World Smile Day is celebrated (庆祝) on the first Friday of October every year. It was created (创建) by Harvey Ball, an artist from the United States. He created the Smiley Face in 1963. The day was created to spread joy and love to everyone.
World Book Day
World Book Day was created on 23rd April, 1995 by UNESCO (联合国教科文组织). It was created in honor of two great men: William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Books have been educating people for hundreds of years, and the best way to celebrate this day is to find the time to do some reading.
World Health Day
The World Health Organization (WHO) was created on 7th April, 1948 to solve health problems. Every year, the members of WHO meet in Switzerland to review WHO’s work and set new goals. The day is celebrated annually on 7th April.
The International Day of Families
The International Day of Families was created by the United Nations in 1993 and is celebrated on 15th May every year. The day celebrates the importance of families.
1. Which of the following is celebrated in October?| A．World Health Day. | B．The International Day of Families. | C．World Book Day. | D．World Smile Day. |
| A．To solve health problems. |
| B．To spread joy and love to everyone. |
| C．To encourage people to read more books. |
| D．To remember Shakespeare. |
| A．UNESCO. | B．The World Health Organization. | C．The United Nations. | D．The United States. |
| A．Every day. | B．Every week. | C．Every year. | D．Every month. |
| A．It was created by WHO. |
| B．It was created in 1995. |
| C．It is not celebrated every year. |
| D．It celebrates the importance of families. |
2 . Literary festivals are held annually in many corners of the globe and attract large numbers of readers, writers, playwrights (剧作家) and publishers.
Miami Book Fair
For eight days each year in November, the campus of Miami Dade College hosts over 500 outstanding authors during the Miami Book Fair. The fair offers young writers a unique opportunity to attend creative writing courses and workshops. Readers can listen to famous international authors talk about their latest books. Most of the events are offered free of charge to encourage a love of literature across all income groups.
Cheltenham Literature Festival
The festival runs for 10 days every autumn in Cheltenham. It’s the world’s first literature festival, leading the way in celebrating the writ- ten and spoken word. The fair offers something to everyone-you can attend reading activities and debates, and bring your children to see their favorite storybook characters brought to life.
Paraty International Literary Festival
It’s held each year in the city of Paraty, Brazil. Visitors can meet many local and international authors, poets and playwrights, and attend literature workshops. As part of the festival, Flipinha is mainly for children where young readers can meet writers and relax with a book in a special space. A further arm of the festival is called FlipMais. A series of free events about live theatre, music and cinema are held throughout the city of Paraty.
Edinburgh International Book Festival
The festival lasts for over 16 days every August and usually features around 900 events where you can meet your favorite authors, and bring your children to attend magical story-telling sessions and special workshops for children with learning disabilities. In most years, the festival attracts over 1,000 authors, poets and educators.
1. What can young writers do at Miami Book Fair?| A．Enjoy wonderful live shows. | B．Get the latest books for free. |
| C．Develop their writing skills. | D．Receive training in public speaking. |
| A．It includes different forms of art. | B．It organizes a debate for writers and readers. |
| C．It gives children a chance to make up stories. | D．It allows readers to offer writers suggestions directly. |
| A．Miami Book Fair. | B．Cheltenham Literature Festival. |
| C．Paraty International Literary Festival. | D．Edinburgh International Book Festival. |
3 . Food festivals are a common occurrence in the UK and take place in all sorts of places and at all sorts of times. Whatever your taste, there’s a food festival to match — no matter how specialized.
1. Meatopia
This three-day, London-based festival takes place at the end of August and is a meat lover’s paradise. In addition to a range of legally sourced meat products, from juicy burgers to tender steaks, attendees can listen to live music, watch butchery demonstrations, and attend informal meat-based workshops.
2. The National Honey Show
If you have a sweet tooth, then it could be that the National Honey Show, which started in 1921 and is the largest event of its kind, is the place for you to be. This three-day event attracts many local entries who showcase their sweet golden honey, some of which is sold globally.
3. The Orange Sauce Festival
Have you heard about a festival that is devoted only to orange sauce? Held in Cumbria, this sweet, fragrant festival has been running for 3 years. What attracts people most is a competition to find the best homemade orange sauce. There are thousands of participants from over 30 different countries across the globe, bringing their local snacks to share here.
