Invented in the Tang Dynasty and widely adopted after the Song Dynasty in Fujian, the watertight-bulkhead (水密舱壁) technology permits the construction of ocean-going ships with watertight compartments (隔层). If one or two cabins are accidentally damaged at sea, water will not flood the other cabins and the ships will remain afloat.
The experience and working methods of watertight-bulkhead technology are transmitted orally from master to apprentices. However, the need for Chinese junks (中国式帆船) has decreased sharply as wooden ships have been replaced by steel-hulled ships, and today only three masters can claim full command of this technology. Associated building costs have also increased owing to a shortage in raw materials. Therefore, the inheritance (继承) of this heritage is decreasing, and inheritors are forced to seek alternative employment.
Zhang Guohui, a 77-year-old inheritor of the watertight-bulkhead techniques used to make Chinese junks, has been making ships for more than six decades. Coming from a poor family in a fishing town in East China’s Fujian Province, Zhang started to make a living at the age of 16 fishing on the open seas, which is where he developed a keen interest in constructing boats. As a fast learner, Zhang was later sent to shipyards in the cities of Quanzhou and Xiamen in Fujian Province, where he received training and became a master of traditional Chinese junks and gained fame because of his extremely skilled craftsmanship in the construction of these junks.
In fear that the traditional skills would die someday, Zhang started to restore old ships and make model junks for the museum with his 20 years of shipbuilding skills. “The restored ancient ships are the historical witnesses of Quanzhou as a maritime center of the East and Southeast Asia trade network,” said Zhang, adding that he finds the work meaningful since younger generations can learn from exhibitions of ancient ships that their ancestors had advanced shipbuilding technology at an early stage of development. “As long as I’m alive, I’ll keep passing on the heritage,” he said.
1. What function is expected of the watertight-bulkhead technology?| A．To prevent ships from sinking. | B．To reduce the weight of ships. |
| C．To allow ships to sail faster. | D．To help ships resist strong winds. |
| A．To prove the significance of steel-hulled ships.” |
| B．To stress the complex process of building wooden ships. |
| C．To present people’s efforts to pass down cultural heritages. |
| D．To show difficulties of inheriting watertight-bulkhead technology. |
| A．He supports his family by fishing. |
| B．He was born with a talent for shipbuilding. |
| C．He has devoted himself to constructing boats. |
| D．He has won many awards for restoring ancient ships. |
| A．Traditional culture should be innovated with the times. |
| B．The ancient ship trade originated from Quanzhou in China. |
| C．It is necessary for modern students to learn shipbuilding skills. |
| D．It is worth passing on traditional skills from generation to generation. |
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【推荐1】Most of today’s farmers make decisions about how much fertiliser to apply based on a combination of rough measurements, experience and recommendations. It takes some time before a course of action is decided and applied, but the results are normally not seen until harvest time.
A digital agriculture system, however, gathers data more frequently and accurately, often combined with external sources (such as weather information). The combined data is analysed and interpreted so the farmer can make more informed and appropriate decisions. These decisions can then be quickly carried out with greater accuracy through robotics and advanced machinery, and farmers can get real-time feedback on the impact of their actions.
Believe it or not, technologies have been widely applied in different aspects of agriculture, ranging from managing, producing to transporting. For example, a software is developed to control growing conditions so as to grow vegetable for some customers with special needs. The rise in digital shelves and smart warehouses means farmers can better react to changes in demand. While new intelligent transport systems, such as driverless vehicles and drones, offer the prospect of delivering food from farm to fork in far more flexible, creative ways.
While the benefits of digital agriculture are appealing, it has met with significant challenges, such as disquietude about data usage. There is uncertainty about who will have access to the farmer’s data and what they will do with it. More progressive farmers are aware that their farming data could potentially fall into the wrong hands and be used against them.
In short, new as the approach is, digital agriculture does have the great potential to transform the way we produce the world’s food.
