1 . 2024 International Youth Journalism Contest

The 2024 International Youth Journalism Contest, sponsored by Youth Journalism International, promotes a free youth press by recognizing exceptional work in English by student reporters.

●Categories

Student Journalist Of The Year

To recognize exceptional work in journalism by a student journalist.

Journalism Educator Of The Year

To honor a teacher who inspires students and brings out the very best in them.

Courage In Journalism Award

To recognize an individual youth journalist who showed particular courage in pursuing a story despite danger, official roadblocks, or other unusual obstacles.

Jacinta Marie Bunnell Award

To honor an individual who gave voice to an important issue in a single opinion piece or a series of opinion pieces devoted to the same topic.

●Important Notice

We require that all entries be accessible online. You must include a public link to every entry you submit, which should be accessible to anyone who has the link.

Journalists who meet the criteria of being 19 years old or younger and not employed professionally at the time of publication are qualified to participate from any country.

●Admission Fee

A fee of $35 is required for each category you enter. However, if the fee presents a financial hardship, you may apply for an exemption (免除), which are limited to two entries per participant.

1. What is the aim of the contest concerning student reporters?

A．To help explore their own talents.

B．To advocate their free expressions.

C．To collect their outstanding works.

D．To increase their impact in the field.

2. Which award honors a young journalist for bringing attention to a significant problem?

A．Student Journalist Of The Year.

B．Journalism Educator Of The Year.

C．Courage In Journalism Award.

D．Jacinta Marie Bunnell Award.

3. Which of the following is a requirement to enter the competition?

A．Being a grown-up amateur journalist.

B．Making your entries available online.

C．Applying for no more than two entries.

D．Paying $35 for your competitive event.

2 . 语法填空

Born and raised in California, Kurt Wenner attended Rhode Island School of Design and Art Center College of Design in California. While at Art Center College of Design, he     1     (employ) to work for NASA as an illustrator. There, he was among the few highly skilled artists whose work was done     2    (entire) by hand. Eventually, Kurt left the agency and moved to Europe to study some of the world’s greatest works of art.     3     (disappoint) to find no class on the principles of classicism, the young artist came up with his own self-learning program     4     involved spending countless hours drawing from the art collections of the Vatican Museums.

Every morning, Kurt would draw some of the world’s most famous works of art. It was during this period     5     he discovered the world of pavement illusions (错觉). One day, on his way to the Vatican Museums, Wenner passed by artists     6     (create) images with chalk on the pavement. After being invited to try his hand at it, he spent only a few months developing a new art form known     7     the 3D pavement art.

Inspired by a wide range of subjects, Kurt Wenner creates well-designed pavement artworks that,     8     (admire) from just the right angle, have     9     impressive depth that makes them look sculpted into the pavement. The artist is generally regarded as the     10     (invent) of the 3D pavement art and his works have attracted audiences in over 30 countries around the world.

3 . I had taken some detours (弯路) in my scientific research journey. During my studies, I _______ focused on carrying out big projects. And this belief was _______ by a senior colleague who advised me to prioritize big projects. Besides, he _______ that a high-impact publication would definitely lead me to a smoother path ahead. However, the reality _______ my expectations.

I faced repeated _______ as I sought cooperation with renowned researchers. While initially _______ about my big ideas, thinking my project sounded interesting and promising, they _______ upon learning of my early-stage career and ultimately declined.

For about two years, I was stuck in this _______ — I was excited about my big ideas but making little actual progress, which left me _______ and almost nearing my breaking point. __________the need for change, I began to pursue exploratory investigations driven by my __________ even if the scientific questions were not groundbreaking. This allowed me to design projects from scratch (从头做起) instead of copying others’ ideas. By stepping into __________ fields and reading papers in different areas, I discovered new connections and exciting ideas. Interestingly, when I shared these projects with other researchers, they eagerly __________ me. And the resulting publication brought me great __________ though they didn’t receive significant attention.

Moving forward, I have resolved to __________ to explore small projects. Small, I’ve learned, is not equal to insignificance.

1.

A．blindly

B．occasionally

C．unwillingly

D．rarely

2.

A．adjusted

B．destroyed

C．strengthened

D．absorbed

3.

A．complained

B．guaranteed

C．denied

D．preferred

4.

A．went against

B．corresponded to

C．relied on

D．brought about

5.

