Mount Everest, which is part of China,     1     (lie) between Nepal and Tibet. On Tuesday, Nepal and China made a surprising     2     (announce) on the height of the world’s highest mountain. After years of not reaching an agreement on the mountain’s height, both sides have measured again and discovered it’s higher    3    anyone thought.

Sir George Everest, after     4     the mountain is named, was the main surveyor (测量员) of India in the mid-1800s. Radhanath Sikdar, an Indian man who worked for Mr. Everest, was the first     5     (realize) it was the highest mountain in the world. He     6     (exact) calculated the height as being 29,000 feet. But Mr. Sikdar’s boss added two feet to the height because he was afraid people wouldn’t trust     7     round number like 29,000.

But the height most people have been using for Mount Everest came from a 1955 survey     8     (conduct) by India, which put the mountain’s height at 29,029 feet   (8,848 meters) . Since that time, other attempts     9     (make) to measure the mountain, each coming up with a different result.

Last year, four surveyors from Nepal climbed Mount Everest and made new measurements, using GPS and satellite information. And in May, China sent up     10     (it) own team of surveyors, who were the only ones to climb Mount Everest this year. Working together to determine the mountain’s exact height, the two countries announced the new height: 29,031.7 feet (8,848. 86 meters).

As the world largest cotton consumer and the second largest producer of cotton, China has a long history of cotton cultivation. It is worth     1    (mention) that Xinjiang cotton is highly regarded because of its high yield and high quality.

    2     (locate) in the inland of Eurasia (欧亚大陆), Xinjiang has a typical mild continental climate. Drought, little rain, sufficient heat, big temperature differences between day and night and long day make     3     good growth environment for cotton.

Though Xinjiang has little rainfall, it has a large number of snow-capped mountains, from     4     meltwater gives cotton abundant water resource. Meanwhile,     5     contrast to the instable rainfall in the monsoon (季风) regions, mountain snowmelt has the characteristics of stable water transportation, which is very     6     (suit) for the growth of cotton.

Xinjiang is     7     (light) populated and has a vast planting area. It has an area of 1.66 million square kilometers and a population of about 23 million. The cotton planting areas covered 25,019.3 square kilometers in 2020, according to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Xinjiang.

The     8    (combine) of advantaged natural conditions and mechanical technology     9     (make) Xinjiang cotton have good quality. Endless white cotton has also become one of the     10    (symbol) of great beauty in Xinjiang.

More than 2,000 years ago, the brave and hardworking people of Eurasia explored and opened up several routes of trade and     1     (culture) exchanges that linked the major civilizations of Asia, Europe and Africa,     2     (general) called the Silk Road by later generations. For thousands of years, the Silk Road spirit—“peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness(包容性), mutual learning and mutual benefit” —    3     (pass) from generation to generation. In the 21^st century, a new period is marked by     4     theme of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit. It is more important     5     us to carry on the Silk Road spirit in face of the weak     6     (recover) of the global economy, and complex international situations.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping     7     (visit) Central Asia in September 2013, he raised the idea of     8       (build) the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 218-Century Maritime Silk Road,     9     have attracted close attention from all over the world. The Belt and Road Initiative is a systematic project, whose goal is     10     (meet) the interests of all, and efforts should be made to combine the development strategies of the countries along the Belt and Road.

It’s almost time for me     1     (say) goodbye to Australia. I     2     (enjoy) my time here very much. After being here for a while, my biggest impression is the complicated mix of peoples and cultures     3     make up the nation. Although the main cultural influence     4     1788 has been Westen culture, minority cultures have also played a part in shaping the unique Australian culture, with many of the new     5     (culture) influences contributed by immigrants. It is said that now nearly half of all Australian citizens were either born overseas     6     have parents who were born overseas.

    7     (personal) speaking, what I like most about Australia     8     (be) the people themselves.     9     have a straightforward and free-and-easy attitude towards life, and their friendliness and warmth made me feel at home wherever I went. After experiencing Australia, I have to say that I agree     10     the tourism slogan: “There’s nothing like Australia.”

Chengdu Du Fu Thatched Cottage,     1     (locate) by the Blossom Bathing Brook of Chengdu City, is the former residence of Du Fu,     2     great poet of Tang Dynasty of China. In the winter of AD 759, Du Fu and his family     3     (flee) to Chengdu in order to seek refuge from the “Rebellion of An Lushan and Shi Siming”. Beside the beautiful Blossom Bathing Brook, he built a thatched cottage named “Chengdu Thatched Cottage”,     4     he lived for nearly 4 years. Of all the poems he wrote there, more than 240 are still read. These monumental poems endow the Cottage with profound cultural significance,     5     (make) it a sacred land in the history of Chinese Literature.

Covering an area of 190,000 square meters, the Cottage is the biggest, best preserved and most distinctive relic in memory of Du Fu in China. In the center of the hall, a bronze statue of Du Fu, made by Liu Kaiqu, a famous sculptor of our country,     6     (place) in the center of the hall.

Chinese critics from the Song Dynasty referred to Du Fu     7     the “poet-historian”. Both before and after the An Lushan Rebellion, Du Fu witnessed a typical     8     (politics) and social situation. The common people still lived in     9     (poor) while the emperor and his top officials enjoyed a foolishly luxurious life. He composed many poems such as “Song of the War Chariots”, “Three Officials”, and “Three Departures”.     10     he expressed in his poems are the dissatisfaction with the government and his great pity for the common people.

8 . One of the biggest icebergs ever recorded has just broken away from Antarctica. The giant block covers an area of about 6,000 sq km; that’s about a quarter the size of Wales, part of the United Kingdom. A US satellite observed the berg while passing over an area known as the Larsen C Ice Shelf (冰架).

Researchers, who’d been following the development of a large crack in Larsen’s ice for more than a decade, were expecting it. The crack’s expansion had accelerated since 2014, making an upcoming calving (分离) ever more likely. The thick berg will not move very far, very fast in the short term. But it will need to be monitored. Currents and winds might eventually push it north of the Antarctic where it could become a serious threat to shipping.

The American space agency’s Aqua satellite noticed clear water in the crack between the shelf and the berg. The water is warmer relative to the surrounding ice and air. The event was confirmed by other spacecraft such as Europe’s Sentinel-1 satellite-radar system. The new Larsen berg is probably in the top 10 biggest ever recorded．The largest observed in the satellite era was an object called B-15. It came away from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000 and measured some 11,000 sq km. Six years later, parts of this super-berg still existed and passed by New Zealand. In 1956, it was reported that a US Navy icebreaker had met with an object of roughly 32,000 sq km. That’s bigger than Belgium. Unfortunately, there were no satellites at the time to follow up and confirm the observation.

The Larsen C Ice Shelf has been known to produce bigger bergs. An object measuring some 9,000 sq km came away in 1986. Many of Larsen’s bergs can enter the Weddell sea or can follow currents into the Southern Ocean, and even into the South Atlantic. A good number of bergs from this shelf can end up being caught on the shallow continental shelf around the British overseas area of South Georgia where they gradually fade away.