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Can you really make out the difference between British Isles, Britain, United Kingdom and England?
These terms are familiar to us, but meanwhile ____1_____to us Chinese.
The British Isles are made up of two large ____2____: One is Britain and the other Ireland. Britain, or
Great Britain, is the ____3____of the two islands, which is ___ 4_____ into three parts: England, Scotland
and Wale.The United Kingdom (UK) is short for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland. UK ____5___ Scotland, Wales and England ( i.e. the whole of Britain), and also about one-sixth
of Ireland, the northern part. The ____6____ of Ireland called the Republic of Ireland is another country.
England is the largest of the four, and generally speaking, the richest section. Its capital is London,
____7____ is also the capital of the UK. London lies on the River Thames. Much of England is rather flat,
although there are ____8____ in the northeast and in the center of the country. English people tend to use
the ____9____ "England" and "English" when they mean "Britain" and "British". This sometimes upsets the Welsh and the Scots as they are not included. "Why don't they use 'Walsh' or '____10___' ?" they may
wonder.
London is beautiful. Today, you cannot deny the beauty, myth, and wonder of the River Thames, which
has good ____11____. However,in the nineteenth century, in some books, the Thames was ____12____
as a grey, dirty, smutty, sooty, smoky river. These were not only existing in nineteenth century. It had
____13____ been like this for centuries,never clear.
At that time, many ordinary people were ___14 to cholera. This was the ____15____ disease of its day. Neither its cause nor its cure was understood. No one knew the disease just came from the
___16 water.
So many thousands of ___17___ people died every time there was an(a) ___18 . Disasters like these
always remain us unforgettable lessons.
Now you know England is of course different from the UK. At present, the UK played an important part in the ____19____affairs. It is a member state of the United Nations, ____20____ the European Union and NATO. "The UN, the UK and the US often go hand in hand in the world," people joke. Do you think so? |