Talent shows are     1     more and more popular. It’s interesting to watch other people show their     2    . There are many talent shows     3     the world,     4     American Idols, America’s Got Talent and China’s Got Talent. All these shows have one thing in     5    . They try to look for the best singers, the most talented dancers, the most exciting     6    , the funniest actors and so     7    . When people watch the shows, they usually play a role in     8     the winner. However, not     9     enjoy watching these shows. We shouldn’t take these shows     10    .

Chinese Character Dictation Contest, an     1     program in China, is becoming popular among people. The program is very     2     and it makes people all over China interested in writing Chinese characters(汉字).

In fact, the main use of computers and smart phones makes most young people hardly     3     to write by hand. Many of them even cannot remember the 10, 000 characters in everyday life without help from computers or smart phones.

CCTV     4     Chinese Character Dictation Contest to improve the people’s handwriting in 2013.     5     the contestants (参与者) on the show are students, it may be even     6     for some older audiences(观众) to write every word right than those on the show.

Because of computers and smart phones, people like to type(打字) characters by using pinyin.

They don’t need to remember how to write them and it has to do with the     7     and smart phones. So people are expecting to take up a hobby like writing Chinese characters     8     by hand and take it as an art of Chinese     9     because of the program.

Learning Chinese characters goes on throughout(贯穿) the life. If you stop using them for a long time, you will     10     them quickly.

“How old are you?” The radio manager looked down at me.

“Fifteen,” I said.

“And you want a job in radio? Shouldn’t you be at school?” he asked.

How could I explain? I’ve always     1     the radio. I still remember,     2     I was four years old, I sat close to the radio in the living room,     3     to my favourite programmes and to the voices of my favourite presenters. It seemed that they were speaking not to lots of listeners but to me     4     person. At the age of nine, I asked for part-time jobs in small radio stations.

As I grew     5     my interest in radio grew. One day I learnt about Internet radio. Once a week, I played my favourite music from my     6     computer, talked about life at school and hoped someone might be listening.

Soon my friends at school     7     to listen, and then they wanted to help. We prepared a programme once a week, doing research by     8     articles about music and sports news. We also did research for jokes and the weather report (I did this by looking out of the window).

“OK, come with me,” the manager said. I sat down in the studio. He was in another room, behind a glass wall.

“OK, let’s do a sound check. Just tell me     9     you had for breakfast.”

All radio presenters need to answer the same question before they begin work. The purpose is to check the sound level.

“I had eggs, fruit and some milk.”

“OK, that’s great!” the man behind the glass said.

This was how my     10     real job in radio began.

Most children like to watch TV because     1     is very interesting. They can see and learn a lot and know many things about their country and the world by     2     TV. Of course, they can     3     learn over the radio (收录机). But they can learn better and more easily with TV.     4    ? Because they can watch and hear at the same time. But they can’t see     5     over the radio.

TV helps to     6     children’s eyes and their minds. They learn newer and better ways of doing things. They may find the world is now     7     than before.

Many children watch TV only     8     Saturday or Sunday evening. They are always busy with their     9    . But a few children watch TV every night. They go to bed very     10    . They can’t have a good rest. How about you, my young friend?

Do you often watch TV? Maybe your answer is “Yes”. Most children like     1     TV because it’s     2     and relaxing. They can also     3     a lot and know lots of things about their country and the world. TV helps to open     4     eyes. TV can also open their minds. They can learn some better     5     of doing things. Many children     6     always busy with their studies, so they watch TV only on     7     . But some children watch TV every night. They go to     8     very late and they can’t have     9     good rest (休息). I don’t think it’s good to do so.     10     do you think of it?

In the summer of 2021, a TV show, The Awakening Age(《觉醒年代》) became a hot topic and won much praise from young people     1     great TV skills and the fantastic description of the real events. It’s very rare (难得的) that a historical show could achieve such high word-of-mouth praise, but even those people who dislike historical shows     2    it from the beginning to the end. The Awakening Age has won a high score of 9.3/10 on China’s reviewing site Douban.

The TV show uses well-accepted method to show how China finally found the right development path(道路), a process that was tough(艰难的). The show told the story about how the Communist Party of China(the CPC, 中国共产党) grew up a hundred years ago. It     3     a talk about “how to save China” among some Chinese students. Everything was difficult at that time, but you could see that young people always did their best to help our country. Also, there were many famous names in Chinese history,     4     Hu Shi, Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu in the show.

The show did not use the most famous and very good-looking actors or actresses. Differently, they tried to     5     by making actors’ faces similar to the real ones. That’s why many people thought it     6     a mirror of real history.

Unlike the usual,70％of the audiences (观众) of The Awakening Age were young people. Quite a few students found this TV show more popular than history books. There were few other shows with this praise.

“Students in The Awakening Age     7     take so many responsibilities, although they were just at my age. “A 16-year-old student said, “the CPC took us to a better life like a red boat, and it is important to     8     where the road came from and how many difficulties it had in the past.”