At 3:42 a. m., on 28 July 1976, one of the most deadly earthquakes of the 20 th century began in Tangshan. It seemed as if the world were coming to     1     end! Nearly everything in the city     2     (destroy). The number of people who were killed or badly injured     3     (be) more than 400,000,     4     (leave) thousands of children without parents. Then later that afternoon, another big quake shook Tangshan again. Even     5     (many) buildings fell down. Water, food, and electricity were hard     6     (get). People began to wonder how long the disaster would last.

But hope was not lost. Rescuers, including soldiers, doctors, nurses and workers came to help. The soldiers dug out the people who were trapped and buried the     7     (death).

Workers built shelters for those     8     had lost their homes.     9     (slow), the city began to breathe and revive itself.     10     strong support from the government and the tireless efforts of the city’s people, a new Tangshan was built on the earthquake ruins.

China’s next-generation rocket to carry humans is expected to make its maiden flight around 2027, said a project manager.

Zhao Xinguo,a senior rocket    1     (design) and head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology’s rocket development department, said the new rocket,which has yet to be named, is an important backbone in China’s ambitious plan    2     (place) its astronauts on the moon.“According to our schedule, all necessary conditions for the rocket’s    3     (one) launch mission will be ready in 2027,” he said on Monday in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, one day ahead of the 14th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, the largest arms show in the country.

Zhao said that the new rocket will be about 90 meters tall,     4     a diameter (直径) of 5 meters, which means it will be almost twice as tall as the Long March 5,     5     (current) the biggest in China’s rocket family. The craft will be capable of carrying spacecraft     6     (weigh) about 27 tons into an Earth-moon transfer trajectory (轨道),     7     gateway for lunar landing, or a70- ton spacecraft into a low-Earth orbit, according to the project manager.

Hu Xiaojun, a rocket researcher at the academy, said the new heavy-lift rocket     8     ( intend) for the country ‘s future manned spaceflights,     9     will be carried out by a new- generation spaceship, and manned lunar explorations that Chinese    10     (scientist) have been planning for a long time.

On one late-autumn day, Wang Ting,     1     resident in the Shanxi provincial capital of Taiyuan, took his family to the Jueweishan Mountain in the city’s northwestern suburbs to take hundreds of pictures.

“Autumn is usually the best season for Taiyuan,” Wang said. “But that was not necessarily true in the past for the city,     2     was troubled by pollution from heavy industry companies.

A change for the better, not only in Taiyuan but the entire Shanxi Province,     3     (take) place over the past few years thanks to the local governments and people’s efforts in environmental protection.

Statistics from the Shanxi Department of Ecology and Environment show that     4     (compare) with 65.7 percent in 2017, Shanxi had 72.1 percent of its days with an air quality reaching good and excellent levels in 2021. There is also an obvious     5     (improve) in water quality across rivers and lakes.

During a recent news conference, Wang Yanfeng, head of the department, said that Shanxi has been holding the idea that green mountains and clear waters are     6     good as mountains of gold and silver     7     (achieve) a balance between the environment and social economic development over the past few years.

“Our initiatives include upgrading local industries to clean production,     8     (develop) clean energy resources, reducing pollution and emissions, and promoting environmentally friendly industries as new growth drivers,” Wang said.

After the industrial upgrades, Shanxi,     9     (tradition) a coa-producing province, is seeing 75 percent of     10     (it) coal output generated from advanced and clean production facivilities. In the power industry, 34.3 percent of the electricity in Shanxi now comes from new and renewable energy resources, according to Wang.

The pileated woodpecker (红冠黑啄木鸟) is one of the     1     (large) woodpecker species in North America and its look is unmistakable-a large black bird with white on each side of its neck and a red crest on its head. When it flies, white flashes are visible under its     2     (wing).

The sound of the pileated woodpeckers’ hammering (捶打声)     3     (carry) a long distance   through the woods     4     they live. They hammer to attract mates and establish the boundaries of their territory to warn other males away.

They use their beaks to peck and dig under bark to find carpenter ants and other insects and will often dig large holes in trees     5     (find) their meals. Some holes are so big that they     6     (weak) small and young trees. The birds also strip (剥去) pieces of bark from trees to look for food. Generally, however, pileated woodpeckers help keep a forest healthy     7     eating wood-boring insects.

A nesting pair of pileated woodpeckers     8     (usual) makes a nesting hole in a large and older tree. During the day, both parents take turns incubating (孵化) or     9     (sit) on the eggs to keep them warm. At night, only the male incubates the eggs. The pileated woodpeckers generally lay four eggs at     10     time, which take about two weeks to hatch.

Beekeepers in China’s high-tech powerhouse of Zhejiang Province have developed a smart way of using intelligent beehives (蜂窝) to change bee farming. Over 300     1     (insider) and experts came to Chun’an County on Saturday     2     (witness) the pilot. More than 2, 600 artificial beehives have been arranged in mountains in western Hangzhou.

Chen Pinghua, chair of Qiandao Lake Mozhidao Biotechnology Co. Ltd., which operates the bee farm, said the smart hives were equipped with sensors,    3     can monitor and control the temperature and humidity (湿度) and send the data on the number of times the bees enter and leave as well     4     the weight of the hive. Then technicians can determine whether the honey can be harvested.

Each hive has a unique QR code that     5     (trace) the source of the honey to ensure food safety, Chen said. He said staff could open an app on their mobile phones to monitor the real-time data of each hive, which     6     (great) improves efficiency.

Saturday happened at the same time with World Honey Bee Day     7     (appoint) by the United Nations in 2017 to spread awareness on the     8     (important) of bees，which pollinate (传授花粉) one-third of the world’s grain-producing plants.

“Beekeeping has a long history in China, but it has remained as     9     very low-end business without standards for hives and on how bees are raised and how honey     10     (harvest),” Chen said.