How deep can a person dive underwater without any     1     (breathe) equipment? As one of the world’s top female freedivers, China’s Xu Tongtong’s answer is beyond the limit.

Freediving is gaining     2    (popular) across the world. Divers rely only on their lung capacity to plunge as far as they can-either in open water in so-called “depth” events or in the swimming pool,     3     (simple) called “pool” events.

This year, the 35-year-old Xu     4     (dive) 100 meters underwater successfully in both constant weight (CWT) and constant weight bifin (CWTB) contests, becoming only the third female freediver on the planet     5    (reach) this depth. “When I dived 100 meters and grabbed the depth tag, I knew I had done it and     6    (swim) back to the surface with a smile,” Xu joyfully recalled of her     7     (history) feat (壮举).

Hailing from East China’s Anhui province, Xu changed from swimming to freediving in 2014. “I was able to enter the three-dimensional world from a two-dimensional space. That is     8     I fell in love with freediving,” she told Xinhua in a recent exclusive interview. The biggest attraction of freediving lies     9     facing up to and overcoming our fears. The training is a process of constantly knowing oneself, said Xu. After three months of training and competing this year in Panglao, Xu decided to stay on the island to continue her training and coaching,     10     major source of income for this world-class freediver.

The Shenzhou-17 crewed spaceship is scheduled to be launched at 11:14 a. m. Thursday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The China Manned Space Agency is quite     1    (confidence) that the mission will be a success.     2     spaceship was transferred vertically across 1,500 meters from the assembly building to the pad.

    3     (equip) with multiple advanced systems, the spaceship will carry three astronauts who are eager     4       (carry) out the Shenzhou-17 spaceflight mission. Shenzhou-17, considered to be one of the most important space     5     (mission) in recent years, is the 30th flight mission of China's manned space program and the 12th manned mission of the program.

The launch will use a Long March-2F carrier rocket,     6     will be filled with fuel soon. The Shenzhou-17 spaceship will connect to the space station core module Tianhe,     7     (form) a combination of three modules and three spacecraft. The crew is scheduled to return in April next year. They     8     (land) in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Product qualities of the Shenzhou-16 spaceship and the Long March-2F carrier rocket are     9     control. The astronauts have made all preparations for the launch     10     are ready to go to space.

Parents     1     (advise) to include fish into their children’s diets after     2     study found eating one to three servings of fish each week is linked with higher IQs and better sleep.

The US researchers analyzed the IQs, fish-eating habits and sleeping patterns of over 500 Chinese children     3     (age) 9 to 11. They found children who ate fish weekly scored nearly five points higher on IQ tests than those who didn’t. Children who had fish sometimes had a roughly three-IQ-point advantage     4     those who didn’t or rarely ate it.

The finding builds on     5     (exist) research about the positive effects of Omega-3 fatty acids. “Omega 3s in fish have been tied to intelligence and sleep independently,     6     they’ve never all been connected before,” a researcher said.

The study also questioned parents on their children’s quality of sleep, including how often they wake in the middle of the night and “daytime sleepiness.” It found, “increased fish     7     (consume) was associated with fewer disturbances of sleep.”

Researcher Pinot-Martin said parents could give children fish as young as 10 months old and should start by about 2. For infants (婴幼儿), she said, make sure the fish is     8     (fine) chopped (切碎) and has no bones.

“Introducing the taste early     9     (make) it more acceptable,” Pinot-Martin said. “It really has to be a lot of efforts, especially in a culture     10     fish is not as commonly served.”

Once upon a time, there was a man     1     kept thirty sheep.

One morning, he was     2     (surprise) to find that one sheep was missing. Where had it gone? Soon, he     3     (find) that his fold (羊圈) was damaged (破坏). During the night,     4     wolf had broken into the fold and taken the sheep.

One of his     5     (friend) advised him to repair the fold quickly,     6     the man said: “The sheep had already been eaten by the wolf. What is the use of repairing the fold?” He refused     7       (listen).

The next morning, he discovered that during the night the wolf had broken into the fold again and killed another sheep. Then, he realized that his friend’       8     (suggest) was right.

    9     (thankful), he repaired the fold at once so that more sheep would     10     (save).

Rice, commonly planted in many countries, serves     1     a major source of food for more than half of the global population.

People in ancient China     2     (begin) growing wild rice, learning how to cultivate rice in fields and improve its quality.     3     is widely believed that the cultivation (种植) of rice originated in China’s Yangtze River basin, around 13,500 to 8,200 years ago. Since then, rice     4     (pass) around the world through migration and trade.

Around 4,000 to 3,000 BC, rice was introduced to Southeast Asia, and during the Middle Ages people from India and southern Europe got to know the plant and took it home. Currently, half of the world’s population consumes rice,     5     (primary) in Asia, Southern Europe, and certain tropical regions in America and Africa. Over time,     6     (variety) of rice were developed to suit different regions and preferences. There are different rice dishes     7     (find) all over the world, including paellas, sushi, the bibimbap, risotto and jambalaya.

Today, rice plays a vital role in feeding billions of people while food     8     (short) is a worldwide problem. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of rice. Yuan Longping, a renowned Chinese scientist     9     devoted his life to developing high-yielding rice, made significant contributions to improving rice quality and meeting the     10     (rise) demand for food around the world.

A black slate (石板), an alloy steel needle and decades of practice are     1     Li Yahua needs to create the perfect Huihe stone shadow carving work of art. With her left hand     2     (gentle) leaning against the mirror-like stone to support the heavy chisel (凿子) she’s holding in her right hand, the artist creates a black-and-white landscape by intensively chiseling dots in various sizes and density on the stone.

