1 . A Race against Death

It was a cold January in 1925 in North Alaska. The town was cut off from the rest of the world because of the heavy snow.

On the 20th of that month, Dr. Welch _________ a sick boy, Billy, and knew he had diphtheria, a deadly infectious (传染的) disease mainly affecting children. The children of Nome would be _________ if it struck the town. Dr. Welch needed medicine as soon as possible to stop other kids from getting sick. _________ , the closest supply was over 1,000 miles away, in Anchorage.

How could the medicine get to Nome? The town’s _________ was already full of ice, so it couldn’t come by ship. Cars and horses couldn’t travel on the _________ roads. Jet airplanes and big trucks didn’t exist yet.

_______ January 26, Billy and three other children had died. Twenty more were _________. Nome’s town officials came up with a(n) _________. They would have the medicine sent by _________ from Anchorage to Nenana. From there, dogsled (狗拉雪橇) drivers — known as “mushers”—would __________ it to Nome in a relay.

The race began on January 27. The first musher, Shannon, picked up the medicine from the train at Nenana and rode all night. __________ he handed the medicine to the next musher, Shannon’s face was black from the extreme cold.

On January 31, a musher named Seppala had to __________ a frozen body of water called Norton Sound. It was the most __________ part of the journey. Norton Sound was covered with ice, which could sometimes break up without warning. If that happened, Seppala might fall into the icy water below. He would __________, and so would the sick children of Nome. But Seppala made it across.

A huge snowstorm hit on February 1. A musher named Kaasen had to brave this storm. At one point, huge piles of snow blocked his __________. He had to leave the trail (雪橇痕迹) to get around them. Conditions were so bad that it was impossible for him to   __________ the trail again. The only hope was Balto, Kaasen’s lead dog. Balto put his nose to the ground, __________to find the smell of other dogs that had traveled on the trail. If Balto failed, it would mean disaster for Nome. The minutes passed by. Suddenly, Balto began to __________. He had found the trail.

At 5:30 am on February 2, Kaasen and his dog __________ in Nome. Within minutes, Dr. Welch had the medicine. He quickly gave it to the sick children. All of them recovered.

Nome had been __________.

3 . You can tell a lot about people’s general state of mind based on their social media feeds. Are they always tweeting（发微博）about their biggest annoyances or posting pictures of particularly cute kitties? In a similar fashion, researchers are turning to Twitter for clues about the overall happiness of entire geographic communities.

What they’re finding is that regional variation in the use of common phrases produces predictions that don’t always reflect the local state of well being. But removing from their analyses just three specific terms -- good, love and LOL - greatly improves the accuracy of the methods.

“We’re living in a crazy COVID-19 era. And now more than ever, we’re using social media to adapt to a new normal and reach out to the friends and family that we can’t meet face-to-face.” Kokil Jaidka studies computational linguistics at the National University of Singapore. “But our words aren’t useful just to understand what we, as individuals, think and feel. They’re also useful clues about the community we live in.”

One of the simpler methods that many scientists use to analyze the data involves correlating words with positive or negative emotions. But when those records are compared with phone surveys that assess regional well-being, Jaidka says, they don’t paint an accurate picture of the local zeitgeist（时代精神）.

Being able to get an accurate read on the mood of the population is no laughing matter. “That’s particularly important now, in the time of COVID, where we’re expecting a mental health crisis and we’re already seeing in survey data the largest decrease in subjective well-being in 10 years at least, if not ever.”

To find out why , Jaidka and her team analyzed billions of tweets from around the United States. And they found that among the most frequently used terms on Twitter are LOL, love and good. And they actually throw the analysis off. Why the disconnect?

“Internet language is really a different beast than regular spoken language. We’ve adapted words from the English vocabulary to mean different things in different situations.” says Jaidka. “Take, for example, LOL. I’ve tweeted the word LOL to express irony, annoyance and sometimes just pure surprise. When the methods for measuring LOL as a marker of happiness were created in the 1990s, it still meant laughing out loud.”

