Over 400 pieces or sets of Dehua white porcelain (德化白瓷) are     1     display in the National Museum of China in Beijing, with the exhibition running from Aug. 26 for three months.

Dehua white porcelain is famous for     2     (it) pure white color. Dehua white porcelain     3     (extraordinary) pure and white because the kaolin (高岭土) in Dehua county in Fujian has a low percentage of iron, making the porcelain stainless like white jade, earning it the French name “Blanc de Chine”, or “white from China”.

Sitting in Quanzhou city,     4     the ancient Maritime Silk Road started, Dehua white porcelain     5     (sell) like hotcakes at home and abroad since the Song Dynasty (960-1279). In 2006, Dehua white porcelain was listed as     6     national intangible cultural heritage.

Despite the past glories, Dehua craftsmen never stop improving their skills. One     7    (impress) skill is “the eggshell technique(薄胎技艺)”. The eggshell technique in Dehua     8    (date) back to the Ming Dynasty. With the technique     9     (improve) by generations of craftsmen, today’s eggshell porcelain can be made as thin as paper.

By combining traditional Chinese artistic skills with modern disciplines(学科) like material science and humanities, Blanc de Chine will continue to enhance the cultural confidence of the Chinese people as they create even more outstanding     10     (work).

More than 500 pieces of relics     1     (discover) at the Sanxingdui Ruins site last year. The relics include golden masks, jade and ivory artifacts and bronze wares     2     were exquisitely (精美地) built and     3     (unique) shaped, said the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Heritage Administration on Sept. 9, 2021. The new discoveries bring the total number of items unearthed at Sanxingdui     4     nearly 2,000 after the excavation of No. 3 to No. 8 sacrificial pits began in October of 2020.

Tang Fei, chief of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, said, “The new discoveries demonstrate once again that the     5     (imagine) and creation of the ancient Chinese far surpassed what people today had expected”. Tang added that the excavation of the new pits has entered a critical stage, with more     6     (item) yet to be unearthed. He also anticipated that the items found will challenge the     7     (convention) wisdom of archaeologists.

Originally discovered in     8     late 1920s, the Sanxingdui Ruins have been considered as one of the world’s greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.     9     (locate) in the city of Guanghan, around 60 km from Chengdu, the ruins covering an area of 12 square km are believed     10     (be) the remnants (遗迹) of the Shu Kingdom, dating back some 4,500 to 3,000 years.

It’s nice to go out     1    a meal at a restaurant. But what makes it extra special — apart from the food — is to receive attentive service from the staff. Seeing a service charge     2    (add) in your bill can leave a bad taste in your mouth. You     3     (face) with the dilemma of deciding to pay it, and whether you should add a tip on top.

Putting your hand in your pocket to reward good service is a     4     (person) choice, but it also depends on where you are in the world. What is the norm in one city is not     5     (necessary) the norm in another. In some     6     (place) a tip is expected; but in     7    , good service should be expected and ought to be included in the price.

In the UK, people tending to be too polite     8    (complain), the service charge might be paid despite the quiet complaint     9     the service they received was not up to the standard! In the US, however everybody     10     (offer) 20% more as a tip. Maybe we should fallow Japan’s approach, tipping under any circumstance may seem rude because good service is standard and expected.

In the past, video games     1     (criticize) for making people more antisocial, overweight or depressed. But now researchers are finding that games can     2     (actual) change us for the better and improve both our body     3     our mind. Games can help to develop physical skills. Pre-school children who play interactive games such as the ones available on Wi-Fi have been shown to have improved motor skills. Last year a study of surgeons in Boston     4     (discover) that those who played video games were 27 percent faster and made 37 percent     5     (few) errors than those who didn’t. Vision is also improved, particularly telling     6     difference between shades of grey. This is useful     7     driving at night, piloting a plane or reading X-rays.

Games also benefit a variety of brain     8     (function), including decision-making. In a study by researchers from the University of Rochester in New York, it was found that the best gamers could make choices and act on them up to six times a second. In another study, experienced gamers were shown     9     (be) able to notice more than six things at once without getting confused,     10     (compare) with the four that most people can normally keep in mind.