1 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. instinct；B. confidence；C. outlined；D. slogans AB. spin；AC. lists；AD. illustrated；BC. conviction BD. contrast；CD. practice；ABC. demonstrate

The success of a speech is often attributed to the skill of the speaker, with merit being given to speakers who are confident, articulate, knowledgeable and able to deliver a speech with     1    .

But often it is not the speakers who write these moving speeches, it is a speechwriter. And one industry in which this     2     is common is that of politics. So what does it take to be a political speechwriter?

Well, according to a recent job advertisement from the US Embassy in Britain, a political speechwriter needs to have exceptional interpersonal skills, be detail-oriented and able to     3     a deep knowledge of their subject. They must also work closely with speakers and be able to relate to their style.

Some believe that the best speechwriters have an inherent talent, a natural creative     4    , and that speechwriting is an art form. So what about those of us who do not possess such genius? Can we still produce successful speeches?

In an interview with the BBC, Dr. Max Atkinson (a communications specialist)     5     a number of speechwriting techniques. He also     6     how these techniques have been used in historic speeches.

One such technique is introducing     7    . This is extremely useful when presenting a positive     8     on a negative issue. One of the most famous examples of this can be seen in a speech given by former American President John F Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

Another technique is the use of three-part     9    . Dr. Atkinson explains that this can be an excellent way of adding finality or confirming a statement. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was a fan of this technique. One of his most famous campaign     10     was “education, education, education.”

So next time you have to prepare a speech or presentation, try applying one or more of these techniques and see it you have what it takes to be a winning speechwriter.

3 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. approved       B. violated       C. existing       D. drawn E. criticized       F. strengthening       G. going       H. improved I. aroused       J. concerns       K. promoted

Many people honor Guan Yu (or Guan Gong), a hero during the Three Kingdoms period. But recently, a statue of the ancient general has     1     criticism from authorities and the public.

In October, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said on its website that the construction of the Guan Yu statue in Jingzhou, Hubei province,     2     local regulations.

The monumental(极大的) statue, built in a Guan Yu-themed park, covers an area of 152,000 square meters and weighs more than 5,000 tons. At about 58 meters tall, the statue surpassed the 24-meter limit on structures in local areas, according to CCTV News.

Even the cost of building the statue, about 170 million yuan, far exceeds the     3     budget. Worse, the park     4     the structure as the world's tallest bronze statue to attract tourists, but has only brought a revenue of less than 13 million yuan in the past four years, China Daily reported.

Due to recent media reports, the issue caught the public’s attention and     5     criticism for its waste of resources. Also, there are     6     over its safety risks and legality.

On Nov 17, the local authorities responded that experts have been organized to make a plan to relocate the statue. This announcement once again stirred discussion online.

Many asked to keep the statue, considering the cost and effort that had gone into the project. One internet user commented that “relocation would cost a lot of money. Why not just keep it and explore further development using     7     resources?” Still others questioned why there was no supervision from local authorities since the beginning of construction to ensure that rules were being followed.

According to Hui Ming, from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, this should be a lesson for local decision-makers. Before     8     about building statues, there should be adequate research and work. Also, public money and resources should not be wasted in this fashion.

This is not the only case of such an extravagant landmark. The Shuisi Tower project in Dushan county, Guizhou province, was also     9     by the MOHURD as a “cultural landmark" that was built indiscriminately(盲目地) and divorced from reality, and could damage the natural landscape.

Limit size of structures

The MOHURD has issued a notice on     10    the management of large-scale urban statue construction, which says that large statues with a height of more than 10 meters or a width of more than 30 meters must be managed as important urban construction projects.

To protect historical and traditional buildings, the MOHURD announced in April that urban architectures cannot be built taller than 500 meters unless their plans are approved.

4 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. highlighting   B. total     C. enriched     D. urgent E. relief     F. perspective   G. ignoring     H. altered I. filling     J. separate   K. downgraded

Chinese Women Bridging Gap

Zhang Jianli used to employ only male workers on his construction sites throughout Chifeng, Inner Mongolia. Now with large quantities of work but inadequate manpower, Mr. Zhang has     1    his mind. He offers daily wages of roughly 160 yuan for women workers to do such routine work as moving wood and bricks, and up to 200 yuan a day for     2    or complicated jobs.

A labor shortage is pushing employers to hire more women to build high-rises, maintain rail tracks and drive trucks, among other roles. Chinese women are     3     the labor shortage. They are increasingly taking on heavy-labor jobs long dominated by men in construction or transportation,     4     traditional gender roles.