4. The Ginger and Spice Festival
If you’d prefer something with a little more kick to it, then you could attend The Ginger (姜) and Spice Festival held in Market Drayton. Unlike other food festivals, it celebrates its town’s historic connection to Robert Clive, who returned from India with ginger. Because of this, they specialize in baking gingerbread, but also sell a range of traditional spices from mild to hot.
1. What do Meatopia and the National Honey Show have in common?| A．Both of them last for three days. | B．Both of them hold workshops. |
| C．Both of them originated from London. | D．Both of them have a long history. |
| A．The Meatopia. | B．The Ginger and Spice Festival. |
| C．The National Honey Show. | D．The Orange Sauce Festival. |
| A．It has something to do with a historic figure. |
| B．The ginger used in the festival is from India. |
| C．It sells spicy food. |
| D．The food is cooked by Robert Clive. |
4 . The Spring Festival is the biggest festival for Chinese people all around the world.The celebration usually lasts for 15 days.There is a lot to do.
On the eve of the Spring Festival, family members get together and have a big meal. Their favourite dish on this day is dumplings.
Days before the Spring Festival, families will clean their houses. People think cleaning sweeps away bad luck. It makes the house ready for good luck.
The colour red is everywhere during the Spring Festival. People think red is a happy colour and will bring them a bright future. People wear red, too. They decorate their homes with pieces of red paper. Kids get a lot of “hongbao”. It is a red paper bag with money in it. Usually, older people give younger ones “hongbao”. They think it brings good luck.
The Spring Festival is the time to make everybody happy. So don’t say any bad words or do anything that will bring unhappiness to other people. For instance, you’d better not say any bad words like “death”. Don’t break anything. People think that means your luck is running out.
Also, don’t borrow or lend money on these days. If you have borrowed money, return it before the Spring Festival.
1. What do most people do on the eve of the Spring Festival?| A．Family members gather for a big meal. |
| B．Friends eat dumplings together. |
| C．They borrow money from friends. |
| D．They give each other “hongbao”. |
| A．Because they enjoy cleaning. |
| B．Because it is believed that cleaning will sweep away bad luck. |
| C．Because they think it will bring happiness to others. |
| D．Because it is thought that cleaning brings in money. |
| A．Returning money before the Spring Festival. |
| B．Saying bad words like “death”. |
| C．Wearing red clothes. |
| D．Decorating houses with red paper. |
| A．a time of harvest and fun |
| B．celebrated for one whole month |
| C．only celebrated in China |
| D．a time for families to get together |
5 . In China, tea has become an important part of everyday life for thousands of years. As the tea-processing methods and tea culture have evolved over the years, tea sets have also changed to meet the practical and cultural needs.
During the Tang Dynasty(618~907AD), tea leaves were traded across the country and Asia. For the convenience of transportation and storage, tea leaves were pressed into bricks. To prepare tea, drinkers had to cut them into small pieces and boil them in heat-resistant teapots.
By the Song Dynasty(960-1279), drinkers started to turn the hard bricks into powders (粉末) that could be whipped (搅打) in a cup with boiled water. This whipped tea is most commonly associated with Japanese tea ceremonies today.
By the 1500s, tea bricks gave way to the form of rolled leaves. This innovation led to the invention and use of teapots as we know them today. These teapots originally came from the Yi Xing region of China and were soon copied throughout the world. Then Japanese teapot-makers moved the handle from the side to the top of the teapots.
Tea finally reached Europe in the 1600s, along with the necessary tea sets made in Japan and China. As English teapot-makers began to adapt the tea sets to their country men’s tastes, they eventually added a handle to the tea bowl because of the English habit of drinking hot black tea, which was consumed at higher temperatures. The size of teacups also grew to accommodate milk and sugar in their tea.
By the early 1900s, innovations in tea drinking became an American affair. The most revolutionary one was the tea bag, which was accidentally commercialized by Thomas Sullivan. He had been sending customers tea wrapped in silk bags. Rather than take the leaves out of the bags, as Sullivan intended, the customers put the bags into their teapots instead. Not only did the tea bags push the teapot back to the sidelines of tea service, they were also too large for teacups and led to the modern practice of drinking tea from mugs.
1. Which was used to make the whipped tea in Japan?| A．Rolled tea leaves. | B．Freshly picked tea leaves. |
| C．Powdered tea leaves. | D．Loosely pressed tea leaves. |
| A．Tea bags and mugs. | B．Tea bowls with handles. |
| C．Heat-resistant teapots. | D．Teapots with top handles. |
| A．Customers are very creative. | B．Innovations are relatively easy. |
| C．Marketing strategy is critical. | D．Good ideas can be born by accident. |
| A．The Development of Tea Sets | B．Varieties of Tea Leaves |
| C．Various Tea-making Methods | D．The Spread of Tea Trades |
6 . A music festival is a community event focusing on live performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme. On the list are the music festivals for fans around the world. Find your favorite now!