1. How does the writer explain the advantage of digital agriculture?| A．By analyzing data. | B．By making comparison. |
| C．By giving experiment results. | D．By referring to some theories. |
| A．Lower transportation cost. | B．Shorter growing process. |
| C．Larger numbers of customers. | D．Smarter producing ways. |
| A．Conflict. | B．Competition. | C．Concern. | D．Curiosity. |
| A．Hopeful. | B．Uncertain. | C．Risky. | D．Arguable. |
【推荐2】Innovation (创新) comes from environments where ideas can connect.
As epidemics go, the Black Death of the 1300s was extremely shocking.
There were other outbreaks of the plague in England later on. In 1592, London faced an outbreak that shut down theaters for six months. This led Shakespeare to start writing poetry to make a living.
In the US, the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721 led 1o the spread of variolation (天花接种) which was responsible for reducing the death rate from 14% to 2%, as well as the first steps towards vaccines.
COVID-19 is causing serious damage around the world. And although the death rate is nowhere close, the economic impact has been overwhelming. On the negative side, it has highlighted many of the shortcoming in the health-care industry as nurses and doctors battle the virus unfortunately under-equipped.
| A．But does epidemics have more negative effects on the environment |
| B．So what kind of environment does an epidemic create when it comes to quickening innovation |
| C．And the debate of vaccination ushered in a new era in journalism |
| D．With increased connectivity and technology, innovators are trying to solve many medical problems |
| E．Nowadays, health-care equipment has been made in large quantities |
| F．And it was during this time that he wrote Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucre |
| G．The plague (瘟疫) , as it is also known, wiped out up to 60% of the population in Europe |
【推荐3】The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the nation’s top industry regulator, called for lasting efforts to break key technological bottlenecks such as operating systems. Vice-Minister of Industry and Information Technology Wang Jiangping said at a meeting on Wednesday that persistence(毅力)is needed to develop key technologies and more efforts will be made to increase the supply ability of operating systems and other services.
An operating system or OS is the foundational software that powers a digital device(设备). Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and Huawei’s Harmony OS are among the leading OSs that power smartphones or smart devices, while Microsoft’s Windows is considered the market leader in personal computer OSs. Operating system is a key area that Chinese companies are working on to reduce their dependence on foreign companies due to the US government’s limitation. Huawei Technologies Co is continuing its drive for development of the OpenEuler operating system as part of its broader push to solve China’s lack of homegrown operating systems for basic digital technologies.
The OpenEuler is designed for company customers and can be used in devices such as servers, cloud computing and edge computing. It is chiefly used in industries like finance, transportation and telecom. Last year, Huawei donated the Euler operating system to the OpenAtom Foundation, a major open source foundation in China, to become an open-source OS. Wang Tao, a member of Huawei’s executive board, said the OpenEuler open source community now has 600 company members, and more than 3 million sets of equipment have been equipped with the OpenEuler operating system. OpenEuler now accounts for 25 percent of the new market of server operating systems in China.
1. What does the first paragraph mainly to show?| A．It will have a long way to go to develop an OS. |
| B．The government’s pay little attention to key technologies. |
| C．Some technological bottlenecks are impossible to break. |
| D．The ability to supply OS doesn’t need improving. |
| A．Windows is the only OS in personal computer OSs. |
| B．A smart device can’t work at all without an OS. |
| C．An OS is an important hardware of a digital device. |
| D．Some Chinese companies are attempting to break foreign company’s limitation. |
| A．It is designed for individual customers at first. |
| B．It is only used in finance, transport and telecom. |
| C．It was an open-source OS developed by Huawei from the beginning. |
| D．It makes up one fourth of the new market of server operating systems in China. |
| A．To explain the general situation of the OS in China. |
| B．To introduce the functions of OpenEuler. |
| C．To show government’s determination to break the key technological bottlenecks. |
| D．To present the achievement Huawei has gained. |
【推荐1】Polly Arrowsmith is a clever bargain shopper, and knows exactly when her three local supermarkets make their daily price down. She estimates that hunting out food with yellow discounted labels saves her hundreds of pounds a year. But all this could soon be coming to an end. That’s because supermarkets are adopting dynamic pricing, controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) software.
