1 . The Denton Black Film Festival(DBFF) is the brainchild of Harry Eaddy, the festival director, and is presented by the Denton African American Scholarship Foundation. Several years ago, Harry Eaddy approached two important men of the Denton community—Cheylon Brown and Mesha George—with a unique idea to bring an event focused on Black cinema to the region. DBFF was set up in order to deal with the problem that films are insufficiently represented by giving Black stories an audience and Black creatives a platform. The festival has expanded to the Denton Black Film Festival Institute and serves filmmakers and creatives of all backgrounds.
WHEN
January 27-February 6
DETAILS
The DBFF returned this January with this virtual festival. Built around amazing cinema, the festival is unique from many others in that it also features music, a technology expo, spoken word/poetry, art and more. This festival celebrates the diverse stories and culture of Black community through film, music and art. Storytelling is the core of any culture. Stories are how traditions, ideas and experiences are shared and passed down from one generation to the next. DBFF is a platform for stories about Black lives, Black culture and Black experiences to be shared, told and lived.
The DBFF creates a space where:
· a minority culture can be a majority experience
· stories on the margins (边缘) are given center stage
· the Black experience is valued and celebrated
Denton, a rapidly evolving art and culture hotbed, provides the perfect backdrop (背景) for DBFF on its path to building community, celebrating culture, but most importantly, sharing stories.
The festival features narratives, documentaries, and shorts submitted by filmmakers nationwide and internationally. More is to be announced... Now is the perfect time to purchase tickets. Please click dentonbff. com/ film-festival.
1. What is the purpose of creating DBFF?| A．To address under-representation in films. | B．To earn more audiences for Black communities. |
| C．To push the development of the minority. | D．To help filmmakers produce creative films. |
| A．Its strong supporters. | B．Its various forms. |
| C．Its great influence. | D．Its different culture. |
| A．Organize the storytellers. | B．Guide the festival director. |
| C．Experience the Black culture. | D．Paint on the center stage. |
2 . When 19-year-old Emily Bhatnagar from Maryland, USA, found her father had stage four thyroid (甲状腺) cancer, her response was different from what you might expect. To honour her father, who she also described as her best friend, she decided to start a book drive called For Love and Buttercup, collecting books for kids with cancer.
“It was very much an overnight idea,” she explained. “I posted a message on an app called Nextdoor asking my neighbors to donate used books. I was only expecting a few here and there, but the response was truly incredible and it was just the push I needed to co-exist with my grief (悲伤) rather than letting it consume me.”
“It was absolutely heartbreaking to watch my dad go through cancer and see him lose a little bit of himself each day, but the book drive allowed me to develop a new-found sense of purpose intertwined (交织) with a greater sense of compassion to help others in any form. I wanted to help kids. They’ve always held a soft spot in my heart.”
Using tips she earned from working at her parents’ bread shop, Emily bought many books out of her own pocket. In addition, she received donations through her Amazon wishlist, which can be found in the bio (简介) of the book drive’s Instagram account, @forloveandbuttercup.
Emuly and her older brother spent a whole summer driving around town, loading boxes of books into their car. “It was such a privilege to know people had carried these books all their lives through generations, and they wanted to gift it to my cause.”
For Love and Buttercup has donated over 15,000 books to sick children and it is being recognised by The Washington Post, Forbes, The President’s Volunteer Service Award and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.
1. What did Emily do knowing her father’s disease?| A．She turned to books for help. | B．She tried to help her father recover. |
| C．She decided to meet her father’s desire. | D．She asked for used book donations online. |
| A．Inspired. | B．Ashamed. | C．Disappointed. | D．Puzzled. |
| A．She grew up in a rich family. | B．She helped in her parents’ shop. |
| C．Nobody cared about her wishlist. | D．Her parents were not supportive. |
| A．Unfavorable. | B．Money-consuming. |
| C．Successful. | D．Demanding. |
1. What will the competition try to find next year?
| A．The best dancer. | B．The best actor. | C．The best singer. |
| A．At 10:30 am. | B．At 9:00 am. | C．At 8:00 am. |
| A．It will be free for the first week. |
| B．It will open earlier than expected. |
| C．It will be bigger than the old one. |
| A．On a program. | B．In a gym. | C．At home. |
On my son Andrew's 15th birthday, I took him to a shoe shop near our home in Toronto to get a pair of shoes. Andrew is nonspeaking autistic (自闭症) and prefers to go shopping when it's not busy.
Andrew got new shoes for his 15th birthday. As we headed toward the door, I told the sales assistants it was Andrew's 15th birthday today. "Happy birthday and have fun," the sales assistants replied.
Instead of having Andrew point to the "thank you" symbol on the picture chart he carried with him, I paused and held up his letterboard.
For ten years, we have carried around a picture chart, which Andrew uses to communicate. It contains images that match his most important and most used words: people, places, food, greetings and activities. Over the years, neighbourhood kids, friends, cousins and classmates have studied the pictures and the strips at the top of the chart that contain even more "representations" of Andrew's life.
