The Yingge dance is a combination of opera, dance and wushu. Typically, the dance     1     (perform) during festivals and celebrations, with dancers wearing colorful costumes and carrying masks, snakes, spears and drums. Its rich history and cultural     2     (significant) have earned it the distinction of being classified as a national intangible cultural heritage (遗产) in China.

On Chinese New Year, a Yingge team     3     (consist) of 16 dancers from the Chaoshan region of Guangdong Province gave a wonderful performance in London. The event provided     4     unique opportunity for UK residents to experience the richness and diversity of Chinese culture.

The dance team’s commitment     5     their craft was evident in their preparation. For over a month, they devoted     6     (they) to perfecting their performance, ensuring every step, every gesture, and every beat was in harmony. The dancers, many of     7     had more than 15 years of performance experience, showed their devotion to preserving this ancient art form.

So far, the Yingge dance     8     (cross) borders, attracting audiences in foreign countries such as Thailand. The celebration of the Spring Festival has become a global phenomenon, with “Spring Festival Parades”     9     (hold) in several countries each year. Nearly one-fifth of the world’s population now celebrates the Chinese New Year in     10     (vary) styles, reflecting the growing influence of Chinese culture worldwide.

Any visitor to the Chinese Culture Week at the University of Tehran would be amazed by the tea, food, Chinese knots (中国结) and traditional paper-cutting artworks     1    display, all produced by Iranian students of Chinese language.

“Chinese knots     2     (believe) to bring good luck and act as charms (护身符) that protect people against evil spirits,” said Zeinab Ghafourian, a 19-year-old student     3     (study) Chinese at the Confucius Institute of the University of Tehran, on Nov. 28.

Chinese Culture Week,     4     was held at the hall of the institute from Nov. 25 to 29, seeks     5    (introduce) Chinese culture to more Iranians. Ghafourian said that one of the reasons why she chose to study Chinese was that she had been interested in East Asian cultures since childhood. “In     6    (add), Chinese films have become more popular. The people of both countries enjoy many cultural commonalities, as they were culturally and     7     (economic) connected via the Silk Road in the past,” she said.

More importantly, given Iran’s good ties with China, mastering Chinese offers relatively competitive employment prospects on the Iranian job market     8     (compare) with other languages.

“Each of the students here is     9    window onto China, helping the Iranians have a more realistic picture of the country     10    improving relations between the two countries,” said Hamed Vafaei, the Iranian director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Tehran.

A     1     (remark) image of the Andromeda Galaxy, located over 2 million light-years from Earth, has been released after the use of the most powerful wide-field telescope in the Northern Hemisphere, demonstrating its capability.

China’s Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST)     2     (put) into operation on Sunday in Northwest China’s Qinghai Province, developed by the University of Science and Technology of China and the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The telescope,     3     is also known as the Mozi surveying telescope, will be     4     (extreme) useful for enhancing China’s capabilities in time-domain astronomical (天文的) research, according to CAS. Mozi was an ancient Chinese philosopher who is said to be the first in history     5     (conduct) optical (光学的) experiments.

According to CAS, the WFST boasts an optical telescope of 2.5 meters in diameter and a 765-million-pixel camera, equipping it     6     the strong surveying ability that allows it to survey the entire northern sky every three nights.

The Andromeda Galaxy is     7     closest large spiral (旋涡) galaxy to the Milky Way and     8     (have) a similar structure and metallicity, making it an ideal research object for exploring the formation and evolution of the Milky Way and similar galaxies. The WFST has both a large field of view     9     high-resolution imaging capabilities, enabling it to take multicolor images of the Andromeda Galaxy and its outlying regions. The telescope generated the image using 150 photos     10     (take) on multiple nights of observation.

How can I describe the wonder I felt the first time I saw my favorite painting, George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte? I     1    (admire) the work for years in art books, but I had never thought I would see the actual painting,     2     was housed far from where I lived.

The first thing that struck me as I     3    (enter) the room where the painting was displayed was the size of the work. It was huge! It covered a large part of     4     even larger wall. The painting was painted with dots, a technique     5    (call) pointillism. To create such a huge painting     6    (use) this technique seemed an almost impossible task. Seurat had done it, though, and had made it look easy!

What’s more impressive, however, was the     7    (beautiful) of the painting. Viewed from a distance, the colors looked soft and gentle, describing the happy and     8    (peace) mood of a summer day in the park.

When I approached the painting, though, its colors exploded into many more colors, showing the artist’s skill in combining colors     9    (create) a mood. Even the parts of the painting that appeared white from a distance were lively and had many different colors when viewed up close. I sat and stared     10     the painting in wonder for a good part of the afternoon.