Shanghai, on the east coast of China, is the 【小题1】 (big) city in the country. 【小题2】 (it) population is 13 million. Shanghai is 【小题3】 the Huangpu River. There are many beautiful 【小题4】 (park), like the Yu Yuan Gardens. Pudong is the new part of Shanghai, with lots of tall 【小题5】 (build), like the 468-metre-high Oriental Pearl Tower. Putuoshan is a small 【小题6】 (island) in the East China Sea, near Shanghai.

Dianshanhu 【小题7】 (lake) is in the the Qingpu District, in the 【小题8】 (west) part of Shanghai. It is bigger than West Lake in Hangzhou. It is also popular with tourists. Behind it is the old town of Zhujiajiao. There is a high hill in this old town, 【小题9】 (call) North Hill. There are 36 very old bridges across the rivers here. It is 【小题10】 very interesting place to visit.

The Forbidden City is also known as the Palace Museum. It lies in the city center of Beijing, 【小题1】 it was once the Chinese imperial (皇帝的) palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It 【小题2】 (list) as a World Heritage Site in 1987. It is the 【小题3】 (large) best-preserved (保存) ancient wood-built palace in the world.

Built between 1406 and 1420 during the Ming Dynasty, the Forbidden City was home to 24 emperors and 【小题4】 (they) families of the Ming and Qing dynasties. After the last emperor of China left the palace, it 【小题5】 (late) became a museum open to the public in 1925. Since then, the Forbidden City is no longer forbidden, and now common people are able to take a trip 【小题6】 (see) the secrets of imperial life.

The Forbidden City is huge, and there are more than 9,000 【小题7】 (room) in it. It was divided 【小题8】 two parts—the Outer Court for national affairs in the south and the Inner Court in the north. It is not only 【小题9】 ancient building, but also a museum keeping a collection of more than 1.8 million pieces of art. As a must-see in Beijing and the world’s most visited museum, it is worth 【小题10】 (spend) half to one day to visit the Forbidden City and enjoy the valuable cultural heritage of China.

In Search of Good English Food

How come it is so difficult to find English food in England? In England, it is 【小题1】 (easy) to find Indian and Chinese restaurants than English ones. In London, you can eat dishes almost around the world, but where are the English restaurants?

It is not only in restaurants that foreign dishes are taking the place of 【小题2】 (tradition) British food. In every supermarket, spaghetti and pizza are more popular. Why has this happened? What is wrong with the cooks of Britain that they prefer cooking spaghetti to 【小题3】 (potato)? Why do the British now like cooking in wine and olive oil? That’s 【小题4】 they can get ingredients (食材) from all over the world in just a few hours. Anyway, was’t English food always terrible and tasteless? The answer to this question is “No”, but 【小题5】 (understand) this, you have to go back to before World War I.

【小题6】 fact, the British have always imported(口) food from abroad. From ancient times, foreign trade was 【小题7】 main influence on British cooking. English kitchens got ingredients from all over the world. All of them 【小题8】 (use) in British dishes successfully. Another important influence on British cooking was 【小题9】 (certain) the weather. For the British, the good old rain gives 【小题10】 (they) rich soil and green grass. That means they are able to produce some of the finest meat, fruit and vegetables, which don’t need many sauces (调料) to cover their taste.