1 . Storytelling is an ancient art form that has been used to hand down legends, tales and factual stories. Perhaps the first thing that springs to mind when you think of storytelling is the fantasy land that took shape in your mind while Mom or Dad told you stories about princes, castles and monsters, with a unique voice for each character.

Storytelling does not just take place at bedtime or round a campfire, however. It can take some other forms, either via the books we read or the films we watch. But they usually have some elements in common: rather than a list of dry facts, stories have plots and they introduce characters. We respond to stories, particularly when there is emotional detail.

And unlike what we suppose, storytelling is not just a form of entertainment, but a form of learning as well. Long before reading and writing became widely spread and available, oral storytelling had already been a form that the wisdom and knowledge of the people were passed down from elders to children. A good story engages our curiosity, emotions and imagination.

Storytelling helps with learning also because stories are easy to remember. Research has found that learning obtained from a well-told story is remembered more accurately, and for far longer, than from facts and figures.

And above all, stories have a transformative power to allow us to see the world in a different way than we do if we just encounter it on our own. Stories are an entry point to understanding a different experience of the world.

This aspect of storytelling-presenting a different perspective of the world — is important when it comes to connecting with each other. It gives us an opportunity to learn from another person’s experience and it can shape, strengthen or challenge our opinions and values. So, when someone tells us their own personal story, we catch a glimpse of a view of the world that may be slightly or significantly different from our own. When we see the world as they see it, or walk in their shoes, the experience can inspire empathy (共情;同理心) with them.

Located in the northwest of Hunan Province, about 300 kilometers away from Changsha, capital of Hunan, Zhangjiajie,     1     covers a total area of 9,563 square kilometers, is a tourist city for its unique natural scenery and abundant tourism resources. Zhangjiajie     2     (award) the title of “World Geological Park” in 2004.     3     (actual), Zhangjiajie, honored as “the most fantastic mountain under heaven” and “a walking Chinese landscape painting”, is also widely praised as “    4     enlarged potted landscaping”, “a mini fairyland” and “a maze (迷宫) of nature”.

Since it was discovered in the 1980s, tourism industry     5     (become) the leading industry in Zhangjiajie, which has stimulated the development of other industries related to tourism,     6     (attract) a growing number of tourists     7     home and abroad.

At the same time, ecotourism has been developed rapidly in Zhangjiajie. When you come to Zhangjiajie, you can fully appreciate     8     (it) magnificent natural scenery and experience appealing folk custom as well as other thrilling tourist     9     (activity), and you will be deeply impressed by     10     the local people performed.

It must be an exciting, joyful and unforgettable tour to Zhangjiajie.

3 . My life as an exchange student finally began! It was only a short 20-minute drive from the airport to Queensland University of Technology (QUT), but I _________ it a lot. My driver was very _________and told me a lot about Australian culture along the way.

Before _________ home, I had a fair idea of what my _________ would be like. When O-Week at QUT finally happened, I felt that my life here really lived up to my first _________.

The week-long event not only _________ me to engage indifferent clubs and societies, it also gave me a chance to _________ QUT’s campus.

I loved the _________ of O-Week. It was really lively, and I got the _________ to meet so many people. Interacting with different cultures first-hand was really a(n) __________. I felt this was exactly how I __________ life in Australia would be like. I was really __________ to finally experience this!

After ________ my new home, I found that living in Brisbane was quite different. I had the __________ to do a lot more and had no limits on __________ I could do them. For example, have you ever wanted pancakes at 6 am? Say no more -- one of my favorite restaurants was only a 2-minute walk away from my __________. Besides, I found it quite __________ to meet and work with the locals, and learn about their __________ attitude to life and work.

I loved Australia so much that I felt very __________   when my experience came to a(n) __________. I made so many friends there and I hope to see them all again on my next world tour!

4 . Developed by US company OpenAI, ChatGPT has got viral, winning 100 million internet users since it came out in November 2022. People can ask the robot to write stories and emails, create instructions for cooking a certain food, translate languages, and answer all kinds of questions. In its own words, it is “a language model trained in a large amount of internet text to help users get human-like text.”

Compared with Siri or other chatbots, ChatGPT uses a much bigger information center for training. It also uses stronger software and hardware to learn things by itself. For example, if it provides a wrong answer to your question, you can tell it the right one and it will correct itself. “It’s a totally different chatbot,” computer scientist Liu Xiaoguang from Nankai University said. “The knowledge level ChatGPT shows is equal to a university student. That’s why it shocked the world.”

But one big problem with ChatGPT is that it makes mistakes or even gives false information. When Rezza, a 28-year-old from Indonesia, used the robot to write an passage, it “gave out many examples which other writers actually hadn’t mentioned at all”, he told a local newspaper. Since the robot is trained using words from the internet, it can also pick up biases about certain groups. These are all things that need to be dealt with.