It involves digital price tags that are displayed either on the shelf below the food items, or on high-tech labels attached the product itself. These prices are automatically, and wirelessly, updated by the AI when a particular item approaches its sell-by date. The AI also examines how much stock (库存) the store is holding of that item and makes the decision as to whether a markdown is requiredor not. Besides, it can help supermarkets better understand how to manage stock supply and avoid over-ordering. So we’re actually turning the current food waste problem into an opportunity and can help cut supermarkets’ food waste by more than a third.
Matt Wills, the co-founder of a firm called Acumen, warns that there are potential disadvantages to dynamic pricing. “Not knowing what the reference price is, consumers might not realise they are getting a deal at all,” he says. “This could also cause added complications for people who retired, if items are seen to be continually changing in price.”
The key, Mr. Wills believes, will be for supermarkets to have strict guidelines to ensure they can offer the benefits that dynamic pricing can bring, while ensuring AI doesn’t create unintended negative consequences for shoppers. Whether shoppers will welcome the change is another question, but Mr. Wills believes they’ll be won over by the price reductions they receive.
Ms. Arrowsmith admits she will miss the yellow discount stickers that have become part of her shopping routine. However, she also says she wants to see less food going to waste. “I’m happy to forgo really cheap pricing,” she says.
1. Why are yellow discount labels disappearing?| A．They are easy to hunt out. |
| B．They expose some safety issues. |
| C．They cause great damage to shoppers. |
| D．They are replaced with digital pricing. |
| A．The advantages of using the AI. |
| B．The display of digital price tags. |
| C．The management of stock supply. |
| D．The problem of current food waste. |
| A．It offers the cheapest price. | B．It greatly reduces food stock. |
| C．It has side effect on retirees. | D．It gives rise to legal problems. |
| A．Pay off. | B．Give up. | C．Agree on. | D．Cut down. |
【推荐2】With digital devices always in hand, we are constantly connected to news, entertainment, and social interactions that seem to fill every moment of our day. It appears that boredom has nearly reached extinction. However, these short-term digital “solutions” may only serve to strengthen the grip of boredom over us. It’s like an addiction where we need more and more intense stimulation (刺激) to fight boredom. And this could finally lead to more boredom in the long run. Rather than fighting a constant battle against boredom, it is easier and more productive to actually embrace it and enjoy the benefits of being bored.
Paula Smith, a psychology professor in the UK, says boredom is an essential part of the creative process and should be applied in our day-to-day lives. During one of her studies into the effects of boredom, Smith’s researchers gave subjects various boring tasks to complete and then asked them to use their creative thinking. The people who had the most boring task — reading the phone book — came up with the most interesting uses plastic cups, which is a standard test of divergent thinking. Smith says that boredom encourages people’s minds to wander, leading them to more associative and creative ways of thinking.
Researchers in Ireland believe that boredom can encourage us to be more altruistic. In other words, boredom makes people more likely to engage in behaviors like donating to the charity and volunteering in the community. In their study, they found that when people are bored, they are less aware of their own activities and circumstances. This, they say, motivates people to search elsewhere to re-establish their self-meaning.
So next time you feel bored, don’t scroll it away on your phones. Not every gap should be filled with something to do. Sometimes less is most definitely more.
1. According to the writer, digital devices ________.| A．enable users to become more productive |
| B．help people enjoy the benefits of being bored |
| C．make it harder for users to overcome boredom |
| D．will eventually lead to the extinction of boredom |
| A．The possible solutions to boredom. |
| B．The application of creative thinking patterns. |
| C．The approaches to stimulate creative thinking. |
| D．The relationship between boredom and creativity. |
| A．active | B．generous | C．creative | D．confident |
| A．Stay busy, stay creative. |
| B．Keep away from boredom. |
| C．When you feel bored, be bored |
| D．Less boredom is more creativity. |
【推荐3】Some people like to listen to the Beatles, while others prefer Gregorian chants. When it comes to music, scientists find that nurture (培养) can overpower nature.
