1 . On June 15, the 100-day countdown to the Hangzhou Asian Games, the medal of the 19th Asian Games was released. The medal of the 19th Asian Games is another core element of the Asian Games, along with the official emblem Tides Surging, mascots Congcong, Chenchen, Lianlian, color system Meeting the World and torch Eternal Flame. It is an important addition to the overall aesthetic of the event.

Hushan is characterized by the ceremonial jade Cong in the Liangzhu Culture (5,300BC — 4,300BC). This square jade, integrated with a round medal, is truly unique and highly recognizable.

Hushan presents the geographical features of Hangzhou. By using prominent lines, the picture scroll of Hangzhou is outlined on the front side of the medal with misty hills on three sides and the city on one side, a rippling lake, and wavelike mountains beyond. The back side is shaped like a square seal, which means the athletes leave a beautiful mark on the Hangzhou Asian Games.

Hushan expresses the character of Hangzhou as the capital of ecological civilization, with natural landscape, clear water and green hills, creating invaluable assets, casting gold and silver medals.

Hushan shows the sportsmanship of climbing the heights. Reaching the top, one will become even higher. On the way to the summit, athletes strive hard, challenge themselves, and overcome one peak after another.

The medal was made by painting, milling, trimming and polishing, gold and silver plating effect treatment, and protection treatment. The medal ribbon (绶带) was hand-sewn on both sides using weave technology and environmentally friendly printing techniques. The bridge shaped buckle at the top of the ribbon highlights the Jiangnan characteristics of the water town and the bridge town. The linking method adopts the raw ear structure of the spring buckle shaft (弹簧扣轴) to fix the ribbon inside the medal.

1. Why is the medal of the Hangzhou Asian Games named Hushan?

A．It is a core element of the 19th Asian Games.

B．The designers like the name.

C．It shows the city’s geographical and ecological features.

D．It is round like the jade.

2. What kind of spirit does the medal of the 19th Asian Games contain?

A．Fair play.

B．Team play.

C．Respect.

D．Challenge.

3. What is mainly discussed about the medal in the last paragraph?

A．The cleaning techniques.	B．The processing techniques.
C．The printing techniques.	D．Its popularity.

4. In which column of the newspaper can you read the passage?

A．Sports.

B．Travel.

C．Nature.

D．Education.

2 . Dave Williamson Short Story Competition

By Manitoba Writers’ Guild

The Manitoba Writers’ Guild was started in August 1981 at Aubigny, Manitoba, as a grassroots organization for and of Manitoba writers. Our annual Dave Williamson Short Story Competitions open to writers across Manitoba. We actively encourage submissions from those who are 18+ years of age.

Prizes

Top prize: $ 1, 000 CAD

9 runners-up: $ 500 CAD

9 honorable mentions: Publication

All works from 10 prize winners and 9 honorable mention winners will be published in an e-book collection by the Manitoba Writers’ Guild. Proceeds from the sale of the e-book will be used to support future Manitoba Writers’ Guild writing competitions. Winners will be announced via e-mail a few weeks after the contest deadline.

Entry

Entry is free of charge to all writers. However, writers looking to improve their writing may choose to purchase an assessed entry ($ 10 CAD). With this option, you will receive a Google document with comments and suggestions on how to improve your writing on a sentence level, as well as a personal e-mail guiding you in growing as a writer.

Rules

Follow all the rules carefully to avoid being disqualified.

◆Write between 2, 500 and 5, 000 words and submit only your original, unpublished work.

◆Your submission will include a covering letter that contains your name, address, telephone number, and birth date.

◆We are accepting only e-mail submissions for this contest. Please make sure the file is sent as a. pdf,. doc/. docx or. txt document.

◆The deadline to submit your writing is December 19, 2023.

1. Who is the competition organized for?

A．University students.	B．Local writers in Manitoba.
C．Middle school students.	D．Writing enthusiasts in Canada.

2. What do we know about the honorable mention winners?

A．They can receive a cash prize.	B．They are given guidance on writing.
C．They can have their entries published.	D．They are free to download e-books.

3. Which of the following will result in disqualification?

A．Posting your writing by express delivery.	B．Sending your entry on December 18, 2023.
C．Typing out a story of 4, 500 words.	D．E-mailing your entry as a. pdf document.

4 . No one is born a winner. People make themselves into winners by their own efforts.

I learned this lesson from an experience many years ago. I took the head coaching job at a school in Baxley, Georgia. It was a small school with a weak football program.

It was a tradition for the schools old team to play against the new team at the end of spring practice. The old team had no coach, and they didn’t even practice to prepare for the Game. Being the coach of the new team, I was excited because I knew we were going to win, but to my sadness we were beaten. I couldn’t believe I had got into such a situation. Thinking hard about it, I came to realize that my team might not be the number one team in Georgia, but they were depending on me. I had to change my attitude about their ability and confidence.

I stared doing anything I could to help them build a little pride. Most important, I began to treat them like winners. That summer, when the other teams enjoyed their vacations. We met every day and practiced passing and kicking the football.

Six months after suffering our failure on the spring practice field, we won our first game and our second, and continue to improve. Finally, we faced the number one team in the state. I felt that it would be a victory for us even if we lost the game. But that wasn’t what happened. My boys beat the best team in Georgia, giving me one of the greatest thrills of my life!

From the experience I learned a lot about how the attitude of the leader can influence the members of a team. Instead of seeing my boys as losers, I pushed and encouraged them. I helped them to see them-selves differently, and they built themselves into winners. Winners are made, not born.

1. When did the author’s team win their first game?

A．Before their training.	B．During the spring practice.
C．At the start of the vacation.	D．Six months after their failure.

