1 . The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) included on December 17, 2020 China's Tai Chi on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The decision was announced during the online meeting of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage held from December 14 to 19 in Kingston, capital of Jamaica.
“Born in the mid-17th century in a small village named Chenjiagou located in Central China's Henan province, Tai Chi is not only a kind of traditional Wushu integrated with slow movements and deep breathing, but is also deeply rooted in many areas of Chinese culture, such as medicine and philosophy,” Zhu Xianghua says, who is the son of the famous Tai Chi master Zhu Tiancai.
Although it has spread to more than 150 countries and regions, attracting more than 100 million people to practice, the idea that Tai Chi is for the elderly has stopped many young people practicing the ancient Wushu. They think of it as a slow exercise, which is specially made and better suited for their grandparents. Instead, many young people are turning to the Indian practice of yoga to relieve stress, which was placed on the UNESCO's List in 2019.
In order to promote Tai Chi, joint efforts have been made from individuals and the Chinese government in the last decades. Xi'an Jiaotong University requires students to learn Tai Chi. Wang Yunbing, a professor in the university's sports center, stressed that Tai Chi is not only good physical exercise-researchers from the American College of Rheumatology find that it can help manage several diseases but is also conned ted to ancient Chinese civilization. Since 2014, the World Tai Chi Championships have been held every two years by the International Wushu Federation. It provides a platform for communication and learning between the Tai Chi masters and Tai Chi lovers around the globe. In January 2020, Tai Chi became an official event in the 2026 Dakar Youth Olympic Games.
1. What does Zhu Xianghua say about Tai Chi in paragraph 2?| A．It originated from fast Kung Fu action. |
| B．It was born around the 1750s in a village. |
| C．It is related to other cultural fields of China. |
| D．It integrates Chinese medicine and western philosophy. |
| A．They think it easier to practice yoga to keep fit. |
| B．The elderly stop young people practicing Tai Chi. |
| C．They consider Tai Chi is custom-built for old people. |
| D．Yoga was included in the world culture earlier than Tai Chi. |
| A．To promote contemporary Chinese civilization. |
| B．To show many efforts made to popularize Tai Chi. |
| C．To stress the importance of Chinese Tai Chi masters. |
| D．To advise people to practice Tai Chi to cure diseases. |
| A．Tai Chi Steps on the UNESCO's List. |
| B．Tai Chi is Competing against Yoga. |
| C．Tai Chi Has Regained populate Globally. |
| D．Opinions Greatly Differ on Tai Chi and Yoga. |
2 . My husband and I just spent a week in Paris.
The place wasn’t entirely authentic, though. Unlike a normal Parisian apartment, the plumbing (水管) worked.
Parisians are different from you and me. They never look lazy or untidy. As someone noted in this paper a couple of weeks ago, they eat great food and never gain weight.
In France, quality of life is much more important than efficiency.
You can tell this by cafés life. French cafés are always crowded.
| A．Not all the customers are tourists. |
| B．The quality of life in France is equally excellent. |
| C．There was a nice kitchen and a comfortable bed. |
| D．The amazing food is mainly consumed by local farmers. |
| E．That’s not the only reason the French eat less than we do. |
| F．Our aim was to see if we could live, in some way, like real Parisians. |
| G．The food is so delicious that you don’t need much of it to make you happy. |
3 . Guanmei, a 65-year-old woman of the Dong ethnic group, is the inheritor of the Grand Song of Dong (侗族大歌), a national intangible cultural heritage in China. Her hometown Zaidai Village in Guizhou, southwestern China, is home to the Grand Song of the Dong ethnic group.
The Grand Song of Dong dates from more than 2,500 years ago. The way Dong singers use their vocal cords (声带) is different from how formally trained singers do. It is a folk chorus with multi-parts, no conductor, and no accompaniment. Organically growing from their natural surroundings, it is recognized internationally as “the sound of Nature.”
Before the Dong people had a writing system in 1958, the Dong culture, their history and stories were all recorded by means of songs. As a Dong saying goes, “Rice feeds the body and songs enrich the soul”. The Dong people sing right from their childhood. While not singing, they all work in their rice field.
