1 . Body language, especially gestures, varies among cultures. For example, a nod of the head means “yes” to most of us.     1     Likewise, a sign for OK, forming a circle with our forefinger and thumb, means zero in France and money in Japan.     2    

Folded arms signal pride in Finland, but disrespect in Fiji. The number of bows that the Japanese exchange on greeting each other, as well as the length and the depth of the bows, signals the social status each party feels towards each other.

Italians might think you’re bored unless you use a lot of gestures during discussions. Many Americanmen sit with their legs crossed with one ankle resting over the opposite knee.     3    

Likewise, Americans consider eye contact very important, often not trusting someone who is afraid to look at you in the eye. But in Japan and many Latin American countries, keeping the eyes lowered is a sign of respect.     4    

A．To look a partner full in the eye is considered a sign of ill-breeding and is felt to be annoying.

B．As is known to all, eyes are the window the soul.

C．However, this would be considered an insult in Muslim countries, where one will never show the sole of the foot to a guest.

D．But in Bulgaria and Greece a nod means “no” and a shake of the head means “yes”.

E．Waving or pointing to an Arab business person would be considered rude because that is how Arabs call their dogs over.

F．However, whatever cultures you are exposed to, bear in mind that when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

2 . Besides being fun, well-managed festivals and events offer a host of economic and social benefits to communities.     1     There are risks and costs related to the effort.

Festivals attract visitors and boost the economy.     2     On-site spending includes admission fees, parking fees, food, beverage and souvenir sales — and more. But off-site spending related to festivals brings income for communities, too. For example, visitors stop at local gas stations, souvenir shops, and restaurants — the list goes on. Festivals also provide free marketing and advertising for local businesses as visitors talk about their fun experiences when they go back home. If visitors post comments and photos about their experiences on Facebook or other social media, so much the better. The economic benefits of successful festivals affect local tourism and non-tourism-related businesses alike.

    3     Planning and conducting festivals involves many members of the community, which produces a number of social benefits. “The best thing about being involved with festivals and events is the opportunity to help build a community, develop a sense of pride within a community, and engage a community,” says Chris Romano, a business consultant with Thrivent Financial Services. “Honestly, in my professional career, I’ve never found something outside a community festival that can do that to the same degree.” Experts agree that hometown pride is a critical factor in the development and improvement of any community. People with community pride are more likely to speak positively about their town to others and to volunteer with organizations and activities that support the common good.

Festivals will teach visitors new things. Whatever a festival’s theme, it’s bound to be instructional and visitors are bound to learn from it. Of course, education is another social benefit of festivals.     4     Learning is a big byproduct of the annual Lady Slipper Celebration in the northwestern Minnesota community of Blackduck. The community launched the celebration, named after the Minnesota state flower, to showcase and promote understanding of the area’s natural resources and Native American culture. This educational experience helped visitors connect to the area, who were pleased with their experience and planned to return to the area.

A．But hosting festivals also poses challenges.

B．Festivals may help to improve community pride.

C．Festivals play a significant role in developing relationships.

D．This is hands-on, experiential learning offered in the fun context of celebration.

E．They spend money, which boosts the local economy both on and off the festival site.

F．While a successful event raises a community’s fame, a less-than-successful effort does just the opposite.

3 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

How the British and American Tell Children’s Stories

If Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn were each to represent British versus American children’s literature, a curious situation would emerge : In a literary competition for the hearts and minds of children, one is a wizard(巫师)- in - training at a boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, while the other is a barefoot boy drifting down the Mississippi, bothered by cheats, slave hunters, and thieves. One defeats evil with a magic stick, the other takes to a raft(筏)to right a social wrong.     1    

The small island of Great Britain is an unquestionably powerhouse of children’s bestsellers: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Significantly, all are fantasies.     2     Stories like The Call of the Wild. Charlotte’s Web, Little Women, and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer are more notable for their realistic portraits of day-to-day life in the towns and farmlands on the growing frontier. If British children gathered in the dim light of the kitchen fireplace to hear stories about magic swords and talking bears, American children sat at their mother’s knee listening tales with moral messages about a world where life was hard, obedience emphasized, and Christian morality valued. Each style has its virtues, but the British approach undoubtedly creates the kinds of stories that appeal to the furthest reaches of children’s imagination.

