1 . Amazing China in 60 Seconds is a short-video series covering cultural and scenic hotspots across the country. If you are curious about China, then here are two selections from the series .
Tibet
Tibet autonomous region in Southwest China, home to the highest highland on Earth, is known as the “roof of the world”. It’s a paradise for tourists with its towering snow mountains, vast grasslands, quiet and peaceful lakes and breathtaking views. Must-visit places include the Potala Palace — a UNESCO world heritage site, Mount Qomolangma, Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon and more.
Tibet is also famed for its rich ethnic culture, including the Tibetan dance, age-old thangka painting and Lum medicinal bathing of Sowa Rigpa — traditional Tibetan bathing for a medical purpose which was put onto the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2018.
Jiangsu
East China’s Jiangsu province is a land of abundance where the symphony (交响乐)of the mountains and rivers echoes (回响). The hustle and bustle (熙熙攘攘) of daily life reflects its prosperity, and running rivers define its magic beauty.
Jiangsu province is home to several UNESCO world heritages sites, including the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum in Nanjing and part of the Grand Canal. Jiangsu is also known for its graceful Chinese-style gardens, water towns, the Kunqu Opera and Nanjing brocade — an age-old silk handicraft that represents the highest achievement in silk weaving in China.
1. Which of the four locations should you visit if you are a big fan of the the highest scenic spot?| A．Tibet. | B．Suzhou. | C．Jiangsu. | D．Nanjing . |
| A．They are on the coast. | B．They show glorious sights to tourists. |
| C．They saw commercial and cultural exchanges. | D．They are famous for UNESCO World Heritage site. |
| A．Admire a Buddhist paradise. | B．Visit the ancient trade routes. |
| C．Climb up the snow mountains. | D．Buy the silk-weaving products. |
2 . The Best Caves in The World
Hang Son Doong, Vietnam
Natural caves don’t come much larger than Hang Son Doong, close to the border between Laos and Vietnam. This cave possesses the largest cross-section of any known cave on the planet, a vast area that is difficult to describe. Supposedly, a Boeing 747 could fly through without damaging its wings, but that doesn’t really do justice to the vastness of Hang Son Doong. The stalactites (钟乳石) here are pretty massive too, with some reaching up to 80 metres.
Waitomo Caves, New Zealand
Glowworms (萤火虫) are there, as far as the eye can see. Okay, not literally, but the Waitomo Cave system on New Zealand’s North Island is best-known for the fluorescent fauna that light up the walls, giving it the not-particularly-creative but completely acceptable “Glowworm Caves” nickname. They are more accessible than other caves on this list, with rafting and adventure tours available to those looking for something a little more thrilling.
Mammoth Cave, the USA
If you have certain expectations from somewhere called “Mammoth Cave”, that is entirely understandable. Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the world’s longest known cave system, an incredible 420 miles of underground wonder. That’s twice as long as the next longest, by the way, although it isn’t unusual for the USA to go all out on such things.
Reed Flute (芦笛) Cave, China
Named after the reeds that grow outside, which are used to make flutes, obviously, the Reed Flute Cave’s walls are covered with inscriptions from centuries gone by—if evidence was needed that people have been paying attention to this place for a long old time. The inside part of the cave is also lit up by multicoloured lights, giving it a real otherworldly theme that adds weight to the nickname.
1. What is special about Hang Son Doong?| A．It was once a base of a factory. |
| B．It is the deepest cave in the world. |
| C．It has the highest stalactites in the world. |
| D．It owns the largest cross-section in the world. |
| A．Hang Son Doong. | B．Waitomo Caves. |
| C．Mammoth Cave. | D．Reed Flute Cave. |
| A．Vietnam. | B．New Zealand. | C．The USA. | D．China. |
3 . Qibao Ancient Village
Qibao, located in the center of Minhang District, Shanghai, is a village with a history of one thousand years. In the village, wine and tea are served on old-fashioned square tables together with long benches, long-mouth copper pots and flat-end chopstick used. The most famous snacks in old Shanghai are square pastry, rice wine and steamed salted pork in wine.