Guanmei has been singing the Grand Song of Dong all her life, making her a famous singing teacher in her hometown and nearby areas. “The songs are our means of passing on wisdom, knowledge and life experiences to others. I will not exist in this world 100 years later, but Grand songs will. I’m honored to do this job, ” Guanmei said.
Kind-hearted, Guanmei has been volunteering to teach the Grand Song of Dong to the Dong children for over 30 years. Now she has more than 300 students. Guanmei is pleased to see the village children come to her house willingly when they have free time.
“Nowadays, more and more young people leave the village and settle in cities. Decades later, the Dong children out of the village might know nothing about Grand songs. We should do something just now. It’s our mission. What is once lost might be lost forever,” added Guanmei.
1. What makes the Grand Song of Dong known as “the sound of Nature”?| A．The outstanding conductor. |
| B．The special musical instrument. |
| C．The attractive natural environment. |
| D．The inspiration from nature. |
| A．The Dong singers are professionals. |
| B．The Dong culture before 1958 has been largely lost. |
| C．Singing is of vital importance to the Dong people. |
| D．They have a written language with a history of over 2,500 years. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Sympathetic. |
| C．Optimistic. | D．Satisfied. |
| A．To call on young people to return to the Dong village. |
| B．To guide the Dong children to learn the Grand Song of Dong. |
| C．To show a woman’s efforts to keep the Dong culture alive. |
| D．To instruct people to appreciate the Grand Song of Dong. |
4 . It can be very easy to stick with what you know, instead of trying to meet people who are different from you.
Become self-aware.
Talk to someone from a different cultural background. Try and get to know someone from a different cultural background better.
Be more accepting. Sometimes, for one reason or another, it's not all that easy to understand some cultural differences.
| A．Do your own research. |
| B．Think beyond stereotypes. |
| C．Practice being sympathetic towards people. |
| D．Work out your own beliefs, values and personal biases. |
| E．Instead of asking them questions directly, treat them as friends. |
| F．And the best approach is to acknowledge people are different and to accept that's okay. |
| G．However, trying to understand people from other countries can help you experience more. |
5 . As more and more people speak the global language of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000-7,000 languages spoken around the world today will be likely to die out by the next century, according the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations — UNESCO and National Geographic among them — have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Center, Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials —including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes — which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection. Now, through the two organizations that he has founded — the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project — Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to schools but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.
1. Many scholars are making efforts to ________.| A．promote global languages | B．rescue disappearing languages |
| C．search for languages communities | D．set up language research organizations |
| A．having detailed records of the languages | B．writing books on language users |
| C．telling stories about language speakers | D．living with the native speakers |
| A．The cultural studies in India. | B．The documents available at Yale. |
| C．His language research in Bhutan. | D．His personal experience in Nepal. |
| A．Write, sell and donate. | B．Record, repair and reward. |
| C．Collect, protect and reconnect. | D．Design, experiment and report. |
6 . If you're British or live in a Commonwealth nation, Christmas doesn't end on December 25.The day after Christmas is known as Boxing Day, and the relaxing holiday is a chance to allow the celebration for one more restful day.
But its name has nothing to do with the sport of boxing, and unlike the popular idea, did not appear from a need to return unwanted gifts or clean up trash produced by Christmas gifting.
There are several theories as to how that charitable tradition became known as "boxing".Some historians link the use of the term to boxes of donations that were laid in churches during the pre-Christmas season of Advent in the early days of Christianity during the second and third centuries A.D.The day after Christmas, the boxes were opened and the money was given away to the poor.
Another possible story for Boxing Day has to do with a tradition that formed in 19th century Victorian England, where servants sacrificed（牺牲）time with their own families to cater to their employers on Christmas.On the day after Christmas, employers would give the servants a rare day off and send them home with leftovers from the family's Christmas feast for their service.
Though the reasons are lost to history, Boxing Day charity eventually fell out of tradition---and was replaced with physical and material pleasures.Today, the holiday is linked with sports, with major football rugby, and cricket matches and horse races taking place on December 26.