A．encouragement

B．references

C．rejections

D．training

6.

A．particular

B．enthusiastic

C．knowledgeable

D．careful

7.

A．approved

B．struggled

C．criticized

D．hesitated

8.

A．competition

B．experiment

C．misunderstanding

D．state

9.

A．impatient

B．regretful

C．depressed

D．envious

10.

A．Reflecting

B．Meeting

C．Indicating

D．Realizing

11.

A．experience

B．curiosity

C．target

D．budget

12.

A．unfamiliar

B．popular

C．traditional

D．advanced

13.

A．challenged

B．joined

C．prevented

D．comforted

14.

A．possession

B．responsibility

C．satisfaction

D．convenience

15.

A．continue

B．attempt

C．prepare

D．learn

4 . For the last decade, I’ve studied entrepreneurs (企业家) and the key to their success Unsurprisingly, many have failed more times than they’ve succeeded. While failure may initially be a blow to your confidence and even put you in a financial crisis, it is not the end of the road.     1    

One of the entrepreneurs I studied was the founder of a pharmaceutical (制药的) company in Nigeria. To set itself apart from the competition, this company invested in drugs for the elderly.     2     This outcome motivated people there to conduct more analyses and they identified the company’s location as the problem. By moving elsewhere, it has grown to be one of the most successful companies in the industry.

Failure should be viewed as just an adventure, rather than a sign that your goal is unreachable.     3    James Dyson struggled for five years to make the world’s first cyclone vacuum cleaner work. In the meantime, he had gone into debt and even signed his house over to the bank. Now owning a multi billion-dollar company, James Dyson insists that his company’s spirit of risk-taking has stayed the same.

    4     Before making decisions, they consider the probability of a loss and how it could be minimized. From a biographical analysis of entrepreneurs, I found the ability to anticipate possible risks and cope effectively with them is essential to successful entrepreneurs, which helps them pick themselves up.

As an entrepreneur, it is important to recognize opportunities to grow. Again, failure can help with this mindset. More often than not, being successful makes you self-content. Although failure can be a hiccup (小问题), it opens your mind to new opportunities and perspectives.     5     So don’t be afraid of failure; when you fail, fail forward.

A．After several months, it suffered a significant loss.

B．Successful entrepreneurs are good at recovering from failures.

C．Actually, some great businesses are based on multiple failed attempts.

D．Indeed, entrepreneurs often stress taking risks is key to their success.

E．Although they tend to take risks, entrepreneurs are always calculative.

F．The preparation provides reassurance and a map to try again if they do fail.

G．Failure helps you see what is invisible to those who are constantly successful.

5 . It’s summer, and the veery (棕夜鸦) has nearly finished hatching this year’s generation. Soon, the bird will make a big move, migrating thousands of miles south. It’s a perilous journey for a small songbird only weighing about 30 grams: if a hurricane happens to influence that migration, some of them may never make it.

But every hurricane season is different, and veeries, as the research shows, have plugged into the global climate cycles that allow them to anticipate what a season will be like. It was found that for two decades, veery migration patterns from Delaware to South America accurately predicted the intensity of the Atlantic Basin hurricane season. During bad years, the birds would wrap up their breeding season sooner and head down to South America early, and during mild years, the birds would hang out in eastern North America for longer.

Study leader Christopher Heckscher thinks the way the veeries “predict” hurricane seasons may result from small changes in regular global cycles like EINin and La Nin events. During El Nino years, the Pacific Ocean water is warmer than average, and those same Pacific Ocean temperatures produce winds that more effectively tear apart hurricanes, leading to below average hurricane seasons. The opposite is true for a La Nin a year.

With these seasonal changes, rainfall in veery habitat may vary, and during years when more rain falls, more fruit could be available, a major staple in veeries’ diet. This change in diet may help the veery return to North America in better shape, more capable of a longer breeding season. Contrarily, with too little fruit, they maybe driven by their lack of physical fitness to cut their breeding season short.

Migrations like the ones taken by the veeries have formed over thousands of years as birds react to predictable changes in the weather. However, the issue now is the speed with which the climate is changing. Research has shown that climate change will make hurricanes more likely to grow from small storms to large storms. Can birds respond quickly enough?

1. What does the underlined word “perilous” in the first paragraph mean?

A．Boring.