Entrance Ticket: 45 yuan per all-in-one ticket (preferable price of 30 yuan is available now), covering almost all tourist attractions inside the village.
Telephone: 021-21087225
Jinshan Village of Farmer Painting
Villagers skillfully make good use of folk arts such as printing and dyeing, embroidery (刺绣), wood carving. They take the various folk customs and the busy scenes of labor of villagers in the lower Changjiang valley as the theme of paintings and create farmer paintings in a simple style.
Entrance Ticket: 30 yuan/person
Telephone: 021-57355555
Merry Countryside Tour in Zhonghua Village
The village provides tourists with accommodations, tours, chess, cards, fitness and entertainment through renting out separate farmhouse and sells tourist products and agricultural by-products related to the merry countryside tour.
Entrance Ticket: Free Telephone: 021-57395433
Pudong Lingkong Agric Gardening
It is one of Shanghai countryside tour scenic spots, which features art of teapots, crop plantation and export. The Geological Science Popularization Hall stores up tens of thousands of rare stones collected all over the world.
Entrance Ticket: 50 yuan /person
Telephone: 021-33935557
1. What can you do when you are in Qibao?| A．Enter the village for free. | B．See busy scenes of labor of villagers. |
| C．Experience various folk customs. | D．Taste steamed salted pork in wine. |
| A．Jinshan Village. | B．Qibao Ancient Village. |
| C．Zhonghua Village. | D．Pudong Lingkong Agric Gardening. |
| A．City developments. | B．Countryside life. |
| C．Traditional customs. | D．Agricultural achievements. |
4 . On the weekends, Ciara Smart, a PhD candidate in history at the University of Tasmania, is the member of a caving club that discovered the deepest known cave in Australia.
Smart and seven fellow members of the all-volunteer Southern Tasmanian Caverneers group have officially mapped and measured their country’s deepest known cave, which is 401 vertical meters.
It’s located in Tasmania’s Mount Field National Park, northwest of the island state’s capital, Hobart. In the small but close-knit (志同道合的) caving community, one of the most important rules is that whoever discovers the cave gets to name it! For the Southern Tasmanian Caverneers, there was only one name suitable for a cave whose depth became apparent during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia — Delta Variant.
“There are a lot of different words attached to the pandemic that are quite descriptive. So we were able to go with the whole COVID-19 naming theme for the entire cave,” Smart explained.
The entrance to the cave, which is tight and narrow, is Test Station Queue. Then there's another horrible section called Close Contact, a sprawling (杂乱不堪的) horizontal bit called Superspreader Event and a wide, beautiful part now called Freedom Day.
While the cave has been discovered by pure chance, these days there are many scientific tools that cavers can use to locate their next site and collect information before even going down into other sections. Once they narrowed it down to a spot, they used dye (染料) to mark the location of the cave’s water source — a waterfall deep inside.
For Smart, the major appeal of caving is the wide range of activities it covers. “It’s sort of an addictive hobby because on the one hand, it’s great fun,” she said. “But it’s also science because we’re putting all these sections together. We’re linking them and understanding how the water flows through and how these sections form.”
1. What do we know about Ciara Smart?| A．Her team named Australia’s deepest known cave. | B．She discovered the world’s deepest cave. |
| C．Her home is in a national park in Hobart. | D．She majored in geography. |
| A．They are highly appreciated. | B．They reveal Smart’s hard work. |
| C．They comfort people. | D．They are related to the COVID-19. |
| A．Easy and interesting. | B．Fun but complex. |
| C．Boring but meaningful. | D．Dull and risky. |
| A．The location of Australia’s deepest known cave. |
| B．The demanding requirement for caving. |
| C．The appeal of Australia’s deepest known cave for Ciara Smart. |
| D．The discovery of Australia’s deepest known cave. |
5 . On June 23,2018,twelve young Thai boys and their assistant football coach wandered into a karst cave in northern Thailand, near the border with Myanmar. What happened next would grab the world’s attention and lead to a complex and daring international rescue operation. The 10.3-kilometer-long Tham Luang cave flooded, trapping the boys in total blackness nearly 2.5 kilometers from the cave entrance.
