Libraries play a fundamental role in learning, where librarians and other resources help people to access the very information     1     they need. As Eli Martin says, “Because the Internet is harder     2     (sort) through than a library catalog, there’s a strong case that a library’s core services are actually becoming more important.” Firstly, libraries maintain history, and more     3     (important), truth. Even though in the past 2,000 years many changes     4     (occur), libraries have kept their main purpose to be certain about     5     (give) the truth. Moreover, libraries offer free educational     6     (resource). Visitors enter public libraries to find     7    they will choose next, to ask questions about job applications and resume writing, etc.. All these questions are answered by highly skilled librarians without any charge. Furthermore, libraries are transparent with all the services they provide. All things     8     (consider), libraries play a fundamental role in our society. Therefore, people’s need for libraries which serve as     9    (share), community-centered spaces that help them find information and connect them with others     10    (be) not going to change any time soon.

Every day, Duan Lianru spends several hours sitting in her office in Hunchun, Jilin province to make a     1     (compare) of hundreds of photos of Siberian tigers on the computer.

“It seems a little boring, but     2     (basic) I enjoy the work, which makes a connection between me and the big cats,” said the 36-year-old monitor from there search monitoring center of the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park. The park     3     (stretch) across the provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang.

Duan is responsible for identifying the tigers according to patterns on     4     (they) fur and giving them something like     5     identity card.

The park,     6     size exceeds (超过) 1.4 million hectares, is the most important habitat for wild Siberian tigers and Amur leopards in China.

The Siberian tigers’ “ID cards” come     7     a lot of important basic data that aids scientific conservation.     8     (base) on such information, Duan draws the family trees of the tigers.

Recent years     9     (see) a remarkable increase in the variety and number of wild animals and more tiger families have been found, including some back two or three generations.

“I feel quite honored to be involved in such significant work.” Duan said. “     10     (create) a more beautiful world, humans and wild animals, I hope, can live in harmony.”

Economic and trade ties between China and countries along the Belt and Road    1     (grow) significantly over the past decade.

Proposed by China in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative refers    2    the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 2lst Century Maritime Silk Road. China’s trade in goods with Belt and Road countries doubled    3    $1.04 trillion in 2013 to $2.07 trillion in 2022, with    4    average annual growth rate of 8 percent. Chen Chunjiang, assistant minister of commerce, said at a news conference. By the end of 2022, Chinese enterprises had invested $57.13 billion in economic and trade cooperation zone countries along the Belt and Road,    5    helped create 421.000 jobs for local residents.

    6    (go) ahead, China will expand imports of quality goods, improve its two-way investment structure    7    conclude free trade agreements with more countries along the Belt and Road. China will    8    (active) negotiate and sign bilateral (双边的) cooperation agreements on green development, digital economy and blue economy countries along the Belt and Road.

China will also strengthen cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road in areas including poverty     9    (reduce), health and education, and initiate more “small but beautiful”     10     (project)to enhance local people’s sense of accomplishment, Chen said.

ChatGPT is high-tech progress, not a revolution

ChatGPT is a powerful chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022.     1     (build) on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models, it engages in human-like dialogue egged by prompting. It     2     (design) to respond in a natural, intuitive way and has numerous potential uses.

From a scientific point of view, there is a need to closely watch the development of such     3    (technology) before reaching a conclusion about their efficacy and helpful nature. Technology progresses step by step. So we should not panic thinking ChatGPT will take up jobs     4     till now need humans to fulfill.

ChatGPT is an example of high-tech progress, not a revolution.

First, ChatGTP     5     (make) quite some progress in natural language processing, yet it still has a long way to go to completely understand the human mind and language faculty, because when it comes to professional writing, ChatGPT at times writes plausible-sounding but     6     (correct) or nonsensical answers. It might give some good answers to most of the general questions,     7     it is no substitute for professional advice, such as medical prognosis and prescriptions, or legal advice.

Second, ChatGPT is still a product     8     very limited application. It has the potential to be used for enhancing search engine functionality but, as a pre-trained language model, it will have limited use.

Due to these limitations, investors should not     9    (blind) invest huge amounts to further develop ChatGPT and should not expect quick returns on investment. Yet as a     10    (promise) AI development, ChatGPT is likely to advance in the medium, if not the short term.

Jingxi Taiping Drum is a traditional form of dancing. With its display of profound cultural elements, it     1     (include) in the first batch (批次) of China’s national intangible cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产) items in 2006.

The     2     (early) historical references of this art date back to the Spring and Autumn Period. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, it started to gain     3     (popular) in and around the capital, and then it was introduced to Mentougou District of Beijing.

In ancient times, the drums were played     4     New Year’s Eve at the imperial palace to bring peace. As a result, the performance also became known as the “New Year Drum” by Beijingers. This type of drum dance is commonly seen     5     (perform) during the last and first month of the lunar year in many local festive activities, thus expressing     6     (people) hope of a peaceful and prosperous year to come.

During a given performance, drummers perform various dance moves while     7     (hold) the drum in their left hands and a mallet in their right hands. Traditional Chinese aesthetic (美学的) concepts are reflected in the drum playing, all of     8     represent distinctive local features.

In the past decades, efforts     9     (make) by Mentougou District to preserve this signature folk dance culture. Today, the time-honored folk art of the Jingxi Taiping Drum is being taken up by the young people     10     is presenting its lively artistic charm (魅力) on a global stage.