    3     For one, the British have always been in touch with their pagan(异教徒的)folk traditions and stories, says Maria Tatar, a Harvard professor of children’s literature. After all, the country’s very origin story is about a young king tutored by a wizard. Legends have always been accepted as history, from Merlin to Macbeth. “Even as the British were digging into these magical worlds, Americans, much more realistic, always viewed their soil as something to exploit,” says Tatar.

American write fantasies too, but nothing like the British, says Jerry Griswold, a San Diego State University professor of children’s literature. He said, “    4    ” To prove it, he mentioned Dorothy, the heroine of Wizard of Oz(绿野仙踪)who unmasks the great and powerful Wizard as a cheat. Meanwhile, American fantasies differ in another way: They usually end with a moral lesson learned - for example, in Oz, Dorothy’s journey ends with the realization: “There’s no place like home.”

A．It all goes back to each country’s distinct cultural heritage.

B．American stories are rooted in realism; even our fantasies are rooted in realism.

C．Both boys are characterized by their unique roles, thus breathing life into the fancy stories.

D．Meanwhile, the United States, also a major player in children’s classics, deals much less in magic.

E．Britain’s time-honored countryside, with ancient castles and restful farms, lends itself to fairy-tale invention.

F．Both orphans took over the world of children’s literature, but their stories unfold in noticeable different ways.

4 . As recently as 15 years ago, if you wanted to catch up on the news, you could look at a handful of publications or a few nightly programs. And if you wanted to listen to music, you could turn on MTV or fiddle with your radio. People in major cities had more options, because a large population can support specialty shops.     1    .

Today, as we all know, access to information has exploded. One consequence, according to Toure, a cultural critic writing in Salon, is that the ability of pop culture to unify us-- he refers to the massive interest in Michael Jackson’s Thriller, or Nirvana’s Nevermind--has been eroded, probably forever. Steven Hyden, also writing in Salon, counters that whatever the advantages and disadvantages of a centralized pop-culture authority, the monoculture never actually existed.

    2     Even when it supposedly existed, its content largely depended on other characteristics of your little corner of the world. In the 1992-1993 school year, I was a student at a multiracial and relatively urban junior high school in California’s central valley. We listened to Salt-n-Pepa, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Kris Kross, with the latter having inspired a trend in which kids wore their clothes backwards. The next year I was enrolled in a mostly white junior high   school in leafy Chiago suburb. One of the houses was famous for having appeared in the 1990 film “Home Alone”; the popular bands were Nirvana, Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins; and the biggest pop-cultural event of the school year was Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

But Toure’s point is about the virtues of common cultural experience. It seems he is recalling centralized media only in so far as it’s a distribution system that fostered ( 促进) that outcome.

    3     It doesn’t matter whether a record is released by an important label or an indie ( 独立制片人); if it’s online, people can usually find, forward, share and promote it. But what’s interesting and perhaps surprising, given that both Toure and Mr Hyden seem to agree that the old distribution favored big media, is that we still have widely shared cultural experiences. Just think of Barack Obama doing the little hand gesture from Beyonce’s “Single Ladies ” video.

    4    . It’s safe to say that the monoculture never really existed, and that some artists still reach a wide audience, whether we like it or not.

A．That suggests that we like pop culture partly because it’s a shared experience, regardless of quality.

B．However, in vast areas of the world you had to work to get outside the mainstream.

C．Whether you like it or not, “monoculture” is here with us.

D．I think Mr Hyden is correct that the concept of a “monoculture” is a bit of a myth.

E．They see globalization as being the spread of a monoculture, based on western values, which is killing the cultural diversity of the world.

