How time flies! We were going to graduate soon. Stood here, I feel honored to have an opportunity express my heartfelt appreciation to Ms. Zhang. Looking back on the past three years, I can’t thank for her too much. When I entered senior high, I was deeply impressed by her excellent spoken English and patient. So I was determined to work hard at English. Therefore, the pressure of study made me feel so depressing that I couldn’t focus on my study. She noticed it and offered me some constructive advices. It was her constant encouragement which helped me regain confidence. Feeling deeply grateful to her for what he has done for me, I wish her all the best.

3 . Reunions offer a chance to reflect on how much has changed. One happened in Hollywood when Here premiered (首映), bringing together the actors, director and writer behind Forrest Gump 40 years later for a new film. The stars were “de-aged” using new AI tools, making them more youthful in some scenes and enabling the filmmakers to see the transformation in real time while shooting.

With the use of generative AI in film making come things worth watching. The first is how AI will be used to tell new types of stories, as storytelling becomes more personalised and interactive. No one is quite sure how the nature of storytelling will change, but it is sure to. David Thomson, a film historian, compares generative AI to the advent of sound. “When movies were no longer silent, it changed the way plot points were made and how deeply viewers could connect with characters.” Cristóbal Valenzuela, who runs a company providing AI-enhanced software, says AI is like a “new kind of camera”, offering a fresh “opportunity to reimagine what stories are like”. Both are right.

Another big development to watch is how AI will be used as a time-saving tool. Generative AI will automate and simplify complex tasks like film-editing and special effects. For a glimpse of the future, watch Everything Everywhere All at Once, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2023. It featured a scene that used a “rotoscoping” tool to edit out the green-screen background and make a talking rock more believable. It shortened into hours what might have otherwise taken days of video-editing.

What is also noticeable is more dramatic conflicts between creators and those running AI platforms. This year is likely to bring floods of lawsuits (诉讼) from authors, musicians and actors about how their works have been used to train AI systems without permission or payment. Perhaps they can agree on some sort of licensing arrangement, in which AI companies start paying copyright-holders.

It will probably be a few years before a full-length film is produced entirely by AI, but it is just a matter of time.

4 . Last month, I slept through a flight from London to Beijing. Upon waking up, I was shocked to discover that I could no longer _________ my right arm and fingers. My arm just simply did not follow my brain’s _________, as if it no longer _________ my body.

The doctor at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital _________ me to have suffered neural (神经的) injury. Aside from _________ that I see a physiotherapist (理疗师), he only told me, “Rest for two months first and come back for _________ check-up.”

In that moment of _______, a long-time family friend, who is an acupuncturist (针灸师) in Sichuan, _______ to help. I started my acupuncture _______ the next day. I was skeptical at first, but my ____________ was soon beaten by the results. After a few days, I could move my __________. Two weeks later, I could have meals using chopsticks. After a month, my arm and fingers were almost back to their ____________ functions.

In that clinic, I heard many other patients’ ________. One 11-year-old boy, who was born with ________ autism (自闭症), was treated at the age of three, and now he communicates quite __________. One lady, who suddenly became deaf two months ago, has just __________ her hearing.

I’m surprised at how these ________ needles can cure so many illnesses, many of which even big hospitals with expensive medical devices __________ with. Is it magic? No! But it is the right __________ of the Chinese tradition that brings __________ and happiness to friends here and farther.

5 . Kids everywhere love to play. And they know that a ball is a perfect thing to play with. Now scientists report bumblebees (大黄蜂) seem to know the same thing, making bumblebees the first insects known to play.

Lots of animals play. But the behavior is best known in mammals and birds. For many animals, playing is often seen as a kind of training for things they’ll have to deal with in later life. But before this, there were no reports of insects playing.

Dr. Lars Chittka did an earlier experiment, where he trained bumblebees to roll balls into a goal for food. He noticed some bees were rolling balls even when they weren’t rewarded. He wondered if they were playing.

To test the idea, he with other scientists set up a new experiment. First, they marked 45 young bumblebees, both male and female, between one and 23 days old. Then they set up a clear pathway from the bumblebees’ nest to a feeding area. On either side of the open pathway, small colored wooden balls were placed. On one side of the path, the balls couldn’t move. On the other side, the balls could roll around.

