To my great joy, I have broken away from my bad habit which almost ruined me. Two years ago, I happened to come across Tom,     1     was lost in gambling (赌博). Things of one kind come together. As I was also not interested in schoolwork, we became good friends. Though every day, the teacher assigned us a great deal of homework, we took no notice of it. In the classroom, I couldn’t focus     2     what the teacher taught. As a result, my academic performance was becoming from bad to     3     (bad). As I couldn’t find any fun in school, I played poker whenever I was free. At     4     beginning, we just played for fun, but not soon later, we played for gambling.     5     really made me happy even excited. However, I felt upset because I     6    (lose) quite a little money in the gamble. I began to be worried all the time. My father found     7     happened to me and shouted at me, saying that I would end up in prison     8     I didn’t attempt to leave those who gambled. He tried to persuade me to go back to school and begged my head teacher     9     (help) me with my study.     10     (follow) his advice, I tried to study hard. It seemed as if I never ran out of my energy. Where there is a will there is a way. I became one of the top students in my school.

Guqin is a traditional musical instrument. It     1     (exist) for over 3,000 years and represents China’s foremost solo musical instrument tradition.     2     (describe) in early literary sources and confirmed by archaeological finds, this ancient instrument is inseparable     3     Chinese intellectual history. Guqin playing developed as an art form practised by noblemen and     4     (scholar) in intimate settings, and was therefore never intended for public performance. Furthermore, along with calligraphy, painting and weiqi, guqin was one of the four arts, which Chinese were expected     5     (master) in ancient times. According to tradition, twenty years of training were required to attain proficiency.

Its music     6     (list) as an intangible cultural heritage in 2008, which helped unlock the passion of many to learn     7     ancient instrument. Jian was one of them. His interest in the instrument grew after he listened to an album by a famous guqin master. Jian started playing the instrument in his     8     (fifty) and embarked on a journey to look for collectible items across China. To his disappointment, he quickly discovered that many collectors lacked the ability to play guqin themselves, resulting in many being stored away in warehouses. He even came across some of the instruments lying in a state of utter damage,     9     pained him deeply.

With the aim of preserving and utilizing (利用) the centuries-old relics more     10     (effective), Jian began learning how to restore the instrument under the guidance of a guqin repair expert.

Placed among the busy streets of Washington, D. C. is a large public garden that many Americans have never heard of. The U. S. National Arboretum (植物园) includes     1     collection of flowering plants called azaleas, a field of native plants named ferns, and flowering trees in the dogwood tree area. The garden     2     (establish) by Congress in 1927. It plays a leading part in researching and developing plants like trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses.

Government scientists are in charge of the 180-hectare area. Their main goal is     3    (strengthen) the U. S. economy by making sure an important kind of agriculture,     4     (call) the nursery industry, continues to perform well. The most recent numbers from the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that the ornamental and landscape plant industry creates billions of founds in sales each year.

The arboretum is home to one of the     5     (large) collections of preserved seeds in the world. The National Arboretum Herbarium (植物标本)     6     (house) around 700,000 ex-ample seeds. They include seeds from plants that the USDA considers as     7    (economical) important. Scientists collect many genetically different seeds within a kind of plant from both native and non-native plants. The reason     8     collecting that data is that scientists protect plants from harmful situations like climate change, changed environments, or other new and possible risks.

While the scientists do their work, the public     9     (explore) plants is free to visit the arboretum. Though many people may not know it, the arboretum has had a hand in developing a number of plants     10     are part of American landscaping.

In recent years, China    1    (see) a boom in “new tea beverages (饮料)” that combine brewed tea, fresh fruits and vegetables, sometimes laced with (加入) dairy products or juice, which are    2    (particular) popular among young people.

As new tea beverages, a    3    (vary) of tea drinks help meet young people’s desire for relaxation and social sharing, and have even become a part for social life. Now, when a new flavor of drink    4    (appear), plenty of young people would line up in front of beverage shops    5    crowd in online takeaway platforms    6    (look) forward to a freshly made cup and then cannot wait to post it on social media.

According to data from iMedia Research,     7     market scale of China’s tea-based drinks increased to 279 billion yuan ($39 billion in 2021) and is expected    8    (reach) about 375 billion yuan by 2025. “Previous popular beverages like milk tea used to be brewed with tea powder and creamer. With living standards improved, customers are now demanding    9    (high) quality food and drinks than before,” said Wang Jingyuan, founder of LINLEE, a brand    10    focuses on novel tea-based lemon drink.

China’s 13th Arctic Ocean scientific expedition team is now working in the Chukchi Sea. During the roughly 80-day journey, the crew will have about 40 days     1     (carry) out scientific research.

The expedition this time     2     (focus) on the ecosystem changes against the rapid changes in the Arctic with four major tasks,     3     include the investigation of the ecological environment of the Pacific sector in the central Arctic Ocean, the comprehensive survey of sea ice and the geology and geophysics of the Gakkel Ridge (山脊), as well as research on circulation     4     sea ice.

It is the second time that a survey.     5     (conduct) on the Gakkel Ridge, a mid-ocean ridge     6     (stretch) about 1,800 kilometers in the Arctic. “The Gakkel Ridge, a new volcanic ridge, is the Earth’s slowest-spreading mid-ocean ridge, which is vital in studying the     7     (expand) of global plates,” said Wang Jinhui, leader of the scientific expedition team.

A survey of aerosols (气溶胶) in the Arctic is also     8     the way. “The special conditions in the area, such as the change of sea ice cover and density and the change of local species, are the influencing factors that may     9     (significant) affect the generation and emission of aerosols,” said Le, a member of the scientific expedition team.