A study shows musical preferences seem to be mainly shaped by a person’s cultural upbringing and experiences rather than biological factors. “Our results show that there is a profound cultural difference in the way people respond to consonant (和谐的) and dissonant (不和谐的) sounds, and this suggests that other cultures hear the world differently,” says Josh McDermott, a scientist in Cambridge.
Some scientists believe that the way people respond to music has a biological basis and that this would overpower any cultural shaping of musical preferences, effectively making them a universal phenomenon. Some musicians, by contrast, think that such preferences are more a product of one’s culture. If a person’s upbringing shapes their preferences, then they are not a universal phenomenon.
The trick to working out where musical preferences come from was to find and test people who hadn’t had much contact with Western music. McDermott and his team travelled by aeroplane, car and canoe (独木舟) to reach the remote villages of the Tsimane people, who are largely isolated from Western culture.
In their experiments, McDermott and his colleagues investigated responses to Western music by playing combinations of notes to three groups of people: the Tsimane and two other groups of Bolivians that had experienced increasing levels of exposure to Western music. The researchers recorded whether each group regarded the notes as pleasant or unpleasant.
The Tsimane are just as good at making acoustic (声响的) distinctions as the groups with more experience of other types of music, the scientists find. Most people prefer consonant tones, but the Tsimane have no preference between them. “This pretty convincingly rules out that the preferences are things we’re born with,” McDermott argues.
“Culture plays a role. We like the music we grew up with,” agrees Dale Purves, a scientist at Duke University. “Nature versus nurture is always a fool’s errand. It’s almost always a combination,” he adds.
1. Why does the author mention Beatles in the first paragraph?| A．To compare people’s preferences for music. |
| B．To stress the importance of music. |
| C．To introduce the topic to be discussed. |
| D．To encourage readers to listen to their music. |
| A．people’s music preference is a universal phenomenon |
| B．Chinese and Japanese have different music preferences |
| C．the way people respond to music is biologically decided |
| D．parents have nothing to do with children’s music preference |
| A．They prefer consonant tones. |
| B．They are born with excellent music talent. |
| C．They do well in telling acoustic distinctions. |
| D．They have never had contact with Western music. |
| A．Something meaningless. | B．Something significant. |
| C．Something reliable. | D．Something sensitive. |
【推荐1】On April 18—the International Day for Monuments and Sites, China Daily’s digital employee Yuanxi and Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes’ official virtual cartoon figure Jiayao together introduced an interactive digital platform that hosts a virtual copy of the Mogao Grottoes’ Library Cave(藏经洞) to the world.
The platform was developed jointly by the Dunhuang Academy and the Chinese tech firm Tencent. It uses gaming technologies to show the historical scenes of the Library Cave in the digital world.
The Library Cave in Mogao Grottoes was discovered in 1900, with more than 60,000 cultural relics dating from the 4th century to the 11th century unearthed. It was one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the 20th century.
On the platform, visitors can role-play and “time travel” to ancient dynasties and talk with eight historical figures. The public can enter the platform through the Digital Dunhuang website and its WeChat mini program.
In the digital age, the model of “culture+technology” has been introduced to promote the development of Chinese culture. The digitalization rate of China’s precious cultural relics is now over 70 percent, according to the 2022 China Digital Collection Industry Research Report released by iResearch.
Institutions such as the Palace Museum have also started online digital services of their own. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology allows the public to view the interior of the buildings through the Palace Museum’s WeChat mini program.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism has also encouraged the development and transformation of cultural intellectual property(知识产权) by digital means. China Central Television has created a series of digital collections with different Dunhuang themes, such as the Dunhuang divine deer(神鹿) Youyou. It was created based on the image of the nine-colored deer from Dunhuang murals(壁画). The public can see the divine deer on CCTV’s own digital platform.
Digital collections cater to the consumption habits of young people, who grow up in the information age. They not only protect the intellectual property of the collections but also bring the public closer to China’s “excellent traditional culture”, noted Dunhuang Art Institute.
