4 . Vincent Willem van Gogh is a great Dutch painter. In 2017 one of his paintings was sold for $81 million. 2021 seemed to be Vincent Willem van Gogh’s year. There were at least five different exhibits in nearly 40 U. S. cities regarding his works. It’s very surprising to know he sold only a few paintings in his lifetime, for only little profit (利润). How did this now-famous painter fail to escape attention after his death? It was probably thanks to a woman.

Six months after Van Gogh died, his beloved brother Theo passed away, who had expected to make his brother’s works well-known. Fortunately, Theo’s wife Johanna van Gogh-Bonge, as an English teacher at two different girls’ schools before her marriage, was left with their son and a sizable art collection. She decided to help Tneo’s wishes come true. “During her lifetime, she devoted herself to making people know more about Vincent’s art,” says Luijten, the author of Johanna’s lifetime story.

Johanna tried all her best to improve Van Gogh’s name. To do this, she chose some of his works to sell and encouraged writers and art critics to write about his paintings though she was refused many times. Johanna didn’t lose heart. She lent some pieces to well-known museums and organized countless exhibitions. “One of Johanna’s major achievements was the organization of an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in 1905, where she collected no less than 484 of Van Gogh’s works. A Van Gogh exhibition of this size would never again be matched,” Luijten explains. Another particular move happened in 1914 when Johanna published Van Gogh’s letters. Theo had kept hundreds of letters. “This was of great importance, as following the publication of the letters, the appreciation of Van Gogh as an artist increased further,” says Luijten.

“There’s little doubt that although Van Gogh was great, he wouldn’t be remembered to the level seen today without the influence of Johanna.” said Luijten.

Lu Xun, who is acknowledged as one of the greatest modern writers in China, was born in Zhejiang Province in 1881. In 1904, he went to Japan and became a medical student, aiming to improve people’s health and save lives. _________Nevertheless, he saw a Chinese man about to be killed by a Japanese soldier in a photo, which changed his intention. What struck him was that the other Chinese men in the photo _________apparently did not care about what was happening to their fellow countrymen. From this, he concluded that the spiritual illness of people at that time was a more _________crucial problem in China than physical illness. Lu had an appetite for the power to change the present situation of China.

_________Consequently, he quit medical school. He returned to China in 1908 and _________obtained a teaching job, hoping to promote the innovation of society. In 1917, a friend insisted that he help write for a magazine named New Youth. That was how his first famous short story A Madman’s Diary got published.

Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet, a BBC one-hour documentary, was launched on April 6 this year. It was the first time that Du’s life    1     (put) in a global context.

For the Chinese, Du,     2    style of poetry is called realism, is more than a poet; he has been the guardian of the moral of the nation. The BBC gave great    3     (recognise) to the works of Du for his unique     4     (way) to express his concern for his country and people.

To explore his life and discover what the poet means to China and the Chinese people, the film crew had an     5     (extreme) tough time tracking the footsteps of the eighth-century poet.

    6    Du’s poems were mostly written in plain and simple language, they are not an easy watch for many foreigners. To help overseas audiences make sense of the poet’s great achievements in literature, Du is compared     7    Shakespeare in this documentary. Also, the program invited McKellen,     8    screen actor who played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies,     9     (read) 15 of Du’s poems that had been translated into English. With all these efforts     10     (make), foreigners can better understand what makes Du’s works so special.

8 . At the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, halfway in the women’s slalom (障碍滑雪) race, 18-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin took a commanding lead over the greatest women’s slalom skiers in the world. On her final run, she burst from the start house at a breakneck speed, snaking around the poles in crazy rhythm.

Skiing has always been a significant part of Mikaela’s life. Her mom raced and coached skiing and her dad ski raced all through college. The Shiffrins taught Mikaela and her brother, Taylor, to ski at a very young age. At the age of two and a half, Mikaela made her first ski run on plastic skis. From ages 8 to 11, she worked hard, practicing hundreds of training runs on small hills repeatedly to develop the correct techniques of slalom skiing.

When Mikaela was 11, she attended the Burke Mountain Academy, a Vermont boarding school for skiers. She took classes, studied, and practiced her skiing crazily. According to Kirk Dwyer, Burke Mountain Academy headmaster, “It was the degree of Mikaela’s effort to be the best that distinguished her from others. Her commitment to conditioning, having proper sleep, eating correctly, doing the drills, and watching video was unusual for an 11 to 13-year-old. Mikaela practiced more than anyone and believed in herself then and now.”

By the time she was 17, she had already won her first World Cup race.

Working hard is a full-time job for Mikaela. Even her off-season is work time. In the summer, when Mikaela is off the ski slopes and in the gym, her daily training consists of six to seven hours of weight lifting, swimming, and biking to improve her core strength and flexibility. She does all of this so that she can dash down slopes at speeds topping 50 miles per hour while cutting back and forth around gates with astonishing precision.

“If you have passion for your targets, whatever they are,” she says, “the sky is the limit. Give it your all!”

The Chinese Scientist I Admire Most

In 1954, she was elected to the first National People’s Congress and, over the next several     1    , she held many important positions. Her heart, however, was     2    . She was most interested     3     tending patients,     4     medical research on care for women and children, and training the next generation of doctors.