1 . After a two-hour flight from Shanghai and an hour’s drive, I reached my destination: Jielingkou Village in Qinhuangdao City of Hebei Province, China. The tiny and ________ village is home to Shanhai Pass, where the Great Wall finally dives into the sea. During the Ming Dynasty (1368~1644), Jielingkou Village was considered an extremely important part of the Great Wall. But it slowly fell out of ________ and into disrepair—in modern China.

In 2018, an anti-poverty project began in the village, with the ________ of not only fixing the place up, but also ________ the living standards of the 200 people still living there. One of the ________ was to change all of the old homes into modern guesthouses. “This will allow city folks to enjoy the Great Wall in comfort,” said Ge, who was ________ the project.

But gaining the locals’ ________ took a lot of effort at the beginning. “Just two years ago, they weren’t ________ about the project at all,” Ge told me. “Seeing that they had to ________ water from a faraway well every day, we decided to build a water system that would send water to their homes. It’s one of the first, ________ we have made. It really ________ . Now some of those who were strongly against our project are now our greatest ________ .”

Ge said he hopes that as conditions are ________ becoming better in Jielingkou, some of the younger members of the village who left to seek opportunity in the cities will come back. “Already two university graduates who grew up in the village have returned to ________ the guesthouses. I hope more will be ________ by the potentials here soon.”

2 . Banff National Park is home to an amazing wildlife population. But the busy Trans Canada Highway that cuts through the park is a hazard to the lovely animals. To address the problem, Banff first put-up wildlife fencing on either side of the highway to discourage animals from entering the busy road. Then, since 1996, they’ve opened six wildlife overpasses and 38 underpasses to help the animals cross the highway in safety. I was fortunate to visit Banff’s Red Earth Overpass with Trevor Kinley, the project manager with Parks Canada. He told me that so far, they have documented 10, 000 safe animal crossings on this overpass alone. “ Some animals have learned how to use the crossings much more quickly than others. Black bears are the fastest learners, followed by deer. Wolves and lions take the longest to work out how to use them, ” Kinley said, laughing. “ But those animals that are slower to adapt are usually more capable and determined at figuring out the safest way to cross those overpasses and underpasses. ”

There is some criticism (批评) that channeling so much wildlife into a few bridges and tunnels is like making a trap for the animals, offering big animals an easy meal on either side. “ But research has shown that this is not the case, ” Kinley assured me. “ There are no more killings around the crossings than there are anywhere else in the park. ”

Walking over the Trans Canada and then walking underneath through one of the tunnels, I was amazed to see the fresh tracks of black bears, wolves, deer and many kinds of smaller animals. Somehow, all these animal footprints made me so happy, knowing that all this wildlife was passing safely under and over the longest road in Canada.

Hopefully, the success of the wildlife crossings in Banff will continue to inspire similar solutions around the world, where human pressure on wildlife continues to grow.

3 . Wu Ming, a young German born after 1995, is a big fan of Chinese culture. As he thought some diseases can’t be treated _______ with Western medicine, he decided to _______traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In 2015, Wu came to Henan province, where a strong TCM culture can be _______. After a year of learning, he _______ the language barrier and started to learn Chinese medicine. Wu always _______ some Chinese herbal medicine by himself to know their flavours and effects, just like Shen Nong, a character in Chinese legend. In Wu’s opinion, TCM is one of the best-preserved _______ of Chinese culture.

Studying TCM also _______ Wu’s mind and lifestyle. He used to be _______ to electronic devices, playing video games every night. Instead of being trapped in the fast-paced but unhealthy daily _______, he now lives a(n) ________ and peaceful life, practicing good habits like drinking tea and reading.

Wu ________ what he has learned to help his family. He always provides his family members with some advice about staying fit after ________ their skin or tongues online. Over time, his family gradually began to understand his ________ for TCM.

Wu thinks there’s no big difference between China and Western countries. “________ comes from being out of touch”, said Wu. He plans to run a traditional Chinese clinic in Germany, which could serve as a(n) ________ between the two countries and publicize TCM and its culture.

5 . The Korean culture wave has swept through the editorial offices of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which has added more than 20 new words of Korean origin to its latest edition.

The new words include hallyu, the Korean original for the wave of pop culture that has made BTS one of the world’s most popular bands and Squid Game the Netflix sensation of 2021. The dictionary defines it as the increase in international interest in South Korea and its popular culture, esp. as represented by the global success of South Korean music, film, television, fashion, and food.

But as the dictionary’s new additions make clear, there is much more to Korean cuisine than its spicy staple kimchi, which appeared in the OED as long ago as 1976. New food-related entries include bulgogi, thin slices of beef or pork, and chimaek, Korean-style fried chicken and beer.

Traditional culture is represented by hanbok, formal costumes worn by both men and women, and Hangul, the Korean alphabet (字母表) created by King Sejong in 1443.

Aegyo, a certain kind of cuteness or charm considered characteristically Korean, and similar to the Japanese word kawaii, has been included as both a noun and adjective. There is room, too, for mukbang, or livestreams of people eating extraordinary amounts of food while talking to the online audience.

The inclusion of “skinship” is more surprising. Commonly used in South Korea, where it is translated as seukinsip, and in Japan (sukinshippu), it captures the emotional bond that comes from close physical contact between a parent and child, lovers and friends, the dictionary said.