Field Day
January 1, 2023, Sydney
Field Day means New Year’s Day for young people in Sydney. Seen as the city’s original multi-stage party, it’s a gathering of friends coming together for a great fun-filled first day of the year. There’s an air of hope and positive energy on a perfect summer’s day.
The Envision Festival
February 27—March 6, 2023, Uvita
The Envision Festival is an annual gathering in Costa Rica that aims to provide an opportunity for different cultures to work with one another to create a better community. The festival encourages people to practice art, music, dance performances, and education. Meanwhile, our connection with nature is expected to be strengthened.
The McDowell Mountain Music Festival
March 2—4, 2023, Phoenix
The McDowell Mountain Music Festival is Phoenix’s musical celebration of community culture. Since its foundation in 2004, it has been the only 100% non-profit music festival designed to support, entertain and educate the community. The festival attracts thousands of visitors each year from around the country, and it is an opportunity to experience true culture.
The Old Settler’s Music Festival
April 20—23, 2023, Dale
The Old Settler’s Music Festival is a nationally known music festival for American music. The festival is held in the country of Texas at the height of the wild flower season. The Old Settler’s Music Festival offers great music and activities for the whole family.
1. In which city can people enjoy a fun New Year’s Day?| A．Phoenix. | B．Uvita. | C．Sydney. | D．Dale. |
| A．It encourages people to receive education. | B．It is not aimed at making money. |
| C．It provides an opportunity for friend gathering. | D．It focuses on cultural exchanges. |
| A．Field Day and the Envision Festival. |
| B．The Envision Festival and the McDowell Mountain Music Festival. |
| C．The Old Settler’s Music Festival and the McDowell Mountain Music Festival. |
| D．The Envision Festival and the Old Settler’s Music Festival. |
7 . People from East Asia tend to have more difficulties than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly (均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and overlook the mouth.”
According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than Westerners did. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion. Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”
In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.
1. What does the discovery show about Westerners?| A．They pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth. |
| B．They consider facial expressions universally reliable. |
| C．They observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways. |
| D．They have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions. |
| A．To get their faces impressive. | B．To make a face at each other. |
| C．To classify some face pictures. | D．To observe the researchers’ faces. |
| A．They do translation more successfully. | B．They study the mouth more frequently. |
| C．They examine the eyes more attentively. | D．They read facial expressions more correctly. |
| A．The Eye as the Window to the Soul | B．Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions |
| C．Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills | D．How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding |
8 . Celebrating the Harvest Around the World
A harvest festival is a celebration of the fall months and the harvest that often accompanies these months. Many countries celebrate harvest festivals in different forms.
Canada
In Canada, people celebrate their harvest on Thanksgiving. This tradition is said to date back to the 16th century. The English explorer Martin Frobisher(1535—1594) came upon the land, searching for the “New World”. As he arrived in Canada in 1578, he celebrated surviving the long journey by holding a formal celebration and eating salt beef and peas. Today, it has become a recognized holiday in the country that falls on the second Monday in October. On Thanksgiving, most return home to gather with their family. One of the highlights(高潮) of the holiday is a big Thanksgiving Day meal, which usually includes turkey and bread, which are prepared and presented in a unique Canadian way.
The United Kingdom
Harvest festival activities are considered a special time for communities to come together in celebration. The harvest festival may start with carrying baskets of fruits and vegetables to a local church where people sing praise songs for a healthy harvest while praying for future harvests. A special effort may be made to give food to the less fortunate. Large dinners may also be hosted where each member brings a special dish to share with each other.
China
In 2023, the Farmers’ Harvest Festival was launched in China. It’s held on the day of the autumn equinox(秋分), which falls roughly on Sept. 22 or 23. Every year, a range of events are organized nationwide. In Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, farmers brought 100 seed varieties to the main site of the ceremony in Hanhu District and placed them in a wall to mark the achievements of the seed industry. In Heilongjiang Province, the festival was combined with local traditions of the Daur people and the locals danced around bonfires.