Thousands of people from around the globe participated in the rescue effort, including military personnel, medical experts and the rock stars of the operation — cave divers. The divers, who safely removed all of the Thai children and their coach after 18 days underground, dealt with tight spaces and low visibility in muddy water- conditions that would prove deadly: Saman Gunan, a former Thai Navy Seal, died while transporting air tanks into the cave.
While the sport of cave diving had received attention in the pop culture area prior to the rescue mission in North Thailand, there is little doubt that the brave divers at Tham Luang cave helped push the activity and its varieties of risks into global society’s minds.
The sport-often referred to as among the world’s most dangerous recreational activities-has its roots in pre-WWII England. Since then, the recreational practice of cave diving, described by Australian cave explorer Richard Harris (a participant in the Tham Luang cave rescue) as an “unusual hobby” for “the ordinary,” has spread around the world-China included.
Over 1,000 kilometers northeast of Tham Luang cave, in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, lies karst-peak-covered Du’an county-China’s little-known cave diving Mecca.
Home to thousands of kilometers of underground rivers, Du’an county offers divers spellbinding geological formations, perhaps the world’s largest collection of blind fish species and a rare variety of freshwater jellyfish.
1. What do we know about the Tham Luang cave rescue operation?| A．There was no loss of life in the process. | B．Rock stars took part in the rescue efforts. |
| C．Rescue team came from more than Thailand. | D．Few people cared about it outside Thailand. |
| A．Its dangerous recreations. | B．Its long history. |
| C．An expert’s description. | D．The divers’ heroic deeds. |
| A．It is northeast of Tham Luang cave. | B．There are lots of underground rivers. |
| C．It is hardly known to the outside world. | D．It has the world’s largest geological formations. |
| A．Spectacular cave diving experiences in Du’an. |
| B．Diving instructions shared by Richard Harris. |
| C．Lessons learned from this rescue operation. |
| D．Foods offered to tourists in Du’an. |
6 . The State of Colorado has four of the best parks out of the 58 national parks in the United States. The parks have some of the best scenery of all the national parks.
Black Canyon (峡谷) of the Gunnison National Park
This park offers the most breathtaking views from up in the mountains into the canyons below. While exploring the canyons, you will find that the walls drop nearly straight down into the narrow valleys of the snake-like rivers below. Visitors are offered more than 100 camping sites, and a lot of bird species and many animals are native to the area.
Rocky Mountain National Park
It is the only national park in the north central region in the State of Colorado. Elevations in this park are anywhere from 8, 000 feet to 14, 259 feet at the top of Longs Peak. While travelling throughout this park you will notice there are two very different climates because of the difference the upper peaks of the Rocky Mountains make. You can enjoy 359 miles of hiking trails, a lot of places for camping, horse-back riding and beautiful scenery.
Mesa Verde National Park
This is probably the most interesting national park, offering a fascinating trip back in time to 600AD up to 1300 AD. This park was declared a protected national park in 1906 because of the cliff dwellings (居住) that were found throughout the area, which were once home to American Indians. Many of these dwellings can be walked through, while you imagine what each room may have been used for so many years ago.
Great Sand Dunes (沙丘) National Park
The Great Sand Dunes National Park lies in South-Central Colorado, about 127 miles from Pueblo. This park has the tallest sand dunes in all of North America and has trails for hiking. The natural sandy beaches around the small rivers and lakes are good for swimmers.