Su Bomin, director of the Dunhuang Academy, told Xinhua that more efforts will be made to explore new forms for showing cultural relics and offer the public greater cultural experiences to develop Dunhuang culture.
1. What can visitors do on the interactive digital platform for the Mogao Grottoes’ Library Cave?| A．Play role-playing games set in ancient times. |
| B．Play video games featuring historical figures. |
| C．Talk to the designer of the digital Library Cave. |
| D．Design digital caves showing historical scenes. |
| A．To show the latest gaming technologies. |
| B．To help cultural institutions make a profit. |
| C．To promote the development of Chinese culture. |
| D．To encourage people to explore new forms of cultural relics. |
| A．To stress the importance of digital collections. |
| B．To describe its popularity among young people. |
| C．To present how digital collections are developed. |
| D．To introduce a successful example of digital collections. |
| A．Ignore. | B．Satisfy. |
| C．Challenge. | D．Change. |
【推荐2】At one time, the passing on of traditional drama was difficult. Many celebrities and big names went to communities to carry out public welfare performances of opera, and did everything possible to expand the coverage of traditional drama. In recent years, traditional Chinese culture and art has gained a foothold on short video platforms and attracted a large number of young followers thanks to the explosive growth of the short video industry. Relaxing and emotional, these video contents perfectly match the demands of the users. With the application of new technologies such as social communication and immersive (沉浸式的) experiencing, short video platforms are seeing more users, becoming a shining spot of new Internet media.
Recently, Huangmei Opera “Female Consort Prince” became a hit on short video platforms. The interactive platforms are expanding the charm of the traditional opera among young people. Peking Opera was also well-received on short video platforms thanks to a series of augmented reality (AR) effects. Users love to film short videos with a set of virtual facial makeup, headwear and costumes. Data indicate that these effects were applied by more than 18 million users, most of whom were young.
In addition to Chinese operas, intangible cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产) items, such as embroidery, paper-cutting, printing and dyeing, shadow play works, oiled paper umbrella making, and bamboo weaving are also actively promoted on short video platforms. In a word, short video platforms are becoming an important channel to display China’s intangible cultural heritage.
Short video platforms, offering a fun, popular and easy way to explore the traditional art forms, are receiving a lot of positive feedbacks from China’s young generations. The seconds, or minutes long videos, along with unlimited possibilities as well as richness of styles, have produced remarkable achievements in promoting traditional Chinese culture.
1. What mainly made the passing on of traditional drama difficult?| A．The difficult techniques of drama. | B．The slow growth of art industry. |
| C．The poorly-met demands of the users. | D．The shortage of good drama actors. |
| A．The social communication. | B．The set of virtual facial makeup. |
| C．The positive reviews from users. | D．The application of new technologies. |
| A．To prove traditional art forms are actively promoted. |
| B．To illustrate the charm of traditional Chinese culture. |
| C．To show the current situation of these cultural heritage. |
| D．To offer new channels to display China’s cultural heritage. |
| A．The Bright Future of Chinese Traditional Drama |
| B．The Explosive Growth of the Short Video Industry |
| C．The Simple Way to Explore the Traditional Art Form |
| D．The Creative Combination of Culture and Technologies |
【推荐3】In early February, an old stove with rich vivid images (zaotou painting) took center stage at a village Spring Festival gala in Haiyan county, Zhejiang province.
At first, simple tools had been used to produce such art, including a selection of brushes, rulers, and paint. With people’s aesthetic appreciation growing, watercolors were used, mostly red, yellow and blue, the three auspicious (吉祥的) ones to the Chinese people.
Now many people are devoted to the inheritance and popularization of zaotou painting and more and more support has been received from various sides including local authorities.
| A．Zaotou painting has a history of at least 300 years |
| B．Villagers were occupied in building zaotou for their houses |
| C．Folk craftsmen painted to express their passions for life later on |
| D．They all consist of a base and a body that embraces inserted pans |
| E．Zaotou painting has been definitely greeting its new spring and hope |
| F．Later new materials replaced watercolors to solve the color-fading problem |
| G．The images represent people’s respect to heroes and wishes for good fortune |