B．Flexible.

C．Crowded.

D．Dangerous

2. How do veeries react to different hurricane seasons?

A．By adjusting their timing of migration.	B．By working out a new migration route.
C．By changing their locations of hatching eggs.	D．By minimizing the size of the migratory group.

3. What may the hurricanes be like in a La Nin a year?

A．Weaker and less frequent.	B．More numerous and stronger.
C．More intense but less common.	D．More unpredictable and irregular.

4. What concern is mainly expressed in the text?

A．Whether veeries can adapt to rapid climate change.

B．That EI Nino and La Nim events will happen frequently.

C．Whether scientists can accurately predict hurricane seasons.

D．That hurricanes will prevent veeries from completing their migration.

6 . “Why do indeed to study math?” This is a question I used to ask every time I encountered difficult primary school math questions or every time I did not feel like doing my math homework. Like many people, I once firmly believed we study math merely to finish our homework and pass math exams and that math is only relevant to those who would like to pursue a career as scientists. However, this perception later turned out to be absolutely ridiculous.

One turning point was when I was 16, while washing dishes, I noticed that the soap bubbles were packed together like a honeycomb, but not all of these shapes were perfectly round. Why did some of the bubbles look like hexagons (六边形)? Why didn’t I see any star-shaped bubbles?

When I learned that math could help answer these questions, I realized math pops up even in our kitchen sink. You may worry that learning many topics in elementary school, like percentages and measurements, is a waste of time. But your concern is definitely unnecessary. Look at these examples and you’ll know what I mean. If you want to build a fence around your house or paint your walls a new color, all of those activities require knowledge about measurement and scaling. More complicated construction projects, such as building a tree house, require lots of mathematical problem-solving skills.

Studios like Pixar rely on ideas from geometry (几何学) to bring characters like Ember from Elemental to life. With an understanding of geometric transformations like reflections, rotations and translations, you can use your computer to make your own animated films.

Many high-paying jobs use math, especially probability. Understanding probability helps doctors identify how effective medical treatments will be, informs coaches about ways their teams can improve and aids code experts in keeping private information secret.

Math is so much more than filling out homework problem sets. So next time you kickback to watch your favorite animated movie, or start saving up for a fancy tech device, hopefully, you’ll appreciate how math is integrated into so many parts of life.

1. What is many people’s common misunderstanding about math?

A．It is a very complex subject.

B．It is useless outside of academic settings.

C．Math exams are too challenging for many pupils.

D．Math scores can be boosted greatly through homework.

2. The author’s experience with soap bubbles highlights ________

A．the artistic beauty of soap bubbles

B．the role of chemistry in soap bubble formation

C．the unexpected presence of math in daily situations

D．the importance of observation skills in everyday life

3. Why are several examples mentioned in Paragraph 3?

A．To emphasize the complexity of some math concepts.

B．To demonstrate the value of foundational math skills.

C．To prove the significance of problem-solving abilities.

D．To show the challenges of practical applications of math.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．Math Is Here, There, and Everywhere	B．How Should Math Be Taught in Schools?
C．Math Is Still a Universal but Difficult Language	D．Can Math Help Us Unlock Good Job Opportunities?

7 . 选词填空

make for	let alone	jump at	at the mercy of
make out	throw light on	knock into	for lack of

1. The little ship was _______________ the storm, fiercely shaken by the waves.
2. Police dropped the charges against him _____________ sufficient evidence.
3. In recent years, the in-depth research _______________ the causes of the disease offering hope for future treatments.
4. I can’t even solve basic math problems, _______________ complex ones.
5. She showed us that even a single desire, never given up on, can _______________ a remarkable life.
6. He was in such a hurry that he almost _______________ me, and mumbled an apology as he rushed by.

8 . The UN Security Council is debating whether to authorize military i__________________(干预; 介入) to protect civilians trapped in the war zone. (根据中英文提示单词拼写)

9 . When my editors asked me to report on forest bathing, I packed a swimsuit. I assumed it must involve getting in the water. It turns out, my interpretation was too literal.

I met certified Forest Therapy (治疗) guide Melanie Choukas-Bradley at an urban forest in Washington, D. C. Here, I began to get it. Forest bathing isn’t a bath or a hike. We did walk the forest trails, but we wandered with no particular destination in mind.

