Students at a primary school in Hangzhou had their first class
The West Lake Primary School in Zhejiang Province has introduced the course in the new term. An expert in Chinese characters culture has been invited to the campus，
The school said the course is aimed at improving the students’ awareness of Chinese characters and their
2 . 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 |
The traditional Chinese lunar calendar divides the year into 24 solar terms (节气). Start of Autumn (立秋), the 13th solar term of the year, begins this year on Aug 7th
Although Start of Autumn indicates (表明) the start of autumn, hot weather will not come to
In Shandong province, people make dumplings during the Start of Autumn
The opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou was
5 . The Yamuna River flows around the Taj Mahal, and the river is heavily polluted. Large numbers of insects are breeding (繁殖) in the polluted waterway. During the evening time, the insects get attracted to stone walls and during the night they stay over there. The insects’ droppings are beginning to turn the walls green.
Workers first discovered the problem last year. But they have found out the cause of the problem only recently. A fly known as the genus Geoldichironomus is responsible for all the waste. Those insects survive best in the hot weather. Workers try to remove the insects’ waste. But experts fear cleaning could damage the artwork of the Taj Mahal.
Environmentalist D. K. Joshi says, “The way to stop this new threat is to save the dying river. There are many coalbased power stations along the river. The Taj Mahal’s white stone has turned yellow because of air pollution. Besides, waste from industries is polluting the river. Millions of dollars from the government has been spent on the river, but nothing has happened.”
Experts say ashes (骨灰) from burnt human dead bodies are part of the problem. For 200 years, people have set fire to dead bodies near the Taj Mahal. Smoke from the fires was greatly influencing the color of the white stone. So city officials should force people to try more environmentally friendly customs.
D. K. Joshi believes cleaning the Yamuna River is possible with a shortterm program. The insects have got the attention of city officials. But he is also concerned about the pressure that tourism puts on the Taj Mahal. About six million people visit the Taj Mahal every year and they like to touch the white stone.
1. What’s the new threat to the Taj Mahal?| A．Water around it is dirty. |
| B．Some stone walls get broken. |
| C．Many insects live in the Taj Mahal. |
| D．Insects leave waste on stone walls. |
| A．Useless. | B．Creative. | C．Challenging. | D．Interesting. |
| A．It’s necessary to deal with polluters. |
| B．All the power stations should be closed. |
| C．It’s a waste of money to clean the Yamuna River. |
| D．The government pays no attention to the Yamuna River. |
| A．City officials should ignore the insects. |
| B．Tourists should help clean the Taj Mahal. |
| C．Fires should be used to kill some insects. |
| D．People should give up the tradition of burning the dead near the Taj Mahal. |
6 . On April 18—the International Day for Monuments and Sites, China Daily’s digital employee Yuanxi and Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes’ official virtual cartoon figure Jiayao together introduced an interactive digital platform that hosts a virtual copy of the Mogao Grottoes’ Library Cave(藏经洞) to the world.
The platform was developed jointly by the Dunhuang Academy and the Chinese tech firm Tencent. It uses gaming technologies to show the historical scenes of the Library Cave in the digital world.
The Library Cave in Mogao Grottoes was discovered in 1900, with more than 60,000 cultural relics dating from the 4th century to the 11th century unearthed. It was one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the 20th century.
On the platform, visitors can role-play and “time travel” to ancient dynasties and talk with eight historical figures. The public can enter the platform through the Digital Dunhuang website and its WeChat mini program.
In the digital age, the model of “culture+technology” has been introduced to promote the development of Chinese culture. The digitalization rate of China’s precious cultural relics is now over 70 percent, according to the 2022 China Digital Collection Industry Research Report released by iResearch.
Institutions such as the Palace Museum have also started online digital services of their own. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology allows the public to view the interior of the buildings through the Palace Museum’s WeChat mini program.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism has also encouraged the development and transformation of cultural intellectual property(知识产权) by digital means. China Central Television has created a series of digital collections with different Dunhuang themes, such as the Dunhuang divine deer(神鹿) Youyou. It was created based on the image of the nine-colored deer from Dunhuang murals(壁画). The public can see the divine deer on CCTV’s own digital platform.
Digital collections cater to the consumption habits of young people, who grow up in the information age. They not only protect the intellectual property of the collections but also bring the public closer to China’s “excellent traditional culture”, noted Dunhuang Art Institute.
