MY AMAZING NAADAM EXPERIENCE
I experienced the Naadam Festival in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for the first time this year. The festival falls on the fourth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, usually lasting for three days. Naadam means “games” in Mongolian, and it is represented by three events: horse racing, wrestling, and archery, which are all so exciting to watch!
On the first day, I set off to the games early with my friend Burin. I saw a lot of people wearing fancy Mongolian robes. Some were feeding their horses, some were practising archery, and others were chatting or taking photographs. Burin told me that Mongolians travel every year from near and far to attend the festival, just as their ancestors had done for centuries.
After the opening ceremony and some amazing performances, the wrestling competition began. Mongolian wrestling is different from the wrestling in the Olympic Games. There are no rounds, and wrestlers are not separated by weight. The wrestler loses if any part of his body above his knee touches the ground. After singing some songs, the competitors danced onto the green field, waving their arms in the air as if they were eagles. I was quite moved by their show of strength and grace.
I absolutely enjoyed the archery, too, but the horse races were my favourite part. However, I was surprised to see that the riders were boys and girls! I heard it is because children are lighter and the horses can run faster and farther. At first, I was a little worried about the children’s safety, but Burin said, “Don’t worry. They’ve been riding horsed all their lives. They’ll be just fine.” That was the moment I started to understand why people say “Horses are at the heart of Mongolian culture”.
I’m finally back home now, feeling really tired, but celebrating Naadam with my friend was totally worth it. He invited me back for the winter to stay in a traditional Mongolian tent and eat hot pot. I can’t wait!
1. What does Naadam mean?2. In the passage, the author describes what he sees and hears while attending
3. (1)．The Naadam Festival usually lasts for a week.
(2)．The Naadam Festival has a history of several hundred years.
(3)．Mongolian wrestling is the same as the wrestling in the Olympic Games.
(4)．At the Naadam Festival, of the three events, the author likes wrestling best.
4. How long does the Naadam Festival last?
| A．2 days. | B．3 days. | C．4 days. | D．5 days. |
| A．has a long history |
| B．only allows men to take part in |
| C．has only three events |
| D．falls on the fifth day of the sixth month |
| A．Mongolian wrestling is the same as the wrestling in the Olympic Games. |
| B．The archery was my favorite part of the three sports events. |
| C．The riders were boys and girls because they are lighter. |
| D．I was not worried about the children’s safety at all. |
| A．My cat watched over me in the same way that I took care of her. |
| B．A feline (猫科动物) is a marvel of grace and ferocity (残忍) in the same lovely package. |
4 . About thirty years ago, Switzerland-based artist Klaus Littmann came across a great drawing titled The Unending Attraction of Nature by Austrian artist and architect Max Peintner. The drawing displays a scene in which nature is so separate (分开的) from the environment that it becomes just a small area of ground, protected for amusement.
“When I first saw the pencil drawing, I was interested. I knew that one day this work would be the starting point for a major art project in public space,” says Littmann. Now, decades later, Littmann has achieved the vision with the installation (大型艺术作品) of FOR FOREST: The Unending Attraction of Nature. The installation sets a native central European forest in the middle of Worthersee Football Stadium in Klagenfurt, with almost 300 trees planted, some weighing up to six tons each.
In the face of climate crisis and deforestation, FOR FOREST comes with a more pressing urgency. As explained in a statement about the installation, “In support of today’s most pressing issues about climate change and deforestation, FOR FOREST aims to challenge our perception of nature and question its future. It reminds us that nature may someday only be found in special places, as is already the case with animals in zoos.”
Overseen by Enea Landscape Architecture, the forest is made up of a diverse range of species. This attracting panorama (全景) will pave the way for a whole new view and understanding of forests.
In a short video about the work, Littmann says his goal is never to make something that will last forever; rather, he says, “My goal is for this picture to remain in people’s head for a lifetime.”
