2 . The most obvious dog fetish (迷恋) today is the longing for cuteness. Almost every day you can see adorable pictures of dogs and other animals that will make you smile and say, “How cute!”

It is a cultural phenomenon that the media scholar James Meese calls the “cute economy” which exists primarily on social media, is user-generated, and is heavily dominated by pictures of animals, especially pets. The goal is to generate a positive response, probably followed by a tap on the screen to “like” and “share”. We can click through image after image of cute animals doing cute things, feeling a little boost of good cheer.

The marketing researchers have identified some of the most common categories of cuteness in online pet content: animals doing silly things; animals of extreme size; animals with unusual looks; and animals behaving in ways that seem human-like. Dogs and other animals in the “cute economy” are often further humanized by being dressed in clothing and accessorized (装饰) with hats, jewellery, nail polish and fur dyed a rainbow of colors. Users who post successfully and with some strategies can make money by doing so. Thus, certain dogs have become cuteness celebrities, with millions of devoted followers and paid content from advertisers.

Unfortunately, the price of the “cute economy” comes at a serious cost. The cutest and most popular breeds tend to be those with the most significant risk of health and behavioral problems. Cuteness is often coupled with their discomfort. People are drawn to the cuteness of dogs with extremely foreshortened skulls and extremely short legs and awkwardly long bodies, such as the French bulldog and the corgi.

Actually, there are well-established health issues. We should treat the “cute economy” with caution, like resisting the commodification (商品化) of appearance by opting out of social media channels promoting the “cute economy”. We can also choose not to “like” or “share” images of dogs whose cuteness is linked with discomfort. Although we are biologically attracted to dogs that are super cute, we should be mindful in our “impulses”.

3 . Some pals and I were in the midst of a pinball competition at a bar the other night when the machine kept breaking down. We called over a very busy employee who’s responsible for helping keep the place running. He put everything aside to fix our problematic pinball machine twice.    1    A couple of the guys immediately objected, saying the employee was just doing the job he was paid to do. I insisted and got the group to agree to the plan, although somewhat reluctantly.   

My pinball wizard didn’t stretch out his hand, but how many times have we run across those payment screens that suggest a 20% tip for being handed a sandwich we ordered?    2    There is data to back up the trend: 66% of American adults have a negative view of tipping, and 32% say they’re sick of those payment-screen hints, according to a recent Bankrate survey.   

    3    I admit there are times I suspect the tipping thing has gone too far - say, when I’m at a self-checkout line and there’s still request to leave something extra. But I’m generally willing to err on the side of caution: If someone is expecting a tip, I’ll assume they have financial reasons to do so.     4    

Plus, tipping is good karma (因果报应). It’s always worth it to tip in unexpected situations- ones that don’t necessarily involve a hint on a payment screen.       5    He was so grateful for the $10 tip that later that night, he rewarded our group with well more than $10 in free tokens (代金券) for future play.   

So next time, there must be no arguments with my friends when times come to tip.

7 . In some parts of Central China’s Henan province, daughters will _______ wild goose-shaped cakes for their parents before the leap month (闰月) comes, wishing for auspiciousness. There is a _______ surrounding the tradition.

Long ago, there was a girl living at the southern foot of the Songshan Mountain in Henan, who was very _______. In a year which had a leap month, the married girl _______ of her parents, who never had enough food to eat and might suffer from hunger due to the _______ month. So, she collected some leftover millet (小米) and headed toward her parents’ home. On the mountainous road, she _______ fell down and when she woke up, the millet was already _______ up by birds. Seeing this and thinking of her parents, she cried loudly and slowly fell asleep again.

Then she heard some weak voice and woke up again, seeing a couple of wild geese were staying in her bag and not willing to leave, so she took them with her. When she arrived at her parents’ home, the village was _______ famine and plague, and her parents were on the verge of _______. She hurriedly boiled the wild geese and fed them to her parents, and her parents recovered soon. She then gave the leftover food to the neighbors and the ________ miraculously disappeared the next day.

After that, before each leap month, daughters began to visit their ________ and bring gifts. As wild goose is a ________ bird, people use dough to make wild goose-shaped cakes in ________ of the actual bird for their parents, wishing them healthy and hoping to banish any plagues.

In some parts of East China’s Shandong province, the married daughters will send dough-made fish and toad to their parents, which ________ “wealth” and “health” respectively. ________, it is said that the dough fish is for a mother and the dough toad is for a father.

More than 1,500 years ago, ancient Chinese craftsmen    1    （invent）a new type of paper. It later became an essential item for traditional Chinese study and an icon of Chinese culture,    2    is called Xuan paper, or rice paper…In 2009, the traditional craft of making Xuan paper was included on UNESCO’S Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Xuan paper was first made from the straw of rice and bark from a typical tree in ancient Xuan Region, now    3    （know）as Jingxian County in Anhui Province. The traditional process of making Xuan paper is    4    （extreme）demanding and involves more than 100 steps. The whole process can take as long as two years to complete,    5    the skills have been passed down for the next generation.

Such features as being white, soft and moth-proof（防虫的）enable Xuan paper    6    （last）for even more than 1,000 years. Amazingly, after such a long time, it can keep the    7    （fresh）of the ink end color on it,     8    （result）in a name “Paper of Ages.”

Because of its lasting popularity    9    Chinese scholars and artists and also due to its remarkable longevity, so far the majority of existing ancient Chinese books, calligraphy and paintings    10    （preserve）on Xuan paper.

9 . “I like pigs,” Winston Churchill supposedly once said. “Dogs look up at us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals.” Whether Churchill’s contemporary George Orwell also liked pigs is less clear. But he, too, surely saw something in them that was lacking in other domestic beasts, for it was they who ended up running the show in novel Animal Farm. Pigs, then, are intelligent social creatures.

And, like all animals, they sometimes fight. A study just published in Animal Cognition by Ivan Norscia, a biological anthropologist at the University of Turin, in Italy, and his colleagues, looked at how a group of 104 domestic pigs went about resolving such incidents. In total, Dr. Norscia and his team studied the details of 216 pig conflicts over the course of six months.

Some pigs tend to be attackers; others tend to be victims. Who is what depends largely on weight, for, among pigs pounds mean power. The attacker might bite, kick, bump or lift the victim (or string together a sequence of those actions). Most conflicts ended in seconds, but some lasted a minute or two.

In most animal species that would be that. However, many of the pig conflicts Dr. Norscia observed had interested parties beyond the protagonists (主角). He therefore wanted to understand the role of these bystanders in resolving fights —and what this says about pigs’ cognitive (认知) abilities.

Since there was usually not enough time for a bystander pig to intervene during the heat of a conflict (though this did occur), he and his colleagues looked at what happened in the three minutes directly following an aggressive interaction. Sometimes, they found, the protagonists made up on their own —for instance, by touching noses.

On other occasions, though, a third pig stepped in. Sometimes this bystander acted as a peacemaker, engaging with the attacker and reducing the number of subsequent attacks compared with what might otherwise have been expected. Sometimes, by contrast, the bystander engaged with the victim. This appeared to calm the victim down, for it reduced anxiety-related behavior such as shaking and scratching.