1. What is special for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park?| A．It is the most splendid national park. |
| B．It has a most steep valley to explore. |
| C．It has at most 100 camping sites to explore. |
| D．It has diverse bird species and plants to explore. |
| A．The Rocky Mountain National Park. |
| B．The Mesa Verde National Park. |
| C．The Great Sand Dunes National Park. |
| D．The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. |
| A．Beautiful canyons. | B．Hiking trails. |
| C．Cliff dwellings. | D．Sand dunes. |
7 . Highest Mountains in the World
Mount Kilimanjaro
Mount Kilimanjaro, a dormant(休眠的)volcano, is the highest mountain in Africa. Its summit is 5, 895 meters above sea level. Located in Tanzania, it is the largest free-standing mountain rise in the world, meaning it is not part of a mountain range.
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the highest mountain in Asia and the highest mountain in the world. Its summit is 8,848.86 meters above sea level. It is located in the Himalaya Mountain Range on the border of Nepal and China. The Chinese name is Chomolungma, which means “Mother Goddess of the World”. The Nepali name is Sagarmatha, which has various meanings.
Denali
Denali is the highest mountain in North America. Its summit is 6,193 meters above sea level. It is located in the USA, in the state of Alaska. “Denali which means ”the tall one“, comes from Koyukon, This name had been used for many generations and was used by early non-native researchers and naturalists. But in 1896, it began to be called” Mount McKinley“, in honor of William McKinley, a presidential candidate at the time.
Mount Vinson
Mount Vinson is the highest mountain on Antarctica. Its summit is 5,140 meters above sea level. Located in the summit plateau of Vinson Massif, near the base of the Palmer Peninsula in western Antarctica, Mount Vinson is part of the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains. It was spotted from the air by U.S. pilot Lincoln Ellsworth in 1935.
1. Which of the following shares two names from two countries?| A．Mount Koyukon. | B．Mount Vinson. |
| C．Mount Everest. | D．Mount Kilimanjaro. |
| A．A Japanese. | B．An Australian. |
| C．A Frenchman. | D．An American. |
| A．They are all covered with snow all through the year. |
| B．They are all the highest mountains in separate continents. |
| C．They are all occupied with typically unique wild animals. |
| D．They are all likely to erupt again sometimes in the future. |
8 . Naturally Pink Lakes
Lake Koyashskoye
The water of Lake Koyashskoye in Crimea ranges from pink to red depending on the season. The lake is filled with halobacteria — microorganisms that produce a pink-colored protein when absorbing energy from the sun. Some also put the color down to brine shrimp (盐水虾), which boom in the salty environment.
Lake Hillier
Lake Hillier is located on Middle Island off the southern coast of Western Australia. Most people believe the deep color comes from a combination of algae and salt-loving halobacteria. However, there’s a bit of mystery to Hillier. Other pink lakes change color depending on the season, the angle of the sun or air temperature. Hillier remains the same shade of pink for the whole year.
LagunaColorada
Though it may be described as a “pink” lake. Laguna Colorada in Bolivia is often characterized as “red” or “red-orange”. Salt-loving algae and bacteria help to create this color, but sediments (沉积物) from the nearby rocks also affect the water’s appearance. Like some of the other pink salt lakes, this one draws flamingos (火烈鸟).
Las Salinas de Torrevieja
The pink water of Las Salinas de Torrevieja in Spain is thought to be good for health and people claim improvement in their skin and lung conditions after a bath in it. The lake is not the only pink-colored thing in Torrevieja. During migration season, flamingos crowd the area.
1. Which lake’s color is affected by sea animals?| A．Lake Hillier’s. | B．Lake Koyashskoye’s. | C．LagunaColorada’s. | D．Las Salinas de Torrevieja’s. |
| A．In Spain. | B．In Bolivia. | C．In Crimea. | D．In Australia. |
| A．Its water is red-orange. | B．It is home to flamingos. |
| C．Its water has health benefits. | D．It changes color with the season. |
9 . Since I was born and brought up in a rural town, I have a great interest in nature. Taking the chance of studying abroad in my second year at college, I decided to go to Canada just because I wanted to see the beautiful phenomena there. So after I finished the study program, I went to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.