“Polar scientific research is an     10     (importance) field for mankind to understand the mysteries of nature and explore new spaces for development,” said Wang.

With the goal of popularizing science, the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched its 19th Public Science Day event on Saturday,     1    (open) 100 research institutions to the public.

Public enthusiasm was triggered because this was the first time in three years     2     the academy had been able to fully restart live activities on Public Science Day. “I am thrilled to be here. I like physics, and seeing real physicists in person is fun. It really deserves to visit the exhibition,“ said a 6-year old volunteer.

Many young attendants said they wanted     3    (visit) the Institute of Physics which was recognized as a professional academic platform in a league of its own.

The institute featured dozens of exhibitions on China’s latest achievements in artificial intelligence, lunar     4    (explore) and experiments onboard the Tiangong space station.

A Beijing resident attending the event with her 3-year -old son, said that she had     5    (previous) only known about these scientific achievements through the news. “Science education should start at an early age,” another young mother said. “Seeing these scientific achievements in person makes me more appreciate the hard work of our scientists,     6     invented so many things.”

Wang Bosheng, an associate researcher at the Institute of Automation said that sharing China’s latest scientific and technological art     7     the general public is necessary. “Chinese scientists have accomplished many great things, and these achievements should not be locked away with     8    (fence),” he applauded.

By communicating     9    (they) findings to the public, Wang said that scientists also have an urge to know     10     actual needs of the people, which helps open up new areas of research and use.

My family have been involved in agriculture business since the late 1800s when my great-grandfather     1     (start) the family farm. Over the years, the operation has developed from growing crops into selling farm equipment today — our primary focus has become the technology used in farming.

Agriculture,     2     general, has undergone a similar     3     (develop). Technology has become an indispensable part of doing business for every farmer, and agriculture retailer. In fact, a recent study by Hexa Reports suggests precision agriculture     4     (expect) to grow to $ 43.4 billion by 2025. It is a concept that was born in the 1990s and that was quite     5     (impress).

The increasing adoption rate of technology in agriculture shouldn’t be     6     (surprise) to anyone. Farming is     7     (high) land-intensive and labor-intensive. Farmers are driven to use technology to increase efficiency and manage costs.

But what exactly does the precision agriculture mean? Precision agriculture is also known as precision farming. Perhaps the easiest way     8     (understand) precision farming is to think of it as everything     9     makes the practice of farming more accurate and controlled when it comes to the growing of crops. A key component of this farm management approach is     10     use of information technology and a wide range of items such as sensors, drones, and GPS-based soil sampling.

Ever wonder    1    it would feel like to hide away in a dark cave without being connected to the outside world for 40 days? Fifteen people in France just did that. The group    2    (live) in a cave as part of the Deep Time project. The project was conducted by scientists from the Human Adaptation Institute, who wanted to see how they would react to and cope with being    3    (total) disconnected from the modern world. Since the volunteers    4    (cut) off from the outside world, they had to rely    5    their body clock to know when    6     (wake) up, go to sleep and eat. As expected, those in the cave lost their sense of time. “Time seemed to pass more slowly in the underground cave, where there were neither clocks    7    sunlight,” said Deep Time’s director Christian Clot.

The majority of the volunteers said they enjoyed the experience of total isolation. Two-thirds expressed a desire to remain underground a while    8    (long) in order to finish projects they had started. “The experience tested humans’ ability to adjust    9    (they) to the sudden huge changes in living conditions and environments,” said Clot. “We hope to better understand how our brains are capable of    10    (find) new solutions, whatever the situation.”

One of the joys in life visually impaired (受损的) people cannot experience     1    (convenient) might be reading, but a new bookstore that officially opened on Dec 3 has made that possible.

    2    (locate) at 226 Nanchang Road in Shanghai, the Niguang 226 bookstore is a 37-square-meter space designed specially for such     3    (individual). The new store offers more than 300 braille (盲文) books by Chinese and foreign authors, barrier-free movies     4     even traditional Chinese paintings made by people with physical challenges. To help the visually impaired find their way to the store, special paths     5    (extend) from Nanchang Road to Niguang 226 have been laid. The lamp posts outside the store have also been decorated     6     braille street signs. To ensure the     7    (safe) of its visitors, Niguang 226 has no sharp comers. In addition, the store has an accessible reading corner that     8    (equip) with an electronic visual aid device that can help colorblind people to read. Many of the barrier-free facilities in the bookstore were included following suggestions by Han Ying, honorary store manager,     9     lost her vision due to illness. There are currently seven members working at the bookstore, including Han and her guide dog. The other five     10    (be) two visually impaired and three able-bodied employees.

Niangao, a sweet rice cake, is a popular dessert eaten during the Spring Festival. It was originally used as an offering before it gradually became a Spring Festival food. The     1     (pronounce) of niangao sounds like “year high” in Chinese, symbolizing a much higher income, a much higher position, the growth of children, and the promise of a much     2     (good) year. It is considered good luck to eat it during the Spring Festival period. Niangao has a legend about its origin. In the Spring and Autumn Period of ancient China, the whole country     3     (divide) into different small kingdoms and people suffered a lot in wars. At that time, strong walls were built to protect the Wu Kingdom from repeated     4     (attack). Many people stopped worrying about wars, except for Wu Zixu. He told his entourages (随从), “Wars should not be viewed     5     (light). In case things go badly, remember to dig a hole under the wall. ” After Wu Zixu passed away, a war broke out and many people died from lack     6     food. Some people did what Wu Zixu had told them before     7     found that the wall under the earth was built with special bricks     8     (make) from glutinous (黏的) rice flour. As a result, the bricks     9     (save) many people from hunger. After that, people made niangao every year in memory of Wu Zixu. As time passed, niangao became     10     we eat today.