December 26 is also a big shopping day throughout the UK and the Commonwealth.The holiday kicks off what is known as " Boxing Week" , during which retailers（零售商）try to move old stock and shoppers compete for one last bargain of the year.In recent years, though, the American tradition of Black Friday---massive sales that take place the day after Thanksgiving each November---has become popular in the United Kingdom and has largely overshadowed Boxing Week.
1. What kind of festival was Boxing Day probably in the beginning?| A．A charitable festival. | B．A religious festival. |
| C．A sports festival. | D．A business festival. |
| A．Take care of. | B．Depend on. |
| C．Put up with. | D．Pick up. |
| A．It has become an online shopping day. |
| B．It has been replaced by Black Friday. |
| C．It only covers popular sports events. |
| D．It has become less important than before. |
| A．When Did Boxing Day Come into Being? | B．Why Did People Celebrate Boxing Day? |
| C．How Is Black Friday Celebrated in the UK? | D．Why Is Black Friday Popular in the UK? |
7 . If Confucius(孔子)were still alive today and could celebrate his September 28 birthday with a big cake, there would be a lot of candles. He'd need a fan or a strong wind to help him put them out.
While many people in China will remember Confucius on his special day, few people in the United States will give him a passing thought. It's nothing personal. Most Americans don't even remember the birthdays of their own national heroes.
But this doesn't mean that Americans don't care about Confucius. In many ways he has become a bridge that foreigners must cross if they want to reach a deeper understanding of China.
In the past two decades, the Chinese studies programs have gained huge popularity in Western universities. More recently, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes in more than 80 countries. These schools teach both Chinese language and culture. The main courses of Chinese culture usually include Chinese art, history and
philosophy(哲学). Some social scientists suggest that Westerners should take advantage of the ancient Chinese wisdom to make up for the drawbacks(缺陷)of Western philosophy. Students in the United States, at the same time, are racing to learn Chinese. So they will be ready for life in a world where China is an equal power with the United States. Businessmen who hope to make money in China are reading books about Confucius to understand their Chinese customers.
So the old thinker's ideas are still alive and well.
Today China attracts the West more than ever, and it will need more teachers to introduce Confucius and Chinese culture to the West.
As for the old thinker, he will not soon be forgotten by people in the West, even if his birthday is.
1. The opening paragraph is mainly intended to______________.| A．provide some key facts about Confucius |
| B．attract the readers' interest in the subject |
| C．show great respect for the ancient thinker |
| D．prove the popularity of modern birthday celebrations |
| A．have a great interest in studying Chinese |
| B．take an active part in Chinese competitions |
| C．try to get high scores in Chinese exams |
| D．fight for a chance to learn Chinese |
| A．Forgotten Wisdom in America |
| B．Huge Fans of the Chinese Language |
| C．Chinese Culture for Westerners |
| D．Old Thinker with a Big Future |
| A．a personal biography | B．a history paper |
| C．a cultural newspaper | D．a philosophy textbook |
8 . On the evening of April 8, Dunhuang Academy and Huawei jointly launched a brand-new technology-driven tour experience at the Mogao Grottoes. Using Huawei's newly-released Hetu artificial intelligence platform, coupled with the output of the Digital Dunhuang project, visitors to the Mogao Grottoes can enjoy a fantasy experience prior to entering the attraction.
Zhao Shengliang, director of the Dunhuang Academy, said that it has been cooperating with Huawei since March 2019. Using Huawei's latest Hetu technology, visitors are able to see the detailed contents of the Dunhuang Art Murals(壁画) outside the caves, through their Huawei mobile phones. This will reduce the time tourists spend inside the cave, aiding the protection of the cultural relics, while at the same time helping to increase the amount of information visitors can obtain. It is also considered to be a new way of promoting Dunhuang Art.
The Dunhuang Academy has used digital technology to preserve the research and exploration of Dunhuang Grottoes since the early 1990s. It has collected a wealth of data and has realized the goal of sharing of digital Dunhuang globally. It has played an important role in the protection and research of cultural site, as well as promoting the development and progress of related work.