“There are plenty of terms that are less misleading,” says Jaidka. “Our models tell us that words like excited, fun, great, opportunity, interesting, fantastic and those are better words for measuring subjective well-being.”

4 . Walking or running outdoors, people usually see rubbish all over the ground. Well, some people are doing something about it.     1     “Plogging” began in Sweden. The name connects the Swedish word “plocka” which means to pick up, and the word “jogging” which means to run slowly.

A Swedish man named Erik Ahlström, started the movement in 2016. He moved to Stockholm from a small community(社区) in northern Sweden. Each day he would ride his bike to work. He became worried about the amount of rubbish and litter he saw each day on his way to work. So, he took matters into his own hands. He began picking up the rubbish.     2    

Today, plogging is an official activity, which is becoming more and more popular. People of all ages are welcome to plog. Exercise while helping your community.     3     It can also build closer social connections in a community. When the street looks bad and it’s dirty, you’re going to feel bad about the community. You may even feel less safe because of that. So if we’re all doing our part and picking it up, it’s very easy to help beautify it, and help build those social connection.     4     You get to feel some social duty when you do this.

Along with cleaning up the environment, there may be another reason to choose plogging instead of just jogging. You may get a better workout. One fitness app, Lifesum, records one hour of plogging as burning 288 calories.     5    

As can be seen, cities around the world now hold plogging events. The goal is to spread the idea that littering is not acceptable. People would think twice before dropping a garbage on the ground.

Tomb-Sweeping Day is one of the eight most important traditional     1     (festival) in China. The actual day usually occurs around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar but the festival lasts longer. Traditionally,10 days before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day can be counted as the festival. The festival is said to originate from the funerals of emperors, generals and ministers     2     ancient times. The rituals (仪式)     3     (perform) at these funerals later became popular among ordinary people. Over time the tradition of offering sacrifices to the ancestors and sweeping tombs has been passed down from generation to generation and evolved into     4     custom widely observed by the Chinese nation. Despite the festival having no official status, the overseas Chinese communities take this festival     5     (serious) and observe its traditions faithfully .

Tomb-Sweeping Day is also known as the Qingming Festival-when spring is in the air, the earth looks clearer and     6     (bright) with increasing rainfall, and everything in the natural world waves goodbye to the unpleasant memory of winter. This     7     (consider) as a shift from yin to yang. During this beautiful season, flowers blossom in the     8     (warm) and everything is full of vitality. The tradition of spring outings     9     (date) back to the Tang Dynasty. Apart from enjoying glorious natural scenery, outings involve other activities     10     serve to bring out the best of the festival.

6 . Seminole was far too accustomed to the business. Everyone sympathized with him depending an long hours minimum wage, and ill-mannered customers. Although struggling to pay his rent he still went all out to make those lucky enough to sit at his tables laugh. The day was going quick.

He was exhausted when he arrived to work the next day, but he went about his daily duties, putting on a brave face as customers complained about the food or questioned the bill. Usually as he prepared to close for the night, a couple of customers would sit down and order drinks. Most of the crew had left by closing time, but Seminole stayed to serve. Eventually, the last round was ordered and he gave them the bill. The minimum tip was suggested on the receipt. “Tomorrow will be better,” murmured he.

But luck wasn’t on his side. Evening approaching, a group of teenagers stepped in. Thankfully, they were polite and respectful. Their cheerful behavior began to rub off on him. As always, he did his best to make their dining experience a pleasant one.

Once they finished their dishes, he placed the bill on the table, accompanied with some candies. They placed their notes on the receipt and left smiling. When he returned to clear the table, he was shocked. The teenagers only left a tip of $3, but their total bill was more than $100. He'd gone above and beyond serving the tasty dishes. Ho would they be so rude?

Later that week, he struggled to let go of the awkward memories. He arrived at work and expected it to like any other, but there was something left behind the desk for him--a two-page handwritten letter from the teenagers with $18 attached, in which they explained they were unaware of the tipping practice due to it being their first time out alone. Everything suddenly made sense.

Seminole was so touched by their gesture that he uploaded a picture of the letter sharing their admirable efforts. Web visitors voiced their opinions, and the reaction was more than positive.