1. Why is FOR FOREST meaningful?| A．It has protected various rare plants. | B．It is Austria’s greenest artistic work. |
| C．It warns us of environmental issues. | D．It has greatly promoted local tourism. |
5 . Can you imagine there being a community where boys and girls growing up together can finally speak different languages? In Ubang Nigeria, it really happens. It’s not exactly clear what percentage of the words in the men’s and women’s languages are different, but there are enough examples to make sentences sound different when spoken by the opposite sex. For “clothing”, men use the word “nki”, while women say “ariga”; “kitchi” means tree for men, while women say “okweng”. These are not just some slight pronunciation differences, but totally different words. “It’s almost like two different lexicons (词汇集),” a language expert, Chi Chi Undle said. “There are a lot of words that men and women share in common, but there are others which are totally different depending on your sex. They don’t sound alike, and don’t have the same letters. They are completely different words.”
Interestingly, both men and women are able to understand each other perfectly in Ubang, as both boys and girls grow up around their parents and get to learn both languages, but by the age of 10, boys are expected to speak in the male tongue. It seems that there is a stage the male will reach and he discovers he is not using the rightful language. When he starts speaking the men’s language, you know the maturity is coming into him.
No one really knows how or why the double-language tradition of Ubang began. Chi Chi Undie believes the two languages are the result of a “double-sex culture” where men and women operate in two separate spheres (范围) and live in separate worlds that rarely come together. However, she admits this is a weak theory, as the double-sex culture is present in many parts of Africa, where there are no different languages for men and women.
Today, with English words constantly entering the lexicon of young Nigerians, Ubang’s two languages are in danger of being lost forever. Worse still, neither the male nor female language is written down, so they both rely on young people passing them down to the next generation.
1. What do we know about languages in Ubang?| A．Word differences account for a high percentage. |
| B．Men and women speak totally different languages. |
| C．Word differences partly exist between the opposite sex. |
| D．Men and women pronounce differently on the same word. |
| A．Their lexicons sound alike. |
| B．They learn both languages at school. |
| C．The men can speak two different languages. |
| D．They are exposed to both languages in their childhood. |
6 . We’re not saying that everyone needs to contribute their lives to the poor. Your lives are enough doing homework, playing sports, making friends, seeking after your dreams. But we do think that you can live a more powerful life when you devote some of your time and energy to something much la than yourself. Find an issue you are interested in and learn more. Volunteer or, if you can, contribute little money to a cause. Whatever you do, don’t be a bystander. Get involved. You may have the opportunity to make your biggest difference when you’re older. But why not start now?
What does the author stress in Paragraph 5?
| A．Learning more and contributing more to a cause. |
| B．Rising above self and acting to help others. |
| C．Working hard to get a bigger opportunity. |
| D．Trying your best to help the poor. |
7 . As data and identity theft becomes more and more common, the market is growing for biometric(生物测量) technologies—like fingerprint scans—to keep others out of private e-spaces. At present, these technologies are still expensive, though.
Researchers from Georgia Tech say that they have come up with a low-cost device(装置) that gets around this problem: a smart keyboard. This smart keyboard precisely measures the cadence(节奏) with which one types and the pressure fingers apply to each key. The keyboard could offer a strong layer of security by analyzing things like the force of a user’s typing and the time between key presses. These patterns are unique to each person. Thus, the keyboard can determine people’s identities, and by extension, whether they should be given access to the computer it’s connected to—regardless of whether someone gets the password right.
It also doesn’t require a new type of technology that people aren’t already familiar with. Everybody uses a keyboard and everybody types differently.
In a study describing the technology, the researchers had 100 volunteers type the word “touch” four times using the smart keyboard. Data collected from the device could be used to recognize different participants based on how they typed, with very low error rates. The researchers say that the keyboard should be pretty straightforward to commercialize and is mostly made of inexpensive, plastic-like parts. The team hopes to make it to market in the near future.
Where is this text most likely from?
| A．A diary. | B．A guidebook | C．A novel. | D．A magazine. |