I clearly remember the sixth night in Yellowknife. Suddenly my host mother came to my room around 8 p.m. and told me to change clothes and go outside quickly carrying her camera.
The northern lights were flickering in the sky! I was shocked and just stood there with my mouth open. I forgot to take pictures of the mysterious lights.
Since that night, whenever it was sunny, I went outside at night and looked at the sky. It was so cold that I lost all feeling in my hands and feet.
As I took pictures of the northern lights, I came to find a characteristic movement of the lights. They first appear in the north part of the sky and then they gradually come down to the south part of the sky. After that, suddenly, they come in the middle of the north and south only for a while, which is the time when the best northern lights can be seen. Since it is only a few seconds for the northern lights to come down to the middle to the sky, it is very hard to get good pictures.
The stronger the sun acts, the better and stronger the northern lights flicker in the sky. That’s because they come about from the collisions between atmospheric gases and solar wind. Much more solar wind comes to the earth when the sun is active, which leads to best northern lights. And the colors of the northern lights depend on the height of the collisions and the kinds of gases.
1. Why did the host mother ask the author to go out?| A．She wanted to tell him something important. |
| B．She wanted to take a walk with him. |
| C．She wanted him to see the northern lights. |
| D．She wanted to take a picture of him. |
| A．the host mother didn’t remind him to take the camera |
| B．he lost his feeling in his hands and feet |
| C．the lights flickering in the sky disappeared too soon |
| D．he was shocked by the wonderful sight |
| A．When they are between the north and south. |
| B．When they come down to the south part of the sky. |
| C．When they appear in the north part of the sky. |
| D．When they rise in the east part of the sky. |
| A．Ways to take good pictures of the northern lights. |
| B．The time of the best northern lights. |
| C．The relationship between the sun and the northern lights. |
| D．The colors of the northern lights. |
10 . From the moment you open your eyes in the morning, you can feel sweat (汗水)running down your body, even if you’re barely moving at all. That’s what most people in China felt like this summer. In fact, the entire northern hemisphere(半球 )saw high temperatures in July. The Arctic Circle(北极圈) was no exception(例外). Temperatures in the city of Norilsk, which is in the Arctic Circle, reached a record high of 32 ℃, The Atlantic reported. Temperatures there are usually just 10 ℃ at this time of the year.
The heat wave in the Arctic is mainly a long-term result of global warming, according to the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences. In fact, while the whole world is getting warmer, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. This is called the polar amplification effect(极地放大效应).
The most direct impact(影响) of Arctic warming is the melting of Arctic ice. According to NASA, Arctic sea ice is now disappearing at a rate of 13. 2 percent every 10 years. NASA said that if this continues, the Arctic will have no ice by the year 2040. This has put some Arctic animals, like polar bears, in danger. The ice that the bears live on has shrunk(缩小), the Toronto Star reported.
Melting ice can also cause sea levels to rise in the long term. Since 1993, sea levels have risen at a rate of 3. 2 cm every 10 years, the Guardian reported. Some countries, such as Tuvalu(图瓦卢) in the South Pacific Ocean and Maldives(马尔代夫) in the Indian Ocean, are at risk of disappearing into the sea.
1. Which of the following is true?| A．Some countries in the ocean will disappear in 10 years. |
| B．China is the hottest in the northern hemisphere this summer. |
| C．The temperatures in Norilsk used to be lower than this summer. |
| D．The world gets warmer because of the heat wave in the Arctic. |
| A．The heat wave in the Arctic. |
| B．The result of global warming. |
| C．Getting warmer in the world. |
| D．The Arctic getting warm faster. |
| A．The polar will become dangerous. |
| B．Sea levels rise in the long term. |
| C．There will be an end of water shortage. |
| D．There will be no ice in the world by 2040. |
| A．Heat hits Arctic. |
| B．Arctic animals are in danger. |
| C．The world became hotter than before. |
| D．Some countries may disappear into the sea. |