Seeing these “gardens” is like looking at a universe in a plant pot. The miniature (微型的) branches spread and twist,       1       (demonstrate) the beauty of nature, so as to allow viewers to stop and reflect on the circle of life. The potted landscape of penjing.     2       (be) a representative of top-ranking garden art ever since its existence.

    3     (expected), the Suzhou-style penjing cultivation technique was listed as a national-level intangible cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产) in 2011.     4     penjing, Suzhou gardens wouldn’t be as charming as they are today. Once the construction of a garden is completed, its buildings are set, but planting can grow and change, which makes gardens     5     (live).

The history of penjing     6       (date) back to the Tang Dynasty when the great poet Bai Juyi used some stones     7       (create) miniature landscapes in pots. And the Ming Dynasty marked a boom in the economy of Suzhou, the very period       8     turned the city into a major cultural center. Because of that long history, Suzhou-style penjing is often seen as       9     fundamental school of Chinese planting art.

Penjing works are beautiful, but people think that they were owned by the rich. However, only when they are enjoyed by general     10       (consume) can they benefit from being part of people's wider modern artistic taste.

Spoken Chinese consisted of a number of Chinese dialects(方言) throughout history. In the Ming Dynasty, standard Mandarin was nationalized. Even so,     1    was not until the Republic of China era in the 1910s that there were some noticeable results in     2    (promote) a common unified language in China.

The ancient written standard was Classical Chinese and it was used for thousands of years. However, it     3    (reserve) mostly for scholars and intellectuals. Only after the May 4th Movement did the push for Vernacular Chinese begin. This allowed common     4     (citizen) to read since it was modeled after the linguistics and phonology of a spoken language.

Despite the difficulty in mastering it, Classical Chinese remains     5    (extreme) important in the world heritage of languages. Classical Chinese’s birth is related     6    the beginning of astronomy(天文学), the connection with higher spirits through divination(占卜) and the formation of several Books of Changes,     7    most famous being the one of the Zhou Dynasty. Therefore, Chinese is packed with great meaning and     8     (wise). It is not only a code or a tool, but a language     9    gives light and guidance when     10    (receive) in a proper way. Classical Chinese has been the cultural backbone of all the great philosophies, spiritualities, and even arts not just in China but all over Asia.

Nature has always fascinated me. To brighten up the urban environment, there is nothing better     1     some attractive plants and flowers.

Growing up, I was always fortunate to be around well-tended gardens. My grandfather could actually have been considered to be quite “green-fingered”, as there were always impressive flowers in his garden. I had been a passive     2    (admire) of the work done by him and gardeners generally until quite recently,     3     I decided to turn my hand to cultivating some plants.     4     my grandfather, I only have a small balcony on which to conduct my activities, but that has not discouraged me in the slightest. It’s possible to make a nice “garden” even in the most     5    (limit) space, but one must also limit one’s ambitions to a certain extent. I decided to take the seeds of one humble little tomato and plant them in a number of pots. After several weeks, I     6    (amaze) by the results. I now have about 15 tomato plants on my balcony in different stages of     7    (grow).

It’s     8     rewarding sight to see this greenery on my balcony. I keep my fingers crossed that one day this little bit of nature will give me something very practical: some nice     9    (taste) tomatoes. It’s also very rewarding to be engaging in a practice which is as old as time itself, as plant life is     10    (essential) the most basic and oldest technology on our planet.

Home to the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers, the Sanjiangyuan area on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (青藏高原) is known as “China’s water tower.” It is a     1     (whole) unique plateau wetland ecosystem and serves as     2     important ecological defense for the country.

Decades ago, serious environmental degradation (恶化) in Sanjiangyuan,     3     was caused by climate change and human activities, resulted in a large number of lakes drying out and wildlife numbers falling sharply. In 2016, the pilot program for the Sanjiangyuan National Park management system     4     (launch). Through painstaking practice, development and innovation, efforts have been made     5     (turn) the park into a symbol of the progress of China’s ecological civilization.

Over the past years, the ecological environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau     6     (experience) comprehensive changes. Water conservation in the area has risen     7     11 percent every year, compared with 10 years ago.

Local residents enjoy the gifts given by nature, and the     8     (establish) of the national park has enabled them to transform from exploiting (开发) nature to becoming its protectors and benefiting from it. Some work as tour guides,     9     (assist) visitors from home and abroad.

Today, as people walk on the vast land of Sanjiangyuan, looking at the expansive mountains, glaciers, lakes and pastures,     10     catching sight of wild animals and birds, they cannot help be impressed by the vastness and beauty of nature.

Aiming to inspire the people of various countries to learn Chinese, the video series The Imagination of Art was released on Oct. 24.

The project,     1     (joint) produced by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation and Central Academy of Fine Arts, selects multiple art pieces created by four artists: Wu Jian’an, Kang Lei, Lu Zhengyuan and Zhang Fan.

Under the theme of “Chinese language plus arts”, the series    2     (comprise) of two parts the first part of which contains four episodes, each    3     (feature) one artist. The second part will sec education experts guide Chinese learning from their    4     (work).

In the first episode, Wu, one director of Fine Arts Experimental Art School at the academy    5     (share) his creation procedure of The Heaven of Nine Levels,     6     hand-carved piece inspired by Shan Hai Jing. The second introduces The Garden of Forking Paths, artist Kang’s painting,    7     title is inspired from Jorge Borges’ novel. The work demonstrates Kang’s reflection     8     time, as she paints different sceneries and objects in different places and at different times worldwide     9    (record) her feelings and experiences.

The other two episodes are respectively about Lu’s work Solid Liquid and Zhang’s work Tianxin, both of which have a    10     (power) effect on people learning Chinese.