Women’s presence on construction sites has grown a lot. As a consequence, employers have set up     5     living spaces and bathrooms for them. About one-third of the workers on some construction sites in major cities are women, according to estimates by researchers who study China’s labor and gender issues. Just eight years ago, women accounted for just over one-tenth of the     6     , according to a survey of over 6,000 construction workers in nine cities. Over time, the types of jobs performed by women have been     7     —truck driving and machine handling added to their working list.

State media, in recent years, have praised the roles of women working as truck drivers and construction workers,     8    their contribution to the economy. In July, Xinhua News Agency featured Xu Yingying, a kind-hearted woman truck driver, who delivered     9    materials to the virus-stricken Hubei province three times within nine days last year. “Having lived through so much, I feel that the best status of a woman is being self-independent, living to become a beam of light and warming others,” she shared her     10    in the video.

5 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. engagement B. specific C. observed   D. wandering   E. resembled F. follow G. implements H. finding I. improvements J. translate K. require

Brain Training through Virtual Reality

Scientists have long sought to prevent sharp memories from dulling with age, but the problem remains persistent. Now new research suggests virtual reality might help older people recall facts and events based on     1     details.

The study involved 42 healthy older adults from the San Francisco Bay Area. Half spent a dozen hours over four weeks playing a virtual-reality game called Labyrinth; they wore headsets and walked in place,     2     virtual neighbourhoods while completing tasks. The other half, in the control group, used electronic tablets to play games that didn’t     3     finding positions or recalling details. After 15 sessions, the latter performed roughly the same as before on a long-term memory test based on picking out objects they had seen about an hour earlier. But the Labyrinth players’ scores rose, and they were less frequently tricked by objects that     4     the ones they had viewed.

Those     5     “brought them back up to the level of another group of younger adults who did the same memory tests,” says Peter Wais, the researcher who designed the VR game. The game likely stimulates the hippocampus — a brain area important for long-term memory. What the Wais’s team is trying to do is uniquely suited to VR,” says Meredith Thompson, who studies learning through VR games but was not involved in the new study. “VR can provide greater     6     than other games,” she says, adding that after this proof-of-concept study, “it would be great to actually     7     people over time and see what this type of game does for long-term memory.” Wais’s team is now investigating how long the     8     effects last and which elements of the training have the most impact.

It remains unclear how test performance in a laboratory setting might     9     to real-world situations. The outcome, needs to be repeated, ideally with a much larger group, before it’s treated as a strong     10    .

6 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. housing        B. leisurely        C. sought        D. reference        E. primarily     F. leg G. winding        H. wildly        I. pioneered        J. major        K. highlight

18^th Century Grand Tour of Europe

The Grand Tour began in the 16^th century and gained popularity during the 17 th century. Privileged（有特权的）young European graduates     1     a trend where they traveled across the continent in search of art and cultural experiences upon their graduation. This practice, which grew to be     2     popular, became known as the Grand Tour. Specialty guidebooks, tour guides, and other aspects of the tourist industry were developed during this time to meet the needs of wealthy 20-something male and female travelers as they explored the European continent.

These young, classically - educated Tourists were rich enough to fund multiple years abroad for themselves and they took full advantage of this. They carried letters of     3     and introduction with them as they departed from southern England to communicate with and learn from people they met in other countries. Some Tourists     4     to continue their education and broaden their horizons while abroad, some were just after fun and     5     travels, but most desired a combination of both.

A typical journey through Europe was long and     6     with many stops along the way. London was commonly used as a starting point and the Tour was usually kicked off with a difficult trip across the English Channel. Crossing the wide channel was and is not easy. 17^th – and - 18^th - century Tourists risked sea-sickness, illness, and even shipwreck on this first     7     of travel.

Grand Tourists were     8     interested in visiting cities that were considered centers of culture at the time, so Paris, Rome, and Venice were not to be missed. The average Grand Tourist traveled from city to city, usually spending weeks in smaller cities and months in the three     9     ones.

The vast majority of Tourists took part in similar activities during their exploration with art at the center of it all. Once a Tourist arrived at a destination, he would look for     10     and settle in for anywhere from weeks to months, even years. Though certainly not an overly trying experience for most, the Grand Tour presented a unique set of challenges for travelers to overcome.

7 . Directions: After reading the passage below； fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one more word than you need.

A. debate          B. obviously          C. minimized        D. digits            E. feasible            F. initially G. sales             H. applied             I. criticized          J. inevitable          K. basis

Criticisms of Space Tourism

Space tourism is actually not a new or even