F．And it’s true that the ways we now consume pop culture to some extent level the playing field.

5 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Guizhou Province is relatively poor in terms of GDP, but extremely rich when it comes to cultural diversity. Out of 56 ethnic groups in China, 54 of them are found in the province.

Recently, a project was launched at the Guizhou Cultural and Creative Park, 1 kilometer from the airport at Guiyang, the capital of the province, to bring local cultures closer to city's residents and visitors. The project is called the Weekend Gathering of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Organizers invited local performers and inheritors of intangible(无形的)cultural heritage from the province to showcase their cultures, in the park from June to October.       1    According to Jiang Guiwu, the president of the company that runs the park, 20 counties in total will showcase their cultural heritage in the coming months.

Wearing a traditional outfit and silver jewelry, Tian Feiyan is one of the more than30 performers from the Miao ethnic group in Taijiang county, some 200 km east of the provincial capital of Guiyang, who presented a dance last weekend. ''We dance when there are festivals, ''says Tian. ''The most recent one is the Sisters Festival. . . All the girls go dancing in our village. '' 'The festival is known as the ''Miao Valentine's Day'', when young girls and boys dance together, eat specially prepared glutinous rice, and make friends.       2    Music is played, drums are banged, and silver accessories jingle as Tian and her friends start to dance.

    3    Preserved meat, chicken, rice and a jar of Miao liquor are placed on a long table, and people stand around it chanting. ''It (the ceremony)is called Gabaifu. It's folk storytelling through singing and chanting, ''says 54-year-old Zhang Benyun, ''It comprises our history and our prayers for harvest. ''

Inside the park, there is a museum dedicated to the display of cultural heritage. Sitting at different stands in the museum hall are local artists and craftsmen.     4    He is recognized as a national-level intangible cultural heritage inheritor. Wu started learning the art of making silver jewelry when he was 8, and now his daughter Wu Chunxiu, who has also become a silversmith, teaches tourists how to make silver bracelets and rings in the museum.

A．It is celebrated mostly in Taijiang county, and had been listed as national intangible cultural heritage since 2006.

B．A different county will be featured each weekend.

C．There are concerns regarding how the villagers will adapt to their new surroundings

D．Among them is Wu Shuigen, 50, a Miao silversmith from Shidong town, Taijiang.

E．Besides dancing, the villagers perform a traditional worship ceremony

F．In the mountains, which comprise more than half of the province's territory, living conditions are still harsh.

6 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Make traditional treasures come alive

The Palace Museum Director Shan Jixiang delivered a cultural heritage speech on Feb 27 in Beijing, which was co-organized by the Beijing Diplomatic Service Bureau and Beijing Housing Service Corporation for Diplomatic Missions.     1    

On the theme The World of the Palace Museum and the Palace Museum of the World, the 64-year-old director shared his ideas about how to make traditional treasures come alive again. During the speech, which lasted two and a half hours, Shan touched on topics including upgrading museum infrastructure(基础设施), restoring cultural sites, digitalizing online museums, setting up restoration hospitals, providing better visitor experiences and promoting the Palace Museum’s cultural items.

“The abundant collection of cultural objects at the Palace Museum is the inspiration for the creative souvenirs and cultural items available,” Shan said. “    2    ” Throughout 2017, the total sales of Palace Museum’s cultural items have been more than 1 billion yuan ($158million). Explaining the huge success of Palace Museum’s cultural souvenirs, Shan said: “The museum opened a shop on the e-commerce website Taobao in 2008, but sales remained neither high nor low for years, as more than 80 percent of the souvenirs sold in stores in the past were not related to our museum.” “Therefore, I wanted to change the situation. Now, souvenirs from the Palace Museum cover almost every aspect of life. After all, what matters to a museum is not how many visitors they have, but how close they are to people’s daily lives.”

    3     Around 200 “doctors” are employed to analyze, examine, detect flaws or damage in ancient objects and restore them using more than 100 pieces of specialized equipment, including 3-D printers and scanners. The restoration hospital covers 13,000 square meters and boasts the nation’s most advanced restoration workshops.

