In Xixian county, located in Linfen, Shanxi province, a smart pear orchard (果园)     1     (stretch) 33.3 hectares (公顷) has been developed with the     2     (assist) of the Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

In this orchard, every pear is given     3     unique QR code that enables monitoring of the entire growth process. “The QR code serves     4     an ID card, recording the life of a pear,” said Wang Yibo, an agriculture official from the county.

    5     (establish) in 2020, the smart orchard is operated with the help of cutting-edge technologies such as the internet, big data, cloud computing and the internet of things. There are 64 villages in the county     6     rely on pears as their primary industry,     7     (account) for 80 percent of the farmers’ income.

So far, Xixian     8     (build) a smart agriculture integration platform made up of 12 systems, including water-fertilizer     9     (integrate) management, disease and insect monitoring, and the monitoring and evaluation of the quality of the land.

According to Wang, the platform not only helps with production but also promotes sales, as its tracking system can collect first-hand marketing feedback data. Pear farmers can learn about the market demand through the system to     10     (accurate) identify their customers and carry out targeted promotions.

With its long history and prosperous culture, China is rich in cultural heritage, including historical villages, time-honored brands and, critically, ancient sites.

Last December, the National Cultural Heritage Administration announced    1    (it) fourth list of national-level archaeological parks. Nineteen were added to the list,    2    was initially launched in 2010, bringing the total number to 55.

“Archaeological parks can help enrich cultural knowledge by    3    (display) both the sites and their artifacts,” said He Yun’ao, a professor at the Department of Archaeology and Cultural Relics at Nanjing University.

“The 19 parks are all doing well in terms of management and operation, archaeological studies and protection efforts, and their displays of cultural artifacts and explanations,” the list said. “They each    4    (protect) and explored in ways suited to local conditions, and stand out among their counterparts for their special situations and innovations.”

    5    particular, the Erlitou Archaeological Site Park in Yanshi District, Luoyang City, Henan Province,    6     (attract) a lot of attention since the National Cultural Heritage Administration announced new findings at the site last September. It is    7     (wide) believed to have been the capital toward the end of the Xia Dynasty, the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography(编史). Erlitou is among the parks added to the fourth list.

The site plays    8    essential role in the study of early China and the culture of the Xia Dynasty. The latest studies suggest the people of the era built a grid(网格) city, with intersecting roads creating square divisions used for residential, commercial and other    9    (purpose). The roads provide important clues for studying the Xia economic system, their socioeconomic development and crafts, as well as ceremonies     10    (perform) during the period.

Huawei’s success: Beyond the tech with a focus on core values

When the news that people who have pre-ordered Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro could pick up their new phone     1     September 3rd hit the Internet, it immediately triggered a buying spree among Chinese consumers, with long queues     2     (appear) at Huawei stores across major Chinese cities. “Do you have Mate 60 Pro in stock?” has become the most asked question in these stores. Several users     3     have had their Mate 60 Pro told media that conducting speed tests on the Mate 60 Pro, they found that the download speed ranges from 500 to 600Mbps and can even reach over 1000Mbps.Wi-Fi 6E support allows users     4     (experience) stable and speedy Internet connections, even in     5     (crowd) areas. Huawei’s 3D facial recognition utilizes depth sensing technology to capture more comprehensive facial data, achieving three-dimensional anti-counterfeiting recognition. The Mate 60 Pro is also the world’s first mass-market smartphone to support satellite calls, allowing users to     6     (easy) make and receive satellite calls, even in areas without ground network     7     (signal). Huawei has always been renowned for     8     (it) exceptional camera technology, and the Mate 60 Pro takes it to a new level. For people with battery anxiety, the Mate 60 Pro is also     9     more than perfect choice, considering its massive 5,000mAh battery. It     10     (ensure) all-day usage, keeping up with your busy lifestyle.

China will release the world’s first high-fidelity (高保真) virtual giant panda and a metaverse-like(类似宇宙的) world     1     it will live, China’s forestry and grassland authority announced. The digital giant panda will be able to interact with humans after     2    (give) Al life in this metaverse-like world.

The details of the giant panda’s bones, muscles, skin, hair and facial features will be created with millimeter-level precision. After it goes online, the public can immerse     3    (they) in the habitat with their mobile phones to learn about the living habits and environment of the pandas.

The digital project     4    (aim) at telling the stories of flagship species at China’s national parks including giant pandas, golden snub-nosed monkeys, Asian elephants and Siberian tigers, and it is also a creative way     5    (show) the world China’s efforts in bio-diversity.

    6     this, Al has also been successfully used elsewhere. It has been used to     7    (automatic) identify and analyze the tracks of snow leopards from 100,000 photos taken every three months in national parks, increasing the     8    (accurate) of identification to 98 percent and     9    (strength) the efficiency of protection measures.