Years ago, we discovered that Andrew could communicate more than his basic needs through the use of a letterboard—by pointing to individual letters on an alphabet grid (网格) to spell out words. It's a simple but profound tool. We have attached a letterboard to the back of his picture chart to spare us the trouble of carrying multiple charts and boards.
Using the letterboard requires significant time and effort for Andrew, but we persevere (坚持) because we know it gives him an opportunity to share more of who he is than what can be conveyed through basic pictures and words.
And so, instead of rushing out of the shoe shop door. I held up the letterboard and asked Andrew how he'd like to respond.
注意：1.续写词数应为150个左右；2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
After a moment of silent consideration, Andrew slowly pointed to the letters on the board.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________On our way home, I thought a lot.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________| A．Wait for the bus. | B．Come back in 30 minutes. | C．Walk to the next stop. |
| A．Ride on the left. | B．Buy a new bike. | C．Try her bike tomorrow. |
7 . My birth was a little more dramatic than the standard way a baby enters the world. I was born missing my left hand. Indeed, my limb (手臂) difference could have been a disaster if it hadn’t been for what happened next. A nurse placed me in my mother’s arms and instructed, “You will take her home. You will love her and treat her as normal.”
That is exactly what happened. I played sports, acted in theater, excelled in school and had playdates with friends. While I did get some stares and “polite” questions about my disability, I was lucky because I wasn’t made fun of for it.
However, that fact that I was different hit me hard my first day of high school. I was 13, an age when kids are already very self-conscious and the need to fit in is intensified. I remember one of the other kids on the school bus stared just a little too long at my left arm. I felt a sudden urge to hide my hand, so I slipped it into my pocket. I told myself that I’d just hide it that one day, while I was trying to make friends. But one day of hiding turned into a week, a month, and years — 25 of them to be exact.
When I was 38 years old, tired of hiding and lonely, I met someone special and invited him in. The combination of me finally feeling ready to unhide and his willingness to go through the unhiding process with me was exactly what I needed. For the first time in my life, I allowed someone to really hold my limb, look at it, touch it, love it — love me. I saw my limb difference as something unique about me, something that should be shown, not hidden.
It was a transformational experience, and I learned to love me too. It changed how I lived my entire life and made me happier. I also discovered and joined the Lucky Fin Project, an organisation devoted to people with all types of disabilities.
Hiding things, especially from loved ones, is tiring and lonely, and it prevents us from getting help and support. It’s time to change that.
1. What was the author’s childhood like?| A．She had no social interactions with friends. |
| B．She was raised with care and treated normally. |
| C．She faced some challenges in school activities. |
| D．She was upset about the attention to her difference. |
| A．She began to ignore her disability. |
| B．She suffered prejudice from some kids. |
| C．She started hiding herself away from friends. |
| D．She became sensitive due to her self-awareness. |
| A．She started to open up and be herself. |
| B．She met someone who cured her disability. |
| C．She was fed up with the company of others. |
| D．She reduced involvement in the disability group. |
| A．Misfortune is a good teacher. |
| B．Disability is not a barrier to success. |
| C．Self-acceptance can lead to self-love. |
| D．Nothing beats the feeling of being loved. |
8 . Hua Sheng and Lu Sheng, a retired Tibetan couple, have become trailblazers (开拓者) of grape growing and winemaking in their old ages.
Lu Sheng learned grape planting and winemaking from her grandmother’s sister. Since they retired, the couple have moved to Lhasa from the village of Yakhadi. Though the fact that the region’s capital, which is 3,600 meters above sea level, is considered unfit for growing grapes, Lu Sheng and Hua Sheng began an ambitious project in 2015, planting grapes in Tsalna, a town in the suburb of Lhasa.
They received support from the local government, which is committed to developing business and the economy. The couple’s project provides jobs for rural residents, and, as a result, the government has considered the project part of its poverty relief program.
“Lhasa is an ideal place for planting French grape varieties that are resistant to cold, drought and disease, and adaptable to high-altitude and open-air planting,” Lu Sheng said.
“Thanks to the plateau’s sunshine and organic planting, our grapes grow very well here in Lhasa. The grapes are a bit sour and sweet, and they have a high anthocyanin (花青素) content,” she said. Anthocyanins, which accumulate (积累) in grape cells and contribute rich color to wine, are water-soluble(水溶性的).
In 2018, Hua Sheng and Lu Sheng expanded their project, planting on nearly 6.67 hectares. In order to familiarize Tibetan farmers with grape planting and winemaking, they taught the skills to local villagers.
“We have successfully taught the local farmers how to grow grapes and make wine over the three years. They now have a new source of income besides traditional farming and herding,” Hua Sheng said.
Yudron, a resident of Nam, said she was grateful to the grape planting project in her village, which has contributed to her income and quality of life. “After working in the vine-yards for years, now we know how to make wine. We drink both barley and grape wine now. We love grape wine more, though, as it is healthier.”