1. Originally, Thanksgiving was celebrated in Canada for .| A．their harvest | B．finding the new world |
| C．surviving the long journey | D．gathering with their family |
| A．attending a church service | B．donating food to the poor |
| C．sharing food at a dinner party | D．dancing around bonfires |
| A．Different countries celebrate their harvest in different ways. |
| B．There are similarities in celebrating the harvest among different places. |
| C．The Farmers’ Harvest Festival is an annually nationwide thing in China. |
| D．Local traditions are included in celebrating the harvest around China. |
9 . Do you like Chinese traditional painting and dance? They are two important parts of the traditional Chinese art. But what about when they meet each other?
This year, a dance drama titled Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting (《只此青绿》) was staged on CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala and became popular.
According to CCTV, this poetic dance program was inspired by the 900-year-old Chinese painting A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains (《千里江山图》), created by Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng at about 18. The painting is amazing in its sweeping size, rich coloration and the expressive details, reported by CCTV. It shows a Chinese blue-green landscape: mountains and groupings of infinite (无限的) rise and fall between cloudless sky and rippling (涟漪的) water.
When the dancers moved elegantly, audiences seemed to be looking at the moving mountains and rivers. “It brings me a pure experience of beauty. It is not only a drama but also an exhibition. Vast mountains and rivers are coming to life!” Internet user Mo Weisha wrote in a review. “More than a thousand years later, green mountains and rivers still impress people as they did long ago.” Some people even decided to watch the dance again when it was staged in the theaters later. In fact, in recent years, more and more modern shows have featured Chinese traditional culture and received warm welcome. As for the reason, it is due to people’s great love for traditional culture.
“The younger generations have grown up with a more open mind. They accept Chinese culture and are proud of it,” Yao Wei, director of Henan TV Station’s Innovation Center, told China Daily.
1. What’s the writing purpose of paragraph 1?| A．To raise a question. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To describe the art world. | D．To show a doubtful thought. |
| A．CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala. | B．A Chinese blue-green landscape. |
| C．Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng. | D．An old Chinese traditional painting. |
| A．Traditional culture is accepted and loved by people. |
| B．Green mountains and rivers greatly impress people. |
| C．The poetic dance can be staged in the theaters later. |
| D．Increasing modern shows feature Chinese traditional culture. |
| A．It explains why Chinese art enjoys popularity. |
| B．It shows us art can come to life through dance. |
| C．It highlights the beauty of Chinese traditional art. |
| D．It tells us the love for Chinese traditional painting. |
10 . With more recognition than Halloween and less than Christmas,Valentine's Day as an imported festival faces a dangerous situation in China, where it's caught between forces of tradition and fashion.Valentine’s Day has a natural enemy in China.And it is not the Chinese equivalent, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month on the lunar calendar, usually around half a year away from Feb.14. It is the Spring Festival,also known as the Chinese New Year, that will influence the Feast of Saint Valentine.
The real disagreement between East and West probably took place over a century ago,when China’s door was forced open by Western powers and Chinese scholars supported westernization as a means to strengthen our nation’s ability to compete.
The introduction of the solar calendar and Western measurements was both an acknowledgment of their influence and an effort to be accepted by the world order.
For a full century, we have had two systems running in parallel. When it comes to the eventual outcome, practicality usually beats all other concerns. Laws can help, such as the three traditional festivals of Tomb Sweeping, Dragon Boat and Mid-Autumn gaining legal status in 2008 and giving every Chinese citizen a day off, but laws cannot push what people have no feelings for. So, the celebration or boycott of imported holidays or homegrown ones should be no cause for worry. If they are irrelevant, no social media will change the public’s mind; and if they are accepted, there must be a need which they happen to satisfy.
Since we have no global Qin Shihuang to force one system on every country,we can always rely on a dual (双重的) approach by which we share with the outside world on the one hand but preserve our own ways of life on the other.
1. What does the author think about Valentine's Day in present China? ______| A．It meets with a natural enemy. | B．It is better known than Christmas. |
| C．It strongly attacks Chinese culture. | D．It is more popular with young people. |
| A．the Dragon-boat Festival | B．the Spring Festival |
| C．the Mid-autumn Festival | D．the Chinese Valentine's Day |
| A．current laws | B．people’s needs | C．public media | D．age-old tradition |
| A．the conflict between the East and the West will last long |
| B．Chinese festivals are to be paid more attention to in years |
| C．both Chinese and foreign systems of festivals can co-exist in China |
| D．this cultural shock is normal and will be received by more people in the future |