John Aquilina, Malta’s ambassador to China said that Shan’s speech showed a totally different Palace Museum to foreign people. “China enjoys a long and profound culture and many of the national treasures have been preserved at the Palace Museum. It is no easy task to preserve them well.     4    ”

A．I truly express my respect for Shan and his team for their contributions.

B．With regard to cultural heritage restoration, Shan said the museum opened a restoration hospital at the end of 2016.

C．A total of 600 people from all walks of life, including over 100 foreign guests, participated in the activity.

D．I will learn more about Chinese culture from the magnificent ancient objects.

E．Our design teams often study consumer demands and create cultural items that are nice to look at and practical to use.

F．Traditional craftsmanship is combined with modern methods, and the lives of ancient cultural objects will be lengthened by the so-called doctors.

7 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

All of us should keep a kitchen diary, showing how much food are left uneaten as garbage.     1     In China, enough food is wasted in restaurants every year to feed 200 million people. In the United States, 40 percent of food is wasted from farm to fork.

Each year, the amount of food thrown away in rich countries is almost the same as that produced in sub-Saharan Africa. This raises some important questions.

In developing countries, food is lost because farmers do not have appropriate cooling, storage or market access for their crops. Their grains, fruits and vegetables dry up and rot away.     2     China faces both problems, significant losses in farms, as well as at the sale and consumption stages. And the amount of food wasted by Chinese consumers it rapidly increasing. Consumer culture has filled China and urban residents can get quality food from anywhere in the country and from across the planet.     3     In supermarkets, they refuse to buy vegetables that don’t look fresh or have an irregular shape, or milk and other products close to their expiry（失效）date.

    4     In restaurants or at home, often too much food is ordered or cooked and served. So while trooping out of a restaurant, full and happy, with colleagues or friends, they never look back at what’s left untouched on the table. Should Chinese consumers take more responsibility for the waste they create?

Everyone deserves to have enough food to eat. Despite China’s impressive success in reducing hunger over the past three decades, the job is not completed yet.

A．In developed countries, the picture is different, and food is wasted in supermarkets, restaurants and at home.

B．Besides, Chinese consumers tend to be generous.

C．However, Chinese consumers like to eat in restaurants.

D．Chinese consumers are as particular about their food as those in other countries.

E．Every year, we need to consume a lot of food.

F．We all waste food, you and me, every day millions of tons of it.

8 . An opinion poll was conducted in the early 1990s to find out the cultural attitudes of residents of five countries in Western Europe (Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Germany). One thousand people, forming a representative sample of the adult population, from each of the five participating countries were interviewed.

The poll assumed that literature, history, science, arts, law, economics and so on would be regarded as significant elements of culture by all participants, but it set out to examine the areas which they considered the most important forms of cultural expression. In addition, the poll required interviewees to indicate in a questionnaire the type of education they considered most appropriate for the modern world, the best channels of knowledge and arts they most valued.     1    

The results of the poll show interesting differences between the participating nations in terms of which components of culture they regard as most important forms of cultural expression. For the French and Italians, literature comes well at the top of the list.     2     History occupies second place for the French, the Italians and Germans but is given very low priority by the British. For the Spanish these four areas are more or less equal, with mathematics having a slight edge.

It seems that members of each country in the survey have a common definition of culture but that definition varies from country to country.     3     The French and Italians are literary peoples, the British scientific and the Germans practical and hard-working.

France has the distinction, according to the results of the poll, of being the country which provokes most interest from its British. Italian and German neighbors.     4     The French also placed Italy first. Italy occupies second place for both the British and the Germans. It would seem, then, that the “literary” nations of France and Italy are more culturally exciting than the scientific British or the practical Germans!

A．In contrast, mathematics is given priority by the British and economics,/politics by the   Germans.

B．There are clear differences in the views of various European nations.

C．The interviewees were also asked which European country they found most attractive from a cultural point of view.

