Bicycles have long been     1    (use) for transportation in China. Cycling     2     can be done individually as well     3     in groups has     4    (large) been free from restrictions.

But recently, cycling-the activity or sport of riding a bicycle for exercise-     5    (become) popular among the country’s urban middle class. The pandemic has played     6     part in cycling’s growing popularity as officials moved quickly to close some businesses,     7    (include) gymnasiums.

“With the pandemic... it seems to be the only way for us     8    (run) away from the terrible city life...” a cyclist Yang Lan said, adding, “What you are investing in is     9    (you) own body and a very good workout habit.” Increasing demand and worldwide supply chain problems mean that people wanting to buy bicycles must wait     10    (week) or months to get one.

Marine (海洋的) creatures have long attracted scientists. Recently, researchers described remains discovered in northeastern Spain,     1    belonged to a turtle named Leviathanochelys aenigmatica. Living during the Cretaceous Period, the ancient turtle nearly matched the largest turtle     2    record.

Leviathanochelys swam in     3     (risk) waters. Its enemies included mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, large water creatures up to 15 meters in     4     (long). Other nearby enemies were sharks and rays. “    5     (attack) an animal of the size of Leviathanochelys possibly only could have been done by large creatures in the marine context. At that time, the large ones in the European zone were     6    (main) sharks and mosasaurs,” said Oscar Castillo, the lead writer of the study that     7    (publish) in the Southern in Scientific Reports.

Scientists found the Leviathanochelys remains near the village of Coll deNargo in Catalonia’s Alt Urgell area.    8    hiker in the Southern Pyrenees saw the bones covered by the ground. To date, researchers     9    (find) parts of the back of the shell (壳), and most of the pelvic (骨盆的) area, but no skull or tail. The bones suggest the creature had a smooth shell similar to leatherback turtles, with the shell     10    (measure) about 2.35 meters long and 2.2 meters wide.

The creative concept of jinhuidui (literally “a pile of beautiful things from ash”), a Chinese art form which is said     1     (start) in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and boomed in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), shares similarities     2     pop art.

    3     (create) traditional jinhuidui artwork is much more difficult compared to pop art, as all the images are painted as if they were copied and pasted (粘贴). It requires     4     good command of calligraphy as well as excellent skill in painting flowers, birds, fish, insects, landscapes and     5     (figure), and a mastery of techniques such as seal carving.

Geng Xuezhi, 50, from Zibo city, Shandong Province, is one of the masters of jinhuidui. Geng has been learning Chinese painting and calligraphy     6     he was 16. He came into contact with jinhuidui painting skills through his father in 2006.

The artist says the distinctive feature of jinhuidui can be summed up as “broken”,     7     means that it has to present fragments in forms such as broken, rolled, overlapped,     8     (tear), burned or smoked. He adds it will take at least 10 years to master the skill.

The creation of jinhuidui is complex and lengthy, and     9     (it) dyeing process is laborious (费力的) and time-consuming. Sometimes a fragment needs to be dyed a dozen times. “A simpler work of jinhuidui takes about 20 days to complete, while a     10     (hard) one will take several months, and sometimes some extra effort has to be made,” Geng says.

It might be strange to wear clothes made out of plastic bottles. But in fact, some clothing     1    (company) are already making such clothes. Fashion brand JUMA recently showed its newest collection at an     2     (exhibit) in Shanghai. Eighteen clothing items from the collection,     3     (compose) of jumpsuits, jackets, shirts and dresses, were made from recycled plastic bottles. Many other fashion companies are finding similar ways to save our planet these days. The process is rather simple. First, the plastic bottles are washed and cut into small pieces. Then they     4     (melt) and shaped into small balls. Then the balls are made into thread. People can use     5     thread to make different kinds of clothes. Some people might have doubts about wearing something     6     is made out of plastic bottles. But according to Causeartist, a website     7     (focus)on innovation, clothes made from plastics could be even     8     (good) than nylon and polyester. Plastic thread can be made into different textures, such as cotton, silk or even wool. The price for the clothes in the new collection ranges from 500     9     3,000 yuan. However, Juma is optimistic that prices will fall when more companies follow this     10     (sustain) path taken by her business.

Two years ago, we were having a fairly     1     (type) night of Texas thunderstorms. My house was quiet. The television was off, and I was reading a book. It was dark out. Our radio is a little white box with a huge antenna (天线) that I     2     (program) to our area. I keep it on all the time and just turn it up when the weather looks bad, so, that night it had been going off, the sharp honks (喇叭声)     3     (follow) by severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watch alerts. Then, a warning became a tornado on the ground, in the middle of my city of     4     (million) of people.

I was already shouting at my family to throw them into our closet     5     my phone and the alarms went off. For     6     brief few minutes, the tornado was approaching the highway and was heading     7     (direct) towards our part of town. I had planted the radio into a nearby outlet (插座), hoping that the batteries were fresh enough     8     case the power went out. As the twister shifted directions and headed northeast, we sat still in the closet for a while longer, listening to the radio and     9       (check) our phones. Had the power gone out and a cell tower been cut off, that radio could have been the only thing keeping us informed. Astonishingly, no one     10     (kill) in that storm, despite numerous tornadoes touching down.