2. What does the underlined word “thrills” probably mean in Paragraph 5?

A．Interests.

B．Fears.

C．Excitements.

D．Concerns.

3. How did the author help their team to win?

A．By building up their confidence.	B．By giving them a lecture.
C．By buying them a book.	D．By changing the leader.

4. What can we learn from the text?

A．Time is money.	B．Winners are born.
C．Losers are always beaten.	D．Practice makes perfect.

7 . Most young people enjoy some form of physical activity. It may be walking, cycling, or swimming, or in winter, skating or skiing.     1     It may be mountaineering.

Those who have a passion for climbing high and difficult mountains are often looked upon with astonishment.

Why are men and women willing to suffer cold and hardship, and to take risks on high mountains? This astonishment is caused probably by the difference between mountaineering and other forms of activity from which men get their relaxation.

Mountaineering is a sport but not a game. There are no man-made rules, as there are for such games as golf and football. There are, of course, rules of a different kind which it would be dangerous to ignore, but it is this freedom from man-made rules that makes mountaineering attractive to many people.     2    

If we compare mountaineering with other more familiar sports, we might think that one big difference is that mountaineering is not a “team game”.     3     There are, it is true, no “matches” between “teams" of climbers, but when climbers are on a rock face linked by a rope on which their lives may depend, there is obviously teamwork.

The mountain climber knows that he may have to fight forces that are stronger and more powerful than man.     4     His sport requires high mental and physical qualities.

A mountain climber continues to improve skills year after year. A skier is probably past his best by the age of thirty, and most international tennis champions are in their early twenties.     5     They may need more time than younger men, but they probably climb with more skills and less waste of effort, and they certainly experience equal enjoyment.

A．We should be mistaken in this.

B．He has to fight the forces of nature.

C．Teams compete against each other.

D．Climbing high mountains needs patience, skills and strength.

E．Those who climb mountains are free to use their own methods.

F．It may be a game of some kind football, hockey, golf, or tennis.

G．But it is not unusual for men of fifty or sixty to climb the highest mountains in the Alps.

8 . Although most games have winners and losers, the goal of sports is not to win every game. The real goals include getting exercise, having fun, and learning important social skills, like sportsmanship.

Good sportsmanship is all about respect. Good sports (有体育精神的人) respect their teammates and also their opponents. They respect their coaches, and they also respect the referees or other officials involved in their games.     1     They shout at their teammates and they talk back to coaches or referees.

Kids usually learn sportsmanship good and bad from the adults in their lives.     2     If parents and coaches show disrespect for other fans, referees, or each other, kids will likely act the same way on the field.

    3     Some of them are very basic and easy to do, like shaking hands with other players before a game. Other examples may take a little more courage, such as acknowledging a great play made by the opposing team.

Learning good sportsmanship is important because it helps you develop an attitude of graciousness (礼貌) and respect that will carry over into all the other areas of your life.     4     Being a good sport in the classroom will eventually lead to being a good sport in the workplace.

So be a good sport in whatever you do!     5     When others see you acting in a way that makes it clear that winning isn’t the most important thing, you can move on to focusing on the important things, like having fum, getting exercise, and improving your skills!

A．Good sportsmanship can be shown in many ways.

B．However, bad sportsmanship is all about disrespect.

C．Players’ parents and coaches set examples that kids tend to follow.

D．We can be good sports by encouraging others but not laughing at them.

E．Starting as a good sport earlier will help you be a good sport as you get old.

F．If you’re a good sport on the field, you’ll also likely be a good sport in the classroom.

G．The example you set can be a powerful teaching tool for others.

10 . Exercise could not only benefit your body, but also improve your memory, researchers found recently. In their paper published on Monday, researchers from the University of California, Irvine in the United States and the University of Tsukuba in Japan introduced their experiment and conclusion.

Scientists invited 36 volunteers who were in their early 20s to do 10 minutes of light exercise before taking a memory test in which they were shown pictures like broccoli（西兰花）or picnic baskets and asked to recall them later. The same experiment was repeated with the same group of volunteers without exercising. ^u The memory task was really quite challenging , "   said Michael Yassa,co-author of the study and a neuroscientist （神经科学家）at the University of California, Irvine. "We used very tricky similar items to see if they would remember whether it was this exact picnic basket versus （对抗）that picnic basket. "

Researchers also scanned brains of some, of the participants during the experiment. They found strengthened communication between regions involved in the storage and recollection of memories in brains of those who had exercised. This suggested that just 10 minutes of light exercise like walking,yoga or Tai Chi might increase memory power.

As all the volunteers in the experiment were relatively young, researchers are still working to look at the effects of light exercise on older people. "Our future goal is to try to develop an exercise prescription（处方） that can be used by older adults who might have disabilities or mobility impairments,but can still adopt very simple exercise rules of life and be able to,perhaps,delay cognitive decline temporarily," said Yassa.

1. What did the researchers find from the experiment mentioned in the text?

A．Regular exercise is of benefit to the memory of all people.

B．Just a short period of exercise better young people's memory power.

C．Older people can also improve their cognitive power by exercising regularly.

D．All the volunteers in the experiment improved their memory through exercise.

2. Why was the memory task quite challenging?

A．The time to solve the questions was too limited.

B．The people in the experiment were disabled.

C．The items to be distinguished were extremely similar.

D．The questions asked by the scientists were too complicated.

3. What's the purpose of the text?

A．.To solve a problem.	B．To give practical advice.
C．To present a research result.	D．To tell an interesting story.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Advantages of Exercising Regularly

B．Exercise Is Beneficial to Both Young and Old

C．Exercise Can Improve Older People's Cognitive Power

D．Ten Minutes of Exercise a Day Might Improve Memory