The aim of forest bathing, Choukas- Bradley explained, is to slow down and throw oneself in the natural environment. She helped us be aware of the smells, tastes and sights of the forest. We took in our surroundings by using all our senses. As we passed through a stand of trees, we touched the trunks. We smelled the black walnuts, which give off a lovely fragrance (香气). We got a little shower of ripe mulberries, too. “Close your eyes and just breathe.” Choukas-Bradley told us. After I opened my eyes, the green looked a lot greener. And I began to see things I hadn’t noticed before.

“A forest guide helps us be here, not there,” says Amos Clifford, the founder of the Association of Nature & Forest Therapy, the organization that certifies the guides. They support what the forests could offer us, inviting us into practices that deepen physical presence, pleasure, and partnership with nature. When we connect with nature in this way, we are connecting with ourselves.

Clifford’s goal is to encourage health care proyiders to integrate forest therapy as a stress- reduction strategy. In the United States, work- related stress accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costs each year. “It’s my hope that the health care system will include forest therapy into the range of services,” Clifford says.

1. What is forest bathing?

A．A hike up the mountain.	B．An adventure in the woods.
C．A swimming in open water.	D．A guided nature healing practice.

2. How can we benefit from forest bathing?

A．By improving our awareness.	B．By doing intense training.
C．By experiencing nature mindfully.	D．By carrying out eyesight tests.

3. What can a guide help forest bathers do?

A．Locate and pick ripe fruits.

B．Put exercise plans into action.

C．Identify different trees and birds.

D．Concentrate on the surrounding nature.

4. What can we learn from Clifford’s words in the last paragraph?

A．Health care system needs updating.

B．Nature- based therapy costs too much.

C．Stress- related diseases are commonly seen.

D．Forest therapy could be an alternative treatment.

10 . As AI develops, it becomes challenging to distinguish between its content and human-created work. Before comparing both, it’s good to know about the Perplexity & Burstiness of a text.

Perplexity is a measurement used to evaluate the performance of language models in predicting the next word in a group of words. It measures how well the model can estimate the probability of a word occurring based on the previous context. A lower perplexity score indicates better predictability and understanding of the language, while a higher perplexity score suggests a higher degree of uncertainty and less accurate predictions. The human mind is so complex compared to current AI models that human-written text has high perplexity compared to AI-generated text.

Examples:

High Perplexity: “The teapot sang an opera of hot, wheeling tea, every steamy note a symphony of flavor.”

Low Perplexity: “I pouted hot water into the teapot, and a fresh smell filled the room.”

Burstiness refers to the variation in the length and structure of sentences within a piece of content. It measures the degree of diversity and unpredictability in the arrangement of sentences. Human writing often exhibits bursts and lulls (间歇), with a mix of long and short sentences, while AI-generateo content tends to have a more uniform and regular pattern. Higher burstiness indicates greater creativity, spontaneity (自发性), and engagement in writing, while lower burstiness reflects a more robotic and monotonous (单调的) style. Just like the perplexity score, human-written content usually has a high burstiness score.

Examples:

High Burstiness: “The alarm screamed. Feet hit the floor. The tea kettle whistled. Steam streamed. Heart pounded. The world, awake.”

Low Burstiness: “In the peaceful morning, the alarm clock’s soft ring greeted a new day. I walked to the kitchen, my steps light and unhurried. The tea kettle whistled its gentle song, a comforting tune that harmonized with the steam’s soft whisper.”

Here, I wrote a passage on the “Importance of lifelong learning” myself and also asked ChatGPT to do the same to compare better AI-generated and human-written text.

1. What do Perplexity & Burstiness probably serve as?

A．Complexities of a language.	B．Criteria on features of a text.
C．Phenomena of language varieties.	D．References in generating a text.

2. What are the characteristics of an AI-generated text?

A．Low perplexity and low burstiness.	B．High perplexity and-low burstiness.
C．Low perplexity and high burstiness.	D．High perplexity and high burstiness.

3. Which of the writing ways below does the author skip when developing the article?

A．Quoting sayings.	B．Showing examples.
C．Giving definitions.	D．Making comparisons.

4. What will be probably talked about next?

A．Some essays from ChatGPT.	B．An illustration for differences.
C．An example of the writer’s own.	D．Analyses of lifelong learning.