right amount, some nuts such as peanuts, walnuts, and chestnuts are good for one's body.

    People in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province,{#blank#}3{#/blank#} (be) accustomed to eating wontons in midwinter. According to an old story, during the midwinter feast 2, 500 years ago, the King of Wu{#blank#}4{#/blank#}(feed) up with all kinds of costly foods and wanted to try{#blank#}5{#/blank#}(variety) things. Then, the beauty Xishi made wontons to honor the kings wish. He ate a lot and liked the food very much. Later, the people of Suzhou had wontons to celebrate the festival{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(official).

    In places such as Shanghai, people eat tangyuan, a kind of small dumpling ball{#blank#}7{#/blank#}(produce)with sticky rice flour (粉). In Yinchuan, Ningxia, people call midwinter the "Ghost Festival". On that day, it is customary for people there to eat mutton soup and the dumplings in it. They give the midwinter soup a strange name and call it "brain", which they usually share with their{#blank#}8{#/blank#}relative)

    People in Taiwan keep the custom of providing nine-layer cakes{#blank#}9{#/blank#}their ancestors. People from the same family gather at their ancestral temples to adore their ancestors in order of their ages. After{#blank#}10{#/blank#}(hold)the sacrificial ceremony, there is always a grand dinner.

    With the College Entrance Examination {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(draw) near, I am too nervous {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(fall)asleep. My mother told me to take{#blank#}3{#/blank#}easy and not to stay{#blank#}4{#/blank#}late at night. She is very sensitive {#blank#}5{#/blank#}other people's feelings. My mother has a {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (prefer) for cooking meals. She also told me it was bad to be particular{#blank#}7{#/blank#}food. What she said was{#blank#}8{#/blank#}(reason). I am always easily{#blank#}9{#/blank#} (persuade). I'll do some relaxing exercise{#blank#}10{#/blank#}may help me take the load off my mind. I'm sure I'll calm down to meet the challenge with confidence.

    Savanna, 11, is possibly one of our next great experts of the heart disease. After visiting her Sunday school teacher, who was about to perform a heart {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (operate) at the hospital, Savanna's curiosity led towards a deep appreciation of the heart and its importance to the human body.

    Encouraged by her parents to research further matters of the heart, Savanna learned that one in three of her peers (同龄人) {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (be) suffering from childhood fatness, {#blank#}3{#/blank#} can lead to heart diseases. She began making YouTube videos sharing with the world ways to have a better health and create a happy, healthy heart.

    In 2016, Happy Heart Advice launched its Happy Heart Challenges, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (provide) over 300 hundred children and families {#blank#}5{#/blank#} education and free resources for healthy living. In June, she {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (invite) as an important speaker at the 9th Biennial Obesity Conference where she shared valuable information on how to form healthy eating {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (habit) and everyday lifestyles, and was honored by the American Heart Association for her work and effects in the health community at such {#blank#}8{#/blank#} early age.

    She's currently working on an app that will make it {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(easy) for moms and families to shop for “Happy Heart-approved Food”. She makes it her life's goal {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (make) sure kids have healthy hearts.

    Household garbage sorting and recycling has become a hot topic in Shanghai because of China's first compulsive garbage-separation law {#blank#}1{#/blank#} every household and institution shall classify waste into four {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(category). Those who fail to sort garbage may {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(fine) up to 200 yuan.

    Previously, everything went into one bin, so this change has made many people very {#blank#}4{#/blank#}  (worry), who said they were struggling to master the details quickly.

    Now thanks to the efforts of {#blank#}5{#/blank#} number of young programmers, discovering the proper classification for each piece of household waste has become as simple as taking a photo {#blank#}6{#/blank#} calling someone using your smartphone.

    They have applied speech and image recognition technologies {#blank#}7{#/blank#} apps and other smartphone services to guide Shanghai residents through the garbage-separation rules.

    Most of the apps and services, which {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (begin) springing up last month in app stores, on messaging tool WeChat and mobile payment service Alipay, allow users to type in the name of waste {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(identify) which category it belongs to. Many apps also use speech and image recognition to make the process much easier, but their creators say they will disappear in time with the Chinese {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(become) more accustomed to the rules.