Su Bomin, director of the Dunhuang Academy, told Xinhua that more efforts will be made to explore new forms for showing cultural relics and offer the public greater cultural experiences to develop Dunhuang culture.
1. What can visitors do on the interactive digital platform for the Mogao Grottoes’ Library Cave?| A．Play role-playing games set in ancient times. |
| B．Play video games featuring historical figures. |
| C．Talk to the designer of the digital Library Cave. |
| D．Design digital caves showing historical scenes. |
| A．To show the latest gaming technologies. |
| B．To help cultural institutions make a profit. |
| C．To promote the development of Chinese culture. |
| D．To encourage people to explore new forms of cultural relics. |
| A．To stress the importance of digital collections. |
| B．To describe its popularity among young people. |
| C．To present how digital collections are developed. |
| D．To introduce a successful example of digital collections. |
| A．Ignore. | B．Satisfy. |
| C．Challenge. | D．Change. |
We all know the Olympic Games.
Every year, about 400 people from all over Europe meet in a small town in northern Germany
The ads for the sports meeting are
1. 简介针灸；
2. 推荐老师；
3. 表达祝福。
注意：1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Dear John,
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
Sharing bread, whether during a special occasion (时刻) or at the family dinner table, is a common symbol of togetherness. Many cultures also celebrate birthdays and marriages with cakes that are cut and shared among the guests. Early forms of cake were simply a kind of bread, so this tradition hits its roots in the custom of sharing bread.
Food also plays an important role in many New Year celebrations. In the southern United States, pieces of corn bread represent blocks of gold for prosperity (兴旺) in the New Year. In Greece, people share a special cake called vasilopita. A coin is put into the cake, which signifies (预示) success in the New Year for the person who receives it.
Many cultures have ceremonies to celebrate the birth of a child, and food can play a significant role. In China, when a baby is one month old, families name and welcome their child in a celebration that includes giving red-colored eggs to guests. In many cultures, round foods such as grapes, bread, and moon cakes are eaten at welcome celebrations to represent family unity.
Nutrition is necessary for life, so it is not surprising that food is such an important part of different cultures around the world.
1. According to the passage, sharing bread______.
| A．indicates a lack of food |
| B．can help to develop unity |
| C．is a custom unique to rural areas |
| D．has its roots in birthday celebrations |
| A．Trust. | B．Success. |
| C．Health. | D．Togetherness. |
| A．using examples | B．making comparisons |
| C．analyzing causes | D．describing processes |
| A．The custom of sharing food. |
| B．The specific meaning of food. |
| C．The role of food in ceremonies. |
| D．The importance of food in culture. |
10 . Working or learning in a foreign country can be a difficult experience, both professionally and personally, due to the cultural shock.
The hardest part of working abroad isn’t to find a place to stay or learn the language but to overcome the cultural shock. The anthropologist (人类学家) Kalvero Oberg first put forward the term “culture shock”. He reported that it was caused by the “anxiety” that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of communication while living and working in another culture.
These things are part of daily life, and include gestures, facial expressions and customs. When we enter a new culture, these signs are usually so different that they’re no longer comprehensible (可理解的) to us. “When an individual enters a strange culture”, wrote Oberg, “all or most of these familiar signs are eliminated. He or she is like a fish out of water, however broad-minded he or she may be.”
This is what happened to Lara, a young IT consultant from America who began to work in southern Europe last year. Three weeks after arriving in Europe, she sent a desperate e-mail begging to return home. “The people are so rude,” she wrote. “They eat at strange hours and I’m starting to feel appetizing to local food. I can’t get anything done because their way of doing business is so efficient. I just want to be home.”
What Lara and other IT consultants meet on their work abroad is a culture shock. While we can’t prevent it from happening, we can still take steps to weaken its effects.
1. What is the most challenging for a worker living abroad for the first time?| A．Learning the new language. |
| B．Finding a place to stay. |
| C．Adapting to the new culture. |
| D．Earning a high income. |
| A．Removed. | B．Accepted. | C．Questioned. | D．Challenged. |
| A．Life abroad is always in a mess. |
| B．Colleagues abroad aren’t easy-going. |
| C．Working abroad isn’t a wise choice. |
| D．Culture acceptance matters much for a foreigner. |
| A．Measures taken to further understand culture shock. |
| B．Measures taken to explore the causes of culture shock. |
| C．Measures taken to reduce the influences of culture shock. |
| D．Measures taken to rid the influences of culture shock. |
