Falling leaves and cold winds mean the arrival of another season. Lidong is one of the 24 solar terms (节气) of China. It means the beginning of winter.

To welcome Lidong, people have many colorful customs that light up the cold days. One popular custom is to have a big meal. Winter is believed to be a season for storage (储藏). Eating well helps people store energy to stay warm in winter and prepare for growth in the coming spring. In the north, people prefer eating dumplings. The Chinese word for dumpling, jiao (饺), sounds like the word “change”. Eating dumplings means celebrating the change of autumn to winter. In the south, eating chicken, duck and fish is common.

Throughout history, Lidong was also a time for people to store vegetables. There were not many fresh vegetables to eat during winter. So around Lidong, some people in the north began to store vegetables like cabbages in a cellar (地窖) underground.

However, some of these customs have disappeared. Most people buy fresh vegetables at the supermarket. Instead, new winter customs are being created in certain places. In Harbin, experienced swimmers choose to swim in the winter waters during Lidong. It’s really cold in the water!

Every year Pantone Color Institute, a color company which sets a color     1     (任务), choose one color as the color of the year.

“Greenery”, a yellow-green color, is the color of 2017. It is the color of nature and makes us relaxed. It advises people to     2     (意识到) the importance of     3     (简单的) life.

The color of 2018 is “purple” which means energetic (充满活力的). It’s     4     (考虑；斟酌) the most popular color     5     (在……当中) all the colors in 2018.

What’s the color of 2019? They have already had a     6     (讨论). Recently, “living coral (珊瑚)” has been chosen as the color of the year.

Living coral is a golden orange color. It’s believed that there is something     7     (惊人的) about orange. It makes us think of the rising sun which     8     (照耀) warm. This color means happiness and provides comfort to us. What’s more, “living coral” also make us think of the dying coral reefs (珊瑚礁) around the world. Because of the global warming, the world’s coral reefs are losing their color and life. Protecting the coral reefs is protecting     9     (我们自己).

The company hopes the society will be influenced by the color of 2019. People should start to do something so that we can     10     (继续) to see living coral in the real coral reefs as well as on Panton’s color palette (调色板).

5 . For Schultz, a 77-year-old man, this is a chance of a lifetime. Schultz is part of a group of around 50 Germans who are on a bus journey along the ancient Silk Road.

Speaking of his journey, he says: “I have been deeply interested in the Silk Road since I was a child, but now I finally have a chance to experience it.”

The two-month bus journey will take the group through Germany, Russia and other four European countries. They will then enter China from the country’s western part. It will be an unforgettable memory for them.

Nearly half of the 13000-kilometer trip will be inside China. From Xinjiang in the west to Shanghai in the east, the German visitors will see more than 20 Chinese cities. “We have managed the trip of the Silk Road for around 10 years. An increasing number of people, not only from German-speaking countries, have been joining us,” says Liu Guoqiang from China Tours.

Almost 26 million foreigners traveled to China in 2015, and about 5 million of them were from Europe. Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai and the Changjiang River are traditional Chinese travel destinations for European tourists. Speaking of where he wants to go, Schultz says, “Compared with modern cities, the culture in western China attracts (吸引) me more.

As Shi Xiang, head of the China Tours, says, “Being a new brand to attract foreign visitors, the Silk Road is good for people to know more about China, especially the northwestern part of the country.”

6 . ①Have your parents ever told you any strange things about protecting your eyes? For example, they might have said that you’d go blind from reading in the dark, but you could make up for it by eating a lot of carrots.

②This is just one of the wrong ideas you may have heard of. Below teens has picked out scientific explanations for three mistakes the people often make about eyes. Let’s take a look.

③Can eating carrots improve your eyesight? Carrots are rich in Vitamin A, which is necessary for our eyes’ general health. Vitamin A helps the eyes to make light into signals, allowing people to see in low light conditions. However, eating more carrots doesn’t help you see better. Only a few will help, but a large number of carrots will not give you superhuman eyesight or allow you to get rid of your glasses.

④If your parents have bad eyesight, will you have short eyesight, too? Myopia (近视) can be passed from parents to children. A study found that if both parents are myopia, there’s a 33 to 60 percent chance that the child is. For children who have one parent with myopia, the chance is 23 to 40 percent, and it’s down to 6 to15 percent for kids with non-myopia parents. So no matter how bad your parents’ eyesight is, you still have a chance of having good eyesight.

⑤Is it true that people who are color blind can’t see colors? Color blindness doesn’t mean that someone can’t see colors at all, like a black and white movie. Most commonly, it means that someone has difficulty telling certain colors apart, usually green and red or blue and yellow.

⑥There are different levels of color blindness. Some people cannot tell the difference between colors in dark light, while others have difficulty in any light. In the most serious form of color blindness, everything is seen in shades of gray.

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7 . There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is water between his feet and his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out, he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again.

The boy puts his head down and prays (祈祷) , “Dear God, this is an exception! I need help now! I’m over. “ He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips (绊倒) in front of the teacher and throws the bowl of water on the boy’s legs.

The boy seems to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, “Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!” All of a sudden, the ridicule (嘲笑) that should have been his goes to someone else — Susie. She tries to help. But they tell her to get out. The teacher gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants are dried out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk.

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, “ You did that on purpose (故意) , didn’t you? ” Susie whispers back, “ I wet my pants once too.”

9 . On a trip to Japan with her family in 2022, Sasha Olsen was surprised _________ the ocean’s pollution levels. There, she saw _________ sea animals.

“We went on this trip and at first I was so excited,” said Sasha. She is 10 years old and lives in Florida. “But _________ I saw the way the oceans became, I was _________. I wanted to know why things were this way but couldn’t find a(n) _________.”

Sasha _________ the help of her cousin, Narmina, who was 23 years old and got a college degree in business. Together, they _________ a group I Want My Ocean Back. Friends in the group got together on the weekends to clean the _________. As time goes on, the group is doing different things to further protect the ocean. For example, the group has done something to _________ money, which will be used to clean up the beach. It will also go to conservation groups such as Ocean and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), because they work to __________ animals and their environments.

__________, Sasha invited local people to take part in an activity called “Kids Love the Oceans”. There, she spoke about the oceans’ problems. Guests made art out of rubbish collected from the beaches and they felt moved to __________ the moment. “ Sasha has __________ many other kids to join the group and shown people that we’re able to make a __________,” Narmina said.

Sasha and Narmina hope to __________ their work to neighboring cities. Hollywood is near.