D．Spanish interviewees indicated more interest in Italy than in France.

E．The residents of the five countries of the survey share the view that books are the best way of broadening knowledge.

F．The variations tend to support the national stereotypes we have of one another.

9 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

The man who put romance back into roses for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is when unromantic people splurge (挥霍) on overpriced roses and expensive restaurants. It doesn’t have to be this way.     1    For this we have to thank David Austin, the rose guru (专家，大师), who died at 92 on 18 December last year.

Mr. A, as his staff knew him, brought romance back to roses, creating the English Rose, a marriage between fragrant Old Roses and the repeat-flowering Hybrid Tea varieties which had largely replaced them before the young son of a Shropshire farmer decided to change all that.

    2    But still most of the nurseries were unconvinced. It took another 20 years until his Mary Rose and Graham Thomas (named after his horticultural mentor) established Austin and his English Roses—colorful, repeat-flowering, deeply fragrant—in the hearts and gardens of British growers.

The rest is Chelsea-gilded history. Graham Thomas was later voted the world’s favorite rose and his Gertrude Jekyll was twice-named the UK’s favorite.

We have three roses on our London roof terrace: a spicy apricot that a few years ago won best plant at Chelsea; a Bengal Crimson from Great Dixter and a perfect yellow David Austin, named, I think, after an actress.     3    

So steer clear of the more obvious flower choices for the 14th. Roses, like people, are rarely at their best after a long-haul (长途运输) flight.     4    Maybe think about buying a rose for summer flowering. It is what Mr. A deserves and would have wanted.

A．Search out something personal, surprising and special.

B．The roses you receive today have been paid for in advance.

C．The love we share makes life so beautiful, and I love you more than roses can say.

D．As I write, the name escapes me but never the repeated flowering and its fragrance.

E．It took a decade of dedication before Austin’s Rosa Constance Spry was released in 1961.

F．Roses don’t have to come in red buds and straight stems, and they don’t have to smell of desperation.

10 . Directions: Read the following passage, Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Venice Carnival

The annual Venice Carnival is in full swing, with thousands of revelers (狂欢者) gathering the city’s canals and squares in elaborate costumes and extraordinary masks       1    .

The Carnevale di Venezia is thought to date back to the 11th century, making it one of the world’s oldest. Carnivals are held in many Catholic countries: such as Spain and Brazil, where they serve as a last chance to cat, drink end be merry before the deprivations or Lent, the 40 days of fasting (斋戒) that precede Easter.

It is thought that the masks allowed Venetians to hide their identities, allowing the poor to mix with the wealthy, breaking strict social order, even if only for a brief and controlled period.

    2     The theme of Carnival 2019 is “Tutta cope della Luna,” or “Blame the moon”, marking a half-century since man first walked on the satellite

To prevent overcrowding, authorities have installed turnstiles at the entrances to the historic St. Marks’Square, closing it off to new visitors once 23,000 revelers have entered. Costumed revelers are also searched as they enter the square.

Venice is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers       3     The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Although most visitors stick to the traditional Carnival costumes of baroque gowns and be jeweled masks for women and black capes and threatening masks for men, more and more people are opting for their own unique interpretations.

Some visitors use Carnival as an opportunity to show off a fantastic creation they’ve always reamed of wearing. It doesn’t have to be Venetian       4     At Carnival, everybody is free to who-or what-they want to be. Perhaps a different gender-or even species. That’s the joy of the mask-nobody knows who or what the person wearing it was before Carnival.

A．This year’s Carnival festivities kicked off on February 16 and go on until March 5.

B．During the 18 days of Carnival, the city fills with thousands of tourists from across Italy and around the world.

C．Parts of Venice are well known for the beauty of their settings, their architectureand artwork.

D．The Italian government decided to bring back the history and culture of Venice by seeking to use the traditional Carnival.

E．It doesn’t have to be traditional.

F．Carnival virtually disappeared when Napoleon’s troops brought an end to the Venetian Republic in 1797.