    3     (difference) from traditional Chinese art types that emphasize the beauty of lines, stone shadow carving highlights the size and     4     (deep) of dots.

“We use an alloy steel needle to chisel white dots to create images on a polished and smooth black slate,” Li explained, adding the pressure     5     (use) to chisel them was the key to getting the carving right.

“On an A4-paper-size black slate, we need to chisel about 100 million dots     6     (create) an image,” she continued, adding it would take 7 to 20 days to complete the work depending on its level of complexity.

Born into a family of stone carvers, stone and alloy steel needles     7     (be) Li’s best friends since childhood and the sound of chisel     8     (knock) on the slate is the soundtrack to her life.     9     56-year-old has devoted nearly 40 years to the craft. For her, shadow carving is about preserving history, culture and art,     10     recording the stories of the times.

You might have heard of Cantonese opera, but have you heard of Nanyin — Fujian’s traditional opera? Traditional Nanyin is performed by five people,     1    (comprise) of one singer and four instrumentalists. The musicians play the dongxiao, nanpa, erxian, and sanxian. In 2009, Nanyin     2    (add) to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

    3    (wander) the streets of Quanzhou, a historical port city, one will often hear slow, soft and pleasant melodies (曲调) coming from a newsstand on a street corner, a grocery store in a marketplace     4    a residential house with its door open.

That’s the sound of Nanyin,     5     ancient music style of Minnan, or southern Fujian Province,     6     can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. One of the country’s oldest music     7    (style), Nanyin (literally meaning “music of the south”) came into being and developed as the culture of central China spread to Quanzhou and integrated with local arts.     8     its melody was often associated with royal court music, it gradually changed to become part of local folk life, and was passed down from generation to generation. Nanyin became “the sounds of hometown and motherland” in the minds of many overseas Chinese who left Quanzhou.

It’s common for its fans     9    (collect) Nanyin albums, organize regional associations of Nanyin enthusiasts, hold salons (沙龙) and set up musical theaters. In Quanzhou alone, there are about 500 music associations devoted to Nanyin’s soft sounds, and more than a dozen festivals and competitions are held     10    (annual) both at home and abroad.

For people interested in learning more about the ethnic (少数民族) Miao culture, an ideal place to experience it is an ethnic Miao community, called Qianhu, in Guizhou Province.     1     has preserved the distinctive cultural traditions of the Miao ethnic group exhibited in the forms of architecture, arts, and daily lifestyle.

This world’s largest Miao community consists     2     a dozen smaller settlements     3    (spread) over rolling mountains. Singing is     4     essential part of local life. The Miao people begin to learn how to sing as early as they can speak.

The Miao people are also known for making fine embroidery (刺绣). Different from other parts of China, the themes     5    (express) in Miao embroidery are showy,     6    (imagine), and often based on folklores (民俗). Meanwhile, Miao people can     7    (effortless) arrange colors in a way that avoids awkwardness. This is a truly natural gift.

Another fine element of the Miao culture is wearing silver ornaments (装饰). For most of their history, the Miao people     8    (have) no written language, so they had to preserve and pass on their heritage through visual elements, like carving history on silver ornaments. Over time, this craft has evolved into a vehicle     9     represents the Miao culture and spirit.

The Miao songs, embroidery, and silver ornaments all convey the rich, profound history of the Miao people and     10    (symbol) the continuity of their culture and traditions.

ChatGPT, the Latest Powerful AI Tool

ChatGPT has been taking the world by storm, and it’s easy to see why. The revolutionary chatbot AI can do a surprising number of tasks including writing an entire term paper. Microsoft     1    (begin) integrating the GPT language model behind ChatGPT into     2     (product) such as Bing, Edge and Microsoft Office in recent months. In fact, the ChatGPT chatbot is such     3     hit that Google has rushed out its own ChatGPT competitor called Google Bard.

ChatGPT is quite outstanding.     4     it can’t fully replace humans, businesses and individuals can use it for a lot of tasks -- from conducting market research to     5     (draft) various documents. You can even play Sumplete, a game     6     (invent) by ChatGPT, which is a logic puzzle similar to Sudoku.

ChatGPT still has limitations     7     terms of function and can make mistakes. You will likely need to be very precise in how you limit the work it does because some answers of ChatGPT     8     (be) completely incorrect. Without limits, this     9     (power) technology could cause you more problems than itself.

Aside from that, ChatGPT can also suffer from     10     (extreme) severe errors like any other site or app. It can have server errors preventing it from working, or if you have a poor internet connection you may struggle to use it successfully.

    1    (dress) in orthopedic(矫正的) shoes, a penguin from the San Diego Zoo, who could not walk due to illness, got another chance to run like other penguins.

Lucas, the African penguin,     2    (have) trouble walking for more than three years because of the problem in his spine(脊柱), which causes its muscle weakness and pain in the legs.

The penguin looked lonely and different     3     other ones for its limited mobility. Wildlife     4    (researcher) decided to do something.

“I’ve known Lucas for a long time, so being able to provide him with a     5    (possible) to live a normal life brings a smile to my face,” said Dr. Beth, a senior vet at the zoo.

The boots     6    (fit) in place, so they will help Lucas to fully participate in the colony and show behaviors that are more typical for    7     penguin-such as climbing the rocks, swimming, nesting and finding a suitable mate.

With his new boots, Lucas’s walking has improved, which makes his exploration in his rocky habitat     8    (easy) and his posture(姿势) became more natural,     9    (allow) him to gain better balance while standing.

“We were pleasantly surprised at the change the boots bring,” said one animal keeper. “Seeing him move about now gives us hope     10     he may be able to live a full life.”