“I hope I’m strong enough this year,” Tyler thought when he and his mother reached his grandparents’ farmhouse. Last year, he gave up after 10 minutes for the great _______ from the arms, just hoping not to get hurt.

“I’m so glad you come to help!” Grandma greeted _______ with hugs, seeming to read Tyler’s mind.

Around the farm, Tyler’s brother Jason was lifting bales* up to Uncle Don, who was placing them into the _______ that Tyler’s dad was controlling along the way.

Jason waved. “Hey, rookie*. Ready?”

“I guess so.” In order to do better, Tyler had practiced by _______ boxes filled with books every day.

While helping lift the bales, Tyler felt they were lighter, but still heavy _______ the truck was full, his arms felt as if they’d fall off.

Later inside the barn*, Jason, Tyler and Mom climbed up to the hayloft*. “We’ll _______ you the bales, and you can pile* them,” Dad said.

Dad and Uncle Don made it look so easy, like throwing ___________ boxes. The boys tried to pull the bales to Mom and put them in order.

Tyler’s _______ got more painful by the minute. Even Jason looked tired too.

Grandma entered the barn with water for _______. “Want to come down and rest?” she called up.

“Should I say yes?” Tyler thought, with a dry mouth. “I feel so ________.” Then he noticed a calendar on the door, ________ made him think of all the years his family had worked for this field. This year, he was part of it.

“No, thanks, Grandma,” Tyler said.

Looking at Tyler with his eyes open ________, Jason almost fell on his foot. Finally, Uncle Don ________, “That’s it! Well done!” They all climbed ________,leaving the well-placed hayloft there, and headed to the house.

To Tyler, it had seemed like a ________ job, but he was no longer a rookie.

Started along the Huaihe River in eastern China, Flower Drum Lantern dance is well-known for its bright colors, different forms, and cheerful spirit.

As a traditional treasure in China, the dance has a very long history. It is said to have appeared during the Song Dynasty, developed through the Ming Dynasty, and finally widely welcomed during the Qing Dynasty. It is usually used to show the peaceful lives of people in the countryside.

In the dance, the women dancers each wears a red silk ball flower on their heads. In their hands, silk fans and scarves are used as props. And the props used by men are mainly umbrellas, short wooden sticks and drums. Before 1949, women were discouraged from performing in public, so women roles were mostly played by men. That is why all of the older famous artists still alive today are men.

The dance is usually performed in an open area such as the central square of a village and the side of a river. The audiences usually come around in a circle. Inside the circle are several long benches with the drum group on one side. The performers enter the circle with the women standing on the men’s shoulders, then the men lower the women to the benches and stand beside them. The show begins when the men with umbrellas enter the performance space. They bow and lead the performers into the centre to dance.

Flower Drum Lantern dance is still quite popular across the country, especially in places such as Fengyang in Anhui, Guangshan in Henan, and Haian in Jiangsu. Even today, village dance teams often compete with each other by performing the dances during the Spring Festival.

On December 25, 2021, a new and exciting age of space science started when the James Webb Space Telescope was launched* into space. According to NASA, Webb is the largest and most powerful space science telescope ever built.

At first, Webb was planned to cost half a billion dollars and launched in 2007. But it turned out to be impossible. As designed, Webb’s orbit* is about 1.6 million kilometers away from the earth. It is too far for the astronauts to repair if it breaks down. So everything has to work perfectly on the first try, and it is the main reason why NASA spent nearly 30 years and 10 billion dollars getting it ready for launch.

Considered as a successor* to the old Hubble Space Telescope, Webb will allow us to look deeper into the universe than ever before. Hubble mostly sees what we see—which is known as visible light. But Webb is designed to focus on the infrared* light, which is invisible to the human eyes. That means Webb can see through dust* in the universe and make new discoveries by examining stars inside those dust clouds. It will try to collect light from the very first stars when the universe was young. By collecting the light, the telescope can see galaxies as they appeared in the past, which could help to explain how the universe began. It will also study the planets around other stars, looking for signs of life.