The National Forestry and Grassland Administration has also introduced VR solutions, which make visiting China’s Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park on people’s phones     10     reality.

On an early August morning, craftsman Zhang Xi drove his car quickly along a winding mountain road in Longquan, Zhejiang province,    1    (hope) to reach his destination—a century-old kiln (窑) —as soon as possible,    2    hundreds of pieces of pottery (陶器) that had been given their final celadon glaze (青釉) were finally ready.

The 51-year-old craftsman     3     (use) the old kiln, which is located on a mountain near Xitou village, for many years. Every time he removes his     4     (create) from the kiln, seeing them in their finished celadon color remains as exciting and nerve-jangling as ever.

“It’s like opening blind boxes. The same formula of glaze     5     (apply) to different vases can look     6     (total) different on each one,” says Zhang.

Their colors usually fall in the spectrum (色谱) between lavender gray and plum green. However, sometimes they end up being brown or yellow. All these colors depend on temperature changes during the two-day firing,     7     process described by local craftsmen     8     “a song of clay and fire”. The     9    (tradition) firing technique of Longquan celadon pottery, which dates back further than 1,600 years,     10    (include) on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity List in 2009.

Cheering, dancing and singing, local people and tourists gathered around the fire during the Torch Festival of the Yi People in Bijie’s Hezhang county, Guizhou, on Aug 12. The festival was listed     1    a national intangible cultural heritage in 2011.

Though there are many     2    (describe) of the origin of the festival, it mostly relates to the natural worship of fire. For the early Yi people who lived in high-altitude-mountainous-areas, fire     3    (be) essential to light, warm, and cook food. There was     4    old practice: Before bringing animal meat into the home, a small fire must first be lit outside the door and the meat should     5    (smoke) on the fire to drive away filth. That’s     6    the Yi people have a proverb that says, “Everything you eat must ‘see’ fire.” In farming, they used to light     7    (pile) of branches and leaves and bury them in the ground later,     8    (use) them to fertilize the land.

The Yi people used to celebrate the festival as a way to pray for a good harvest and to drive away evil from their home and farmland. Today, it has become a     9    (society) event, through     10    the Yi people not only share their joy and thanks for their good life, but also get more people to understand their lifestyle and traditions.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, 15 young people lay comfortably on colorful carpets and throw pillows arranged in    1    circle. Their eyes were closed, some with their legs spread forward and    2    curled up, looking as if they were asleep.

Kong Yi sat cross-legged before them, using a special stick to hit lightly metal bowls in front of her, making a sound    3    reverberated(回荡)long inside the quiet room. Following Kong’s    4    (instruction), they went in for a two-hour sound treating and meditation(冥想)course. Listening to the slowly disappearing sounds of age-old musical instruments such as singing bowls and gongs, the members reached a deeper center and a semi-conscious(半意识)state.

After, they were guided into supposing that they    5    (talk) to a wise man dressed in white, during which they could ask questions and get answers from the wise man in half an hour. In the final part, they were pulled    6    (share) their heart conversations with other members. “In that class, many people asked the meaning of life in the end    7    everyone gave different answers from the wise man —     8    (actual) themselves, ” said Kong, who runs a work room offering treating courses connected with art forms    9    painting, music and dance.

Such spiritual, meditative experiences that can lower stress and worry have become the    10    (late) choice for the country’s stressed-out younger generation looking for relaxation and heart exploration.

Nature inspired us to figure out ways to solve the problems we faced. Birds inspired us to fly, beavers gave us ideas on how to build dams (大坝) and even tiny white ants demonstrated building ideas that we could use. By means of     1    (study) the workings of wildlife, we've come up     2     some pretty brilliant inventions. Here' re some examples to inspire students to explore their own ideas.

Bats (蝙蝠) can use     3    (they) mouths and ears to identify high-frequency sound waves, allowing them to avoid barriers and catch insects in the air. They do this by making sounds     4     can be reflected off a surface in a process     5    (call) echolocation. It is no big surprise that researchers are working on ways that poor-sighted people can use a system like echolocation.

Spider (蜘蛛) silk is one of the strongest materials in nature, believed to be five times     6    (strong) than steel. But unlike steel, spider silk is both flexible     7     lightweight. Scientists recently created a new type of medical tape based on the features of spider silk.

Even plants can inspire invention.     8     electrical engineer named George de Mestral noticed that burrs from burdockplants (牛蒡植物的芒刺) stuck fast to his unfortunate hunting dog. From that bit of inspiration, he invented Velcro, one of the most     9    (wide) used fastening systems in human history.

Students should     10    (encourage) to study the characteristics of a plant or animal and see what inventions or ideas they can design.