1. What did the couple do after their retirement?| A．They grew grapes and made wine in Lhasa. |
| B．They made friends with a French expert. |
| C．They moved to another city from Lhasa. |
| D．They learned grape planting from Hua Sheng’s grandmother. |
| A．They donated grapes to local schools. |
| B．They employed local residents as workers. |
| C．They provided free wine for villagers. |
| D．They expanded the project with the local government. |
| A．They make grapes more delicious. |
| B．They provide adequate colors for wine. |
| C．They make grapes a bit sour and sweet. |
| D．They can accelerate the growth of grapes. |
| A．indifferent | B．cautious |
| C．appreciative | D．concerned |
9 . Nicolas Maire is the model of a professional French chef with years of experience. To help perfect the flavors of the innovative foods. Mr. Maire has a new assistant chef in the form of Sum, an artificial intelligence robot.
Along with a team of flavorists, Sam helps blend a huge group of flavors for clients. In humans the sense of taste stems from multiple receptors (感受器) that are ready to make our brains aware of the nature of any possible food we encounter. Sam lacks this sense of taste, but it has been trained on a databose of ingredients gathered over 60 years at the company of Firmenich, a business with a perfume industry origin stretching back to 1895. Using a technique called machine learning, it has raced through examples of flavor combinations and has learnt its own definitions, maturing over 18 months into today’s AI robot.
Eric Saracchi runs the digital side of Firmenich. “Flavors are more complex than perfumes,” he says, “and Sam had to understand what a strawberry is or how roasted beef hits the tongue, before finding matches between tastes and foodstuffs.”
One big advantage of an AI robot is that it has no cognitive bias (认知偏见). This lack of human prejudices helps Firmenich to get past any unconscious leaning of the flavorists. The objectivity of Sam, lacking influences that can affect even the most professional of flavorists, allows it to work at speed. “It adds value by combining the knowledge of all the other flavorists here,” says Saracchi.
The machine rapidly gives an indication of how a flavor can be created and how much of an ingredient should be included. And Sam can hold the line between Saracchi’s team of flavorists and public tastes, refereeing decisions when the flavorists’ view differs from that of a consumer group.
1. What does Sam do together with many flavorists?| A．It helps activate humans’ tastes. | B．It creates a database of ingredients. |
| C．It mixes a series of flavors for guests. | D．It makes all kinds of foods very creative. |
| A．Negative. | B．Positive. | C．Unknown. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．In Paragraph 1. | B．In Paragraph 2. | C．In Paragraph 3. | D．In Paragraph 4. |
| A．Why Chefs Are Turning to AI | B．Sam, the First AI Chef in the World |
| C．How Do French Chefs Choose AI Assistants | D．Nicolas Maire Owns Some AI Assistant Chefs |
10 . “Boreout (闷爆) is different from burnout (精疲力竭) in the sense that bored-out employees rarely break down with exhaustion. Bored-out people may be present physically but not in spirit, and people can keep doing this for a good while,” says Harju, who has studied boreout for years.
Workers who realize they’re experiencing boreout may also be unwilling to flag it up as an issue to line managers or human resources. “While the behaviors that feed into burnout — overwork, drive — are appreciated and rewarded by employers, boreout reflects a lack of interest, a lack of motivation,” says Harju. “These are things that are avoided in organizations.”
There are some quick fixes, like taking on work tasks that are more interesting to you. But a 2016 study Harju and her colleagues worked on showed that people who had boreout were less likely to engage in constructive activities like trying to find new, interesting challenges at work.
What happens more often, she says, is that people will just show up at their desks and spend time shopping online, chatting with colleagues or planning other activities. She says that these people aren’t lazy, but are using these behaviours as “coping mechanisms”.
Fahri Ozsungur, an associate professor of economics at Mersin University, Turkey, who was behind the 2021 study on the health effects of boreout, points out that combating the phenomenon isn’t just down to the individual. “Giving meaning to the job is not just up to the employees,” he says. “Instead, it’s up to management to create an office culture that makes people feel valuable.”
If you think boreout is seriously affecting your health either physically or mentally, it may be valuable to ask yourself how you might be able to reselect your career path toward something healthier for you. Seek the advice from advisers, career consultants, friends and family.
“If only people take its suggestion, boreout can make a change into something else: a different career entirely, or a different role in the organization,” Harju says.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the topic of the text. | B．To describe people with burnout. |
| C．To explain what burnout is. | D．To tell us who Harju is. |
| A．They lack relevant knowledge. | B．They are warned not to talk about it. |
| C．They may not want it to be known to employers. | D．They fear to be laughed at by their colleagues. |
| A．Encouraging. | B．Blaming. | C．Trusting. | D．Fighting. |
| A．Forcing employers to increase salaries. | B．Sticking to the job until you adapt to it. |
| C．Trying spending more time with your family. | D．Considering changing a new job interesting you. |