In order to collect the light and focus it into its camera, the mirror* Webb uses is 6.5 meters across much larger than Hubble’s 2.4-meter-wide mirror. The size advantage gives Webb 6.25 times more surface area to collect light in the universe, letting it see further and more detailed. However, the mirror also needs to be small enough to fit into a rocket to be launched into space. To fit the telescope in the rocket, engineers built the mirror with 18 honeycomb-shaped segments* that could fold up. And during Webb’s journey to the orbit, they will unfold, creating one large mirror.

Now, Webb has been in its orbit for several months, and it will send back its first images in June. By the time, the results will prove it is of great value to put so much time and money in building it.

“I had to leave school when I was thirteen, if I had half the chances that you have, I’d…” Mr. Ridley was giving a lecture to his boy, Greg again. He was disappointed that Greg did poorly at school and didn’t allow him to play basketball anymore.

Feeling upset, Greg left home and wanted to go away. Suddenly, it rained heavily. Greg entered an old apartment. There he met a homeless old man named Lemon Brown.

As they talked, Greg learnt that Lemon was a singer before he met some hard times.

Now he was hiding there to protect his treasure from the bad men in the town. “ ▲ ” Greg asked.

“Actually, everyone gets a treasure.” Lemon Brown said. “You want to see mine?” “If you want to show me.” Greg replied.

Lemon carefully took the rags away from his right leg, there was a piece of plastic.

Then he took out some yellowed newspaper. “Here it is,” he said.

Greg looked at the clippings in surprise. All of them were reviews of shows Lemon had been in when he was young.

“I used to travel around and sing to make money for my family. When my son Jesse grew up to be a soldier. I had nothing to give him except these things that told him who I was, and where he came from.”

“Then what happened?” Greg asked.

“One time I went home and got a letter saying Jesse was killed in the war. The army sent back all the things Jesse used to carry around—those old clippings. That was my treasure, and when I give it to him, he treated it just like that, a treasure. Isn’t that something?”

“I guess so,” Greg said. “But you really think that treasure of yours was worth fighting against the bad guys?”

“As a boy, you’re sure to ask such a foolish question. What else can be more valuable than what a man can pass on to his son or daughter?” Lemon said as he put his treasure back in place.

The rain stopped then, Greg decided to go home. He believed Lemon would be OK with his memories and treasure.

When he rang the bell, Greg thought of the lecture his father would give him next, and smiled.

Mohamed, a college student coming from Egypt, often shares his experiences of learning Chinese culture on the     46    （社会的）media platform, Facebook.

Before he came to China, Mohamed     47    （总是）believed that all Chinese people could perform kungfu, jumping onto the top of houses and walking over walls. Like many people in his     48    （家乡）, he thought the country was not that developed and people usually travelled in green trains which moved slowly.

Soon after he got a chance to study China in 2019, he     49    （改变）his view and decided to show people what China really looks like. So far, Mohamed has posted more than     50    （五十）videos about China, including taking the high-speed railway, performing Chinese kungfu, and learning Xiangsheng. What’s more, Mohamed speaks Chinese in his videos, which are welcomed     51    （在……之间） his 20,000 followers.

It often takes a lot of time     52    （准备）these videos, but Mohamed feels proud to find that his videos have helped people learn more about Chinese culture and become much     53    （感兴趣的）in the country. The young Egyptian man said that he would continue to build more cultural     54    （桥梁）between China and Egypt when reporters asked him about his plan in the future.     55    （尽管）the goal may not be achieved easily, Mohamed will put in more efforts to play his part.

56. 五一期间，学校英语俱乐部决定赴著名数学家姜立夫的故居——龙港市麟头村，开展研学项目。作为俱乐部的负责人，请你参考以下提示，写一篇约 110 词的英语短文介绍本次研学项目的活动目的、计划及注意事项等，并谈谈你对本次活动的感想和期望。注意：1. 文中不能出现真实人名、校名等相关信息。

2. 文章需包含所有信息，可适当拓展。参考词汇：Mathematician 数学家

A Trip to Jiang Lifu Museum