16.阅读短文,然后从方框内选择恰当的单词并用其适当的形式填空.
Chinese students work hard to learn English.Do you know American kids are(76)tryingto learn Chinese?About 50,000American students now study Chinese."Because of china's fast growth,Chinese is more useful than(77)otherlanguages,"said Scott McGinnis,a Washington language expert.
For example,in 1999,only three Chicago schools had Chinese classes.This year more than 20do.In many US cities,students take Chinese lessons during holidays(78)oron the weekends.But Chicago schools teach Chinese during the regular day.Last year China gave them 3,000textbooks because they had done a good job.(79)Although Chinese classes are becoming popular,it is one of the most difficult languages.It totally takes an English speaker about 1,320hours to become good at Chinese,but it only takes 480hours to learn French,Spanish or Italian.