Dong Yuhui was a teacher at New Oriental(新东方), an English-language training organization. On June 9, he became a big hit online by selling agricultural products ________ livestreaming (直播). Agricultural products, like ________ and vegetables, are from plants or animals.

Unlike other livestreamers, Dong talked about what he would usually talk about in a classroom, both in Chinese as well as in English, before coming to the point. But his viewers just ________ it.

“It’s very good,” someone says. “I feel like being in a ________.” That very evening, sales from his livestreaming reached 15 million yuan, ________ his video was put on the daily hot list on popular short-video platform Douyin.

New Oriental is finally seeing hope after a year of struggle. It faced its biggest ________ after the Ministry of Education introduced a national policy banning(禁止) after-school training last July.

New Oriental finally found a ________ to overcome its difficulty: Selling agricultural products through livestreaming.

Its struggle should serve as an inspiration for other organizations that have been badly ________ because of the new policy. In fact, several video-sharing apps are already planning to attract livestreamers for agricultural sales. By October 2021, at least one app had got 126,000 “new farmers” born after 1995, who could ________ tell their viewers how they were growing fruits and vegetables and attracting more people to buy their products.

There are yoga and boxing teachers, as ________ as carpenters(木匠), who share their knowledge or skills online and make money. It’s a new way to express themselves better and get a new lease of life.

The human brain is amazing. People think and solve problems with their brains. What if a city had a “smart brain”? There might be something like that in Beijing! Beijing’s Haidian district has been working on it since 2018. Recently, they added a big data (大数据) model called Jiuzhou to make the city brain even better. It uses artificial intelligence (人工智能AI) to quickly collect data and highlight what people care about. It can give suggestions for fixing problems within minutes, making city management smarter.

To explain how it works, the official asked it to name the top three streets with the best noise pollution solutions. The big model quickly found the streets that did well in fixing noise pollution in early August 2023. It also suggested ways to deal with the problem.

The area plans to build 572 smart and safe communities using technologies like smart entrance control and facial recognition (识别). These technologies help keep people safe by quickly knowing what problems might happen and improving how the police deal with situations.

The area also plans to watch out for cars that make black smoke. This system has machines on important roads to catch black smoke, an online system that checks in real time, and sensors that study the bad things in the air. This can make sure that the important roads are always watched carefully. It works together with the police and transportation teams to stop cars that make black smoke and keep the air clean.

Smart governance wants to make the city work better and improve people’s lives by using smart technology and analyzing data.

A．

B．

C．

Every spring, thousands of fish swim through Utrecht, a city in the Netherlands, to find a place to lay their eggs. In this process, they help eat insects and keep the waterways clean. However, there is one problem. They have to wait at the Weerdsluis lock (水闸), which is usually closed at this time of year.

After knowing that, local ecologist (生态学者) Mark van Heukelum decided to help the fish. He learned that the lock keeper didn’t know when there were fish waiting at the lock. Mark set up an underwater camera at the lock and connected it to a computer and an online doorbell. When someone sees fish waiting to pass, they press the doorbell and the lock keeper will open the lock to let the fish through.

But Mark couldn’t keep watching the doorbell day and night. He reached out to the public to see how many people would like to lend a hand. He was surprised. In its first spring in 2021, the Fish Doorbell was rung more than 100,000 times by people all around the world.

This spring, people’s interest didn’t seem to wane. On the website, the number of visitors was always over 100 and could go as high as 500, depending on the time of day. Politely holding a door open for the friends of humans in the water is a feel-good act of kindness.

Some people are thinking of ways to automate (使自动化) the doorbell. But Mark takes a different view. “I hope when spring comes, people will be excited to ring the doorbell again.”

When you are in a new place or trying to find your way around, it’s important and necessary to know how to ask for directions. It can help you get to your destination (目的地) faster and avoid getting lost.     26     Don’t worry. This passage will help.

The first and most important step is to start the conversation politely. When you ask for directions, the way you make your request can make a difference to the reply you receive. Using polite expressions shows respect (尊重) for he person you’re asking.     27     If possible, put on a smile.

Once you’ve started the conversation, you’d better ask for directions by using simple sentences.     28    

>Could you please tell me the way to the bookshop?

>Excuse me. Can you give me directions to this house?

>What’s the best way to reach Donald Street?

When receiving directions, it’s important to make sure that you have understood them correctly to avoid getting lost or taking a longer path.     29     This not only shows that you’ve been listening carefully but also provides a chance to correct any misunderstandings. Here are some expressions to help you, too.

Let me make sure I understood correctly; I should turn left, is that right?

>    30    

>Would it be possible for you to write down the directions for me?

Finally, when you have the information you need, don’t forget to thank the person for his/her help.

What’s the weather like today? Is it hot or windy? Weather balloons can help scientists find it out. Every day, thousands of weather balloons fly high above the clouds. The balloons     37     wind speed and temperature. They send the information to the scientists who study it.

This kind of project is usually done     38     scientists. Nowadays more and more teenagers join the science clubs in schools. With the help of their teachers and researchers, they can finish it as well.

Li Jing and Liu Yan are two girls from Hubei. Their favorite school subject is science, and they like to try different projects in their club. One of their     39     is making a weather balloon. They have looked through many books and tried a lot.

Today, the young girls are flying their balloon for the first time. It will travel up to 23,000 meters! The girls are very excited. The balloon records the     40     for them to study.

Li Jing and Liu Yan quickly share a video of their balloon flying on the Internet and it gets more than 300,000 views (浏览). Most of them are     41     teenagers. They say the two girls have set a good example for them and they     42     a great interest in it, too.

Now, the two girls are making a much bigger team and ready for their next     43    .