The Huawei Hetu platform unites Dunhuang's study findings, high—resolution images of the site's murals and virtual, three-dimensional models with the real Mogao Grottoes. It has not only re-created the real tour of the scenic spot, but also developed a new way of digitally experiencing the grottoes. When people visit the site, they not only have the experience of seeing the real grottoes, but they can appreciate the admirable artworks more clearly and in greater detail.
In the future, Dunhuang Academy will continue to cooperate with Huawei to create more colorful virtual content to enrich the experience of Mogao Art on the platform, helping people around the world get to know Dunhuang Art better.
1. Which is NOT the advantage of the Hetu technology?| A．Decrease the cost of the visitors. | B．Reduce the time visitors spend inside the cave. |
| C．Help to protect the cultural relics. | D．Provide more information for tourists. |
| A．About a year. | B．90 years. | C．Nearly 30 years. | D．10 years. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Opposed. | C．Indifferent. | D．Hopeful. |
| A．Dunhuang Academy Preserves Grottoes Well | B．AI Tech Helps Tourists Enjoy Dunhuang's Art |
| C．Huawei Newly Released Hetu AI | D．Dunhuang Grottoes Attract Tourists |
9 . Is it true that British people have a different sense of humor than people in other countries? Let’s have a look at what we laugh at in Britain.
We laugh at authority, but also sympathetically laugh with anyone who we think is treated badly.
The fact that we laugh when other people might feel hopeless is one of the oddest things to appreciate about British humor. We do have a strong sense of irony (反讽). “Not very pleasant,” we might say after some terrible experience.
Another thing that can make it difficult to understand British humor is that we don’t always laugh or even smile when we say something funny.
Do you think the British sense of humor is unique?
| A．In addition,we tend to play things down. |
| B．We often keep a straight face even when we’re making a joke. |
| C．Culture plays a big part in how funny you may find something. |
| D．We know they can’ t win,but if they do so sometimes,it’s even funnier. |
| E．Brits don’t express extreme feelings;we just“keep calm and carry on”. |
| F．Brits turn to laughter as a form of medicine when life knocks them down. |
| G．To the British,powerful and important people are often sources of laughter. |
10 . There is an old saying in China that goes.”The days of the Sanjiu period are the coldest days.”The “Sanjiu period”，which is in Minor Cold(小寒)，refers to the third nine-day period the 19th to the 27th day after the day of the winter solstice(冬至) There are many different customs related to Minor Cold in China.
Eating hotpot
During Minor Cold people should eat some hot food to benefit the body and defend against the cold weather.Winter is the best time to have hotpot and braised mutton(炖羊肉) with soy sauce.But it is important to notice that too much spicy food may cause health problems.
Eating huangyacai
In Tianjin，there is a custom to have huangyacai，a kind of Chinese cabbage，during Minor Cold.There are large amounts of vitamins A and B in huangyacai.As huangyacai is fresh and tender.it is fit for frying，roasting and stewing.
Eating glutinous rice(糯米饭)
According to tradition，the Cantonese eat glutinous rice in the morning during Minor Cold.Cantonese add some fried preserved(腌制的)pork，sausages and peanuts and mix them into the rice.
Eating vegetable rice
In ancient times，people in Nanjing took Minor Cold quite seriously，but as time went by，the celebration of Minor Cold gradually disappeared.However，the custom of eating vegetable rice is still followed today.The rice is steamed and is unspeakably delicious.Among the ingredients，aijiaohuang(a kind of green vegetable)，sausages and salted ducks are the specialties in Nanjing.
1. What do we know about Minor Cold？| A．It lasts twenty-seven days. |
| B．It marks the first day of winter. |
| C．It refers to the winter solstice. |
| D．The Sanjiu period is in Minor Cold. |
| A．Eating hotpot. |
| B．Buying cabbage. |
| C．Having huangyacai |
| D．Having vitamins and B pills. |
| A．They fry and toast it. |
| B．They eat it for dinner. |
| C．They steam it with soy sauce. |
| D．They mix it with many other things. |
| A．travel | B．culture | C．fashion | D．science |