“The adoption and development of these Korean words in English demonstrate how lexical (词汇的) innovation is no longer restricted to the traditional centres of English in the United Kingdom and the United States,” the OED said.“They show how Asians in different parts of the continent invent and exchange words within their own local contexts, then introduce these words to the rest of the English-speaking world, thus allowing the Korean wave to continue to ripple on the sea of English words.”

7 . We were in for a whole new way of life when we moved to a horse farm in Winchester,Kentucky. One of the _______ parts of the move was getting to know the people in this small community. Even before we left Florida we had a(n) _______ of the friendliness of the residents and their _______ to help even strangers like us. “Your lower field is flooded,” was the first _______ we received in Florida from the former owner of the farm.

So we knew about the _______ before we moved, but we didn’t figure on how much it would _______ us once we arrived. Every time we went to town we passed those fences, _______face down. The trouble was that we didn’t own a _______ .

One day, our neighbor said, “I _______ to put my cattle in another field for a while. If I use my tractor and __________ your fence, could I use your lower __________ ?”It __________ that we needed him and he needed us. Soon, not only were our fences fixed, but his cattle kept the field __________ and clean. “Isn’t it __________ how we need each other and can each __________ the needs of the other?” I said to my husband.

One night our neighbor asked my husband, “Want to ride with me to __________ my farm?“ So my husband did. When he __________ home, he walked in, smiled and said, “Do you know what? He didn’t need our fields at all. He has 150 acres not even being __________ !” I went to sleep that night thinking about the __________ in our new community and how our new neighbor found a way to help us by __________ he needed us.

8 . Cheating in sport is as old as sport itself. The athletes of ancient Greece used potions to strengthen themselves before a contest, and their modern counterparts have everything from anabolic steroids (类固醇) to growth hormones with which to_________their bodies. These days, however, such stimulants are_________, and those athletes must therefore face the challenges of anti-doping (反兴奋剂) agencies.

The agencies have had remarkable success. Testing for anabolic steroids was introduced in the 1970s, and the incidence of cheating seems to have_________dramatically as a result. The tests, however, are not entirely_________. And a study just published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism by Jenny Jakobsson Schulze and her colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden suggests that an individual’s genetic make-up could_________the tests in two different ways. One genotype, may allow athletes who use anabolic steroids to escape detection altogether. Another may actually be convicting (给……定罪) the innocent.

The test employed for testosterone (睾酮素) abuse usually relies on measuring the_________of two chemicals found in the urine (尿液): TG. and EG.. Any ratio above four of the former to the latter is considered_________and leads to more tests. However, the production of TG is controlled by a gene called UGT2B17. This gene comes in two varieties, one of which has a part missing and therefore does not work properly. A person may thus have none, one or two working copies of UGT2B17, since he inherits one copy from each parent. Dr. Schulze_________that different numbers of working copies would produce different test results. She therefore gave healthy male volunteers whose genes had been examined a single 360mg shot of testosterone — the standard dose for legal medical use — and checked their urine to see whether the shot could be_________.

The result was remarkable. Nearly half of the men who carried no functional copies of UGT2B17 would have gone undetected in the standard doping test.____________, 14% of those with two functional copies of the gene were over the detection threshold (门槛) before they had even received an injection. The researchers estimate this would give a ____________rate of 9% in a random population of young men.

Dr. Schulze also says there is substantial____________variation in UGT2B17 genotypes. Two-thirds of Asians have no functional copies of the gene which means they have a naturally____________ratio of TG to EG, compared with under a tenth of Caucasians (白种人) — something the anti-doping bodies may wish to take into account.

In the meantime, Dr. Schulz’s study does seem to offer innocents a way of____________themselves. Athletes who will travel to Paris for the Olympic games may be wise to travel armed not only with courage and the “spirit of Olympianism”, but also with a copy of their____________, just in case.

10 . It was an evening when my parents and I ventured across Nemeiben Lake, in Northern Saskatchewan. This _______ lake, which expanded 26 miles across, had a reputation as being the best fishing and tourist resort in the province.

The sun was _______ behind the dark rolling _______ and we set off. Soon the lake seemed to be deserted _______ the sky began to darken, looking much _______ in the darkness, which made me feel a little nervous.

And then suddenly the boat _______ something with such force that we all fell _______ in our seats. My father went to the back and found the water was now _______ in at a very fast rate.

The overloaded boat was now deep in water. The _______ was now to come. With our life jackets ________ , we waited as the boat sank deeper into the water. The biting cold was more terrifying than anyone could have ________ .

A strong wind blew ________ the lake and the strong waves carried us off into the night. I knew that ________ was near. Then suddenly, something quite ________ happened. A shadow appeared up ahead. I blinked in   ________ . A beautiful large diving-bird landed only feet from my grasp. It stayed calmly by my side and all of a sudden I didn’t feel ________ any more. Deep in my heart, I knew everything would be ________ .

When a fisherman found us the following ________ , our body temperatures were only twenty-four degrees after we had been in the water for 13 hours.

As I lay in the hospital bed ________ , I thanked God for all his mercy and for the guardian angel that ________ me. Anyway, that was an unforgettable experience.