For three hours a day over 14 days, the scientists opened the pathway. The bumblebees never had to leave the pathway to find food, but they left anyway. They weren’t so interested in the side where the balls couldn’t move, but they made lots of visits to the side with the rolling balls.

Grabbing the balls with their legs, the bumblebees would beat their wings to pull on the balls, causing them to roll. The 45 marked bumblebees did this 910 times during the experiment. Though some only did it once, others did it a lot. The scientists found the younger bumblebees spent more time rolling balls, and that males seemed more likely to play than females.

The scientists say it’s not clear why the bumblebees roll the balls or whether they enjoy it. But the experiment raises important questions about how the insects’ minds work and whether they have feelings.

Journalism has a good development future. Attracting by it, I’m writing to apply for a position as a journalist. First of all, I’m hard-working but ambitious, which can true help me do a good job. In addition to, I have accumulated some relevant experience, which can not only broadens my vision but also improve my ability. Therefore, that I want to stress at last is that I am skilled in photographing. So at your convenient I hope you can take a look at your personal resume. I would appreciate very much if you could take my application into account.

Yours,

Li Hua

8 . I’m not what you call a “good traveler”. Without curiosity to _________, I was unwilling to push my boundaries. But it just shows one is never too old to _________ himself/herself.

South Africa was the _________ surprise. I’d never _________ to go on a safari (观兽旅行). People said it was exciting, but I didn’t think so. However, once I was actually there, I _________ it.

I_________ at a beautiful hotel housed in train carriages on the Selati Bridge over the Sabie River, a hotspot for _________ the “Big Five” — the lion, leopard, rhino (犀牛), elephant and African buffalo.

The train cars are suites (套房) with floor-to-ceiling _________, so every day I’d look out of them to see elephants heading up the river. More _________, I started to develop a great passion for the landscape and the animals, which I’d never__________. I visited a rhino conservation park, where its workers were __________ rhinos badly injured by hunters. I bottle-fed these beautiful babies and hand-fed a black rhino. Being there, the concept of how much __________ these animals faced every day hit me hard.

But the most memorable aspect was the __________ I met. Meeting their families and dropping myself into their culture was __________. It did more good for me. I’ve always been __________ — never readily join in conversation with unfamiliar people. But the experience of __________ so many new people from so many attractive places has been a __________ thing, allowing me to brush off some cobwebs(陈腐)forming for many years.

Seeing the world has helped me __________ my ideas about the world, turning me into a more positive person. That’s what __________ can do. I am __________ not a crazy traveler exactly, but at least I’m making progress.

9 . Pick up any packaged processed food, and there’s a decent chance that one of its listed ingredients will be “natural flavour”. The ingredient sounds good, particularly in contrast to “artificial flavours” since there is a common belief that ingredients from nature are necessarily safer than something artificially made. But it’s not true. Then what exactly does the natural flavour mean? It refers to extracts (提取物) got from natural sources like plants, meat or seafood. When consumers see the “natural flavour” on a label, they are unlikely to assume that someone is squeezing the juice from oranges into their bottles. They know even though natural flavour must come from natural sources, it needn’t all come from the plant or meat. For example, orange flavours might contain not only orange extracts, but also extracts from bark and grass.

So if flavours like orange are needed, why not just use oranges? The answer comes down to “availability, cost, and sustainability”, according to flavour chemist Gary Reineccius of the University of Minnesota. “If you’re going to use all your grapes on grape soda,” Reineccius says, “you don’t have any grapes for wine making; the products are going to be exorbitant; besides, what do you do with the by-products you create after you’ve squeezed all the juice out of the grapes?”

Actually, while chemists make natural flavours by extracting chemicals from natural ingredients, artificial flavours are made by creating the same chemicals artificially. The reason why companies bother to use natural flavours rather than artificial flavours is simple: marketing. “Many of these products have health titles,” says Platkin, professor from Hunter College. “Consumers may be talked to believe products with natural flavours are healthier, though they are nutritionally no different from those with artificial flavours. Natural flavours may involve more forest clear-cutting and carbon emissions from transport than flavours created in the lab.”

Platkin suggests getting more transparent (易懂的) labeling on packaging that describes exactly what the natural or artificial flavours are, so consumers are-not misled into buying one product over another because of “natural flavours”. Reineccius also offers simple guidance: “Don’t buy anything because it says ‘natural flavours’. Buy it because you like it.”

Yours,

Li Hua