Chinese drinking vessels (器皿) have kept evolving throughout the dynasties of China,     1     reflect the ceremony system,     2     (culture) ideas, customs and manners at that time.

In Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, ancient China established itself a complete ceremony system.     3     (drive) by the system, it’s widely believed that it’s impolite to serve     4     alcohol, which helped greatly promote the     5     (popular) and use of bronze (青铜) drinking vessels,     6     (make) them a significant symbol of bronze culture in this period. The drinking vessels came with a variety of shapes and sizes.

Drinking wine was     7     (extreme) popular in the Tang Dynasty. Among more than 40,000 poems included in the Complete Tang Poems, there are up     8     5,400 poems written about wine. The drinking vessels mentioned in Tang poetry are rich in material, including metal vessels as well as ceramic (陶瓷) vessels, which boomed in the Song Dynasty.

Jingdezhen ceramics in Jiangxi Province     9     (last) for five or six hundred years throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, where a surprisingly large number and a wide variety of wine sets were created. Ceramic wine sets reached the peak of perfection in the Qing Dynasty, which     10     (represent) by the set of wine cups with flowers of the twelve months from the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty.

A city’s name can often indicate its status in a nation’s history. Nanjing, meaning “southern capital city” literally in Chinese, could claim such an influential     1     (identify) in history.

The city, now capital of East China’s Jiangsu Province, was once     2     (global) considered to have     3     urban history of 2,500 years, a new archaeological research rewrites that. It was founded more than 3,100 years ago when an ancient city named Changgan was recently excavated (发掘).

“    4     (date) from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, archaeologists found that the city’s walls were protected by trenches,     5    is a universally acknowledged indicator of a defensive system     6     (adopt) by ancient cities,” says Chen Dahai, head of the archaeological excavation team. “In the history of the ancient system, trenches     7     (appear) before the walls were constructed. They were built around the living area     8     (prevent) floods and defend against enemies,” he added.

The latest archaeological findings may reshape the city’s history, with     9     (it) appearance tracing back to more than 3,100 years ago. Wang Wei, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Archaeology Department, recognizes the discovery     10     a remarkable archaeological finding in tracing the Nanjing’s origins.

Xu Xiake was born in 1587.     1     (he) parents were rich landowners. Yet he gave up a     2     (comfort) life, and decided to explore the mountains and rivers on foot.

China has more famous explorers. There was: Zhang Qian, who traveled into Central Asia during the second century BC, opening a trade road that became     3     is known as the Silk Road. Or Zheng He, the sailor who in the 15th century sailed as far away as Africa. Yet these explorations     4     (support) by governments. Xu was totally different.

“On the surface, Xu’s travels can neither be classified as great affairs of state     5     great adventures that changed the course of history,” writes cultural historian Cheng Pei-kai. “Xu travelled to satisfy his own     6     (curious).”

Scholar Julian Ward agrees, describing the lonely Chinese wanderer like the Middle Kingdom’s version of John Muir: “Deep in love with nature and eager to find freedom     7     worldly concerns, Xu was a man addicted to     8     (see) and describing the landscape.”

“The few coins     9     (slip) from a hole in my pocket while I was climbing a mountain in Yunnan. When I finally managed to the town, I sold all my clothes, bought myself a bottle of wine and a good dinner     10     (celebrate) my survival,” the dreamy explorer wrote in his diaries, which mix details of geology, geography and botany with such personal travel experiences.

4 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Plant lovers believe that talking to plants helps them grow. Scientists have discovered there could be real     1     (true) in this belief. Researchers have discovered that plants give off sounds when they are stressed. The sounds are quite similar     2     a human cry. Unfortunately, plant sounds are at too high a frequency for the human ear     3     (pick) up. Humans can only hear frequencies of up to 16 kilohertz (赫兹). Using special Al technology, scientists can now pick up sounds     4     (send) out by plants that are up to 250 kilohertz. The Al can also tell differences between different types of plant sounds.

The research     5     (do) in a greenhouse at Israel’s Tel Aviy University. Lead researcher Professor Lilach Hadany said: “Plants usually give off sounds when they     6     (be) under stress. Each plant and each type of stress is connected with     7     specific sound.” She suggested that crop fields could be quite     8     (noise), saying “While unable to be picked up by the human ear, the sounds given off by plants can be heard by bats,     9     (mouse) and insects. Understanding these sounds could help us know when crops need watering,     10     means farmers could water their crops more efficiently and thus save water and money.

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

As artificial intelligence products steadily improve at pretending to be human, people will increasingly be put in the unsettling situation of not knowing     1     they are talking to a machine. But the     2     (true) may make such products less effective: recent research finds a trade-off between transparency and cooperation in human-computer interactions.

The study used a game in     3     paired players made a series of     4     (decision) to cooperate with betray their partner. In     5     long run, it pays for both to keep cooperating. But there is always the desire     6    (earn) extra points at the partner’s expense. Previous work suggested people tended to distrust machines, so the scientists hoped people     7     (play) with a known robot would recognize its ability to cooperate and would     8     (eventual) get past their distrust.

“Sadly, we failed at this goal,” says Talal Rahwan, a senior author on the paper,     9     (publish) last November in Nature Machine Intelligence. “A robot was     10     (likely) to obtain cooperation than another human, even though its strategy was clearly more beneficial to both players.”

It seems that there is a long way to go before trust in robots is established.

6 . 语法填空

The "Subject Three” dance     1     (originate)from lively wedding celebrations in southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. The tradition evolved into a     2     (culture) phenomenon, suggesting that in a Guangxi native’s life, there are three essential     3     (experience), or ‘subjects’: singing folk songs, slurping rice noodles, and dancing.

7 . 语法填空

Known as the “Eastern Moscow”, Harbin has always been regarded as     1    unique and exotic city, which is hosting its 30th International Ice and Snow Festival. The city    2     (offer) special winter experiences like nowhere else in China: an ice and snow world, snow sculpture park, ice lantern fair,     3     dog sledding. Dozens of snow sculptures are attracting hundreds of thousands of     4     (visit) to Harbin.

The good news is that we can change, if we understand     1     habits work. To facilitate     2     positive change in our bad habits, we must first examine our bad habit cycles and then try to adapt them. We can do this by combining the information from our habit cycles     3     our own positive ideas. We can also use the habit cycle     4     (create) good habits.

9 . 阅读下列短文，根据短文内容填空，在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

The Special Olympics Unified Sports was a natural development of the Special Olympics — a program that shows what    1    safe sports organization should be. The Special Olympics began as a day camp    2    (create) in 1963 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Shriver’s Camp encouraged many universities and organizations to host similar events. It jumped to the international stage when the United Nations declared 1986    3    “The Year of the Special Olympics,” Austria held the first international Special Olympics in 1993. The summer games went worldwide in Dublin, Ireland in 2003. The Special Olympics    4    (partner) with more than 172 countries across the world and has provided more than five million people with year-round training and activities.

10 . 阅读下列短文，根据短文内容填空，在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

My carriage     1     (drive) me through the night and all was in thick darkness when I reached my home town. By then the city gates were locked so I was not able to go straight to the house. I therefore decided to walk out and see for myself the fateful spot     2     poor William had died. As I walked, thunder rumbled and rain began to fall in heavy drops. When I reached the place, the storm was at its fiercest and the countryside was lit up by wild flashes of lightning. With the rain     3     (stream) down my face, I clasped my hands together and looked up into the darkness.