1 . Lima, the capital of Peru, is the world’s second largest desert city. The region is water-stressed. The annual rainfall is less than 4 cm. Access to water is an ongoing problem for the residents in and around the South American capital.

When industrial engineer Abel Cruz was a boy, his weekly work was to climb down a valley in the foothills of the Peruvian Andes to fetch the family’s water from a spring. “It was downhill from the house, far away and steep,” he says. Cruz began dreaming up better ways to collect water. Then he noticed that subtropical plants capture rain and mist with their wide leaves. Actually Lima doesn’t lack in humidity (湿度), averaging 83% year-round. Located in the foothills of the Andean mountains, it is close to the Pacific Ocean, which ensures that blankets of dense fog roll in for three-quarters of a year. Eventually, Abel Cruz struck upon the idea of a fog net.

Each upraised net is 20 square metres, where micro-droplets of water suspended in the foggy atmosphere condense (凝结) and drip down into collection tanks. Approximately 200 to 400 litres of water is collected daily from each net. Locals can fetch it in buckets for small-scale farming. Working in Lima with support from the Creating Water Foundation, Cruz has installed over 3, 600 nets on hillsides around the city to capture fog drifting in from the Pacific Ocean. Cruz raised funds for hundreds of nets in Peru with his revolutionary initiative Peruvians Without Water. He aims to set up even more fog harvesters, and to treat the water to make it drinkable.

“The planet has less and less fresh water,” Cruz points out, “because the glaciers that are natural reservoirs are disappearing. So we must find a way to accumulate and save water for times of drought.” The technology is life-changing for the poor households who normally have to rely on water tanks being delivered to them. His approach ends extreme poverty and brings rural development. Moreover, he is trying to bring healthy and clean water also to urban areas lacking water.

China’s technique of growing Juncao,     1     is the herbal plant used in the growing of edible (可以吃的) mushrooms, has led to     2     (globe) poverty reduction.

Lin, the chief scientist of National Engineering Research Center of JUNCAO Technology and     3     professor at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, started to plant the grass in 1983. The technique later spread from Fujian Province to other     4     (area) in the country and has even reached countries across the world.

Juncao is helpful to many farmers in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. So far, the technique     5     (introduce) to more than 100 countries around the world. Twenty years ago, villagers in Papua New Guinea began to learn this modern biological technology     6     the help of Chinese agronomists (农学家). After the Juncao grass was     7     (successful) planted in Papua New Guinea, villagers,     8     (shout) “Juncao, China!” expressed their excitement. Many people in developing countries have rid     9     (they) of poverty through growing Juncao grass and mushrooms.

Many Chinese experts have been trained     10     (extend) the technique to more countries, contributing Chinese wisdom to the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

4 . Imagine you’re a farmer in India with a crop of potatoes to sell. Typically, you go to a marketplace called a mandi and get the best price you can from a local middleman, who will then sell them to another middleman.

Sanjay Agarwalla learned about Indian farmers’ lack of access to buyers even when he was a student decades ago. After talking the problem over with his son Aditya, then a computer science major at Princeton University, the two decided to form an online marketplace they called the Kisan Network in late 2015.

“Anything that deals with agriculture in India is pretty large. So, if it’s a problem, the problem can affect millions of people, and the impact of the solution could be enormous,” Sanjay says. After all, some 70 percent of rural households in the country depend on agriculture as a main source of income.

Kisan Network’s app lets farmers advertise their produce and see potential buyers beyond the local mandi. Once the deal is completed online, Kisan runs the produce from the farmer direct to the buyer, each side staying put.

Kisan’s fee ranges from 5 to 15 percent of the sale, and farmers get to keep more than they would under the traditional system, where middleman after middleman raises the price of the produce before it reaches a final buyer. “Even with low-profit crops like potatoes, we have been able to offer 10 percent more than physical market rates. That’s what our entire goal is,” says Aditya. “As for higher-profit crops, the improvement goes up.”

Building products for this new set of technology consumers brings its own challenges. “All of our engineers are from urban backgrounds,” says Aditya Agarwalla. “It’s not like you’re building something you would use on your own.” To be effective, Kisan’s platform must work with inexpensive smartphones on slower networks and be able to support regional languages.

Today, farmers feel it’s better selling to someone who is at their doors. They do not have to typically travel miles to a mandi, staying overnight without a place to sleep.

In 2014, 40.8 percent of the people in the village of Bianjiang in Guizhou Province     1     (be) struggling with poverty. The village,     2     (surround) by deep mountains, was 80 kilometers from Yanhe County. It took villagers four hours     3     (make) a round trip to buy daily     4     (necessary) outside the village, given that no roads were     5     (access) except for a narrow pass along the cliff’s edge.

As poverty alleviation (扶贫) proceeds and the road system in the village improves, industries such as fish, chicken farming and growing mums have been developed. Now, a family of five can earn an average of 10,000 yuan ($1,435) a year through employment and industry bonuses. China     6     (rebuild) 108,000 schools since 2013 to improve compulsory education in poverty-stricken areas. Over 98 percent of villages have access to optical fiber communications and 4G technology.

Through the alleviation project, China, home to nearly one     7     (five) of the world’s population, has     8     (complete) got rid of extreme poverty,     9     (make) an important contribution     10     the cause of global poverty alleviation.

6 . As the world’s wealthiest country, it’s hard to understand that there are 38 million Americans living in poverty. Poverty is defined as a household income below the national poverty line, which is $25, 750 for a family of four.     1     Millions of people are struggling to afford basic necessities like food, shelter, and healthcare.

There are many factors that contribute to poverty in America.     2     In many cities, the cost of rent is astronomical(天文数字), and even those with full-time jobs can’t afford to pay for both rent and other basic expenses. Additionally, low-paying jobs and a lack of access to quality education can also contribute to poverty.

    3     People who live in poverty are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases and mental health issues, and they are more likely to die prematurely. Children growing up in poverty are at a disadvantage from the start, as they often don’t have access to quality education or healthcare, and they are more likely to experience food insecurity and homelessness.

Poverty is a complex issue with no easy solutions.     4     These include things like increasing access to affordable housing, creating more job opportunities with livable wages, and improving access to education and healthcare for all Americans.

In conclusion, poverty in America is a harsh reality that affects millions of people every day.     5     Necessary steps should be taken to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to live a healthy and prosperous life.

7 . Zhang Xingli, a 60-year-old villager, sat on a stone in front of his house and struck a pose as painters quickly sketched him and his traditional house. At his age, Zhang _________ thought he could earn money working as a _________ in Sanhe, a poverty-stricken mountain village in Songxian County, Henan province.

The village welcomes _________ who come to draw landscapes and _________ the beauty of its traditional houses. Villagers were recently preparing for the upcoming travel season and building an exhibition hall, a _________ of Sanhe’s rapid development.

_________ in the depths of Funiu Mountain, the village was once mired(陷入) in poverty and the surrounding rolling hills and deep gorges made it difficult to _________. Most of the land was not _________and there was no mineral wealth under the ground. One-third of the 415 village _________lived in poverty.

In 2016, changes began when Feng Yake, a college-trained artist, ____________ to the village, who had taken his students to many spots to draw landscapes, making him realize the ____________ of this remote village. Later, he ____________ his parents to tear down their house and build the first agritainment(农家乐) ____________ in the village to accommodate students who want to paint and draw landscapes. Six months after the resort opened, he and his family had ____________ 200,000 yuan.

Feng’s success ____________ other villagers. In a short time, the village was redesigned and rebuilt. Old houses and a bean curd workshop were repaired. The walls were painted white, to ____________ with the gray roof tiles, and a pavilion was built. The village signed contracts with ____________ 70 art studios to receive artists and students.

In 2020, the village was completely lifted ____________ . Over the past two years, 25 agritainment resorts have been built in the village, ____________ more than 30,000 tourists and generating an annual ____________ of over 4 million yuan.

8 . Sheep herding is a profitable industry in China. However, if farmers want to earn more, they have to solve a range of problems such as scale expansion, processing and marketing, which is almost impossible relying on only their individual strength. But farmers in Nanxiaozhai village in the Shanxi city of Huairen, have found a solution.

Guo Jianqiang, a resident in Nanxiaozhai, said he started his business in 2013 by raising about 300 sheep. The number has since increased to 1,000. “I earned an income of 2 million yuan ( $309,000) last year and the amount is expected to reach 9 million yuan this year,” he said.

Guo attributed the growth to the establishment of a sheep cooperative, which helped to expand operational scale and sales channels with the joint force of stockholders.

According to Guo Zhidong, Party secretary of the village, Nanxiaozhai now has a total of 89 such cooperatives. The cooperatives have also developed a full industrial chain for sheep, ranging from raising, slaughtering and land processing to their sale.

Nanxiaozhai has a long history in the sheep industry, according to the village Party chief, who explained that was a natural choice out of the village’s environmental conditions. In Nanxiaozhai, residents used to farm on the infertile land and the grain yield could hardly support their existence.

It was Wang Yueming, Cao Zhiguo and other villagers who started their business as sheep dealers in the late 1970s. “They could earn up to 20 yuan for selling a sheep,” Guo Zhidong said. “That was a very large income at that time.” Later, about 80 percent of the villagers were engaged in the business but they found purchasing sheep from neighboring villages became more difficult because of limited output. So they began to raise sheep themselves.

The village business has boosted the sheep industry in Huairen city as a whole. Statistics show the city’s annual output of sheep is about 6 million heads, making it a renowned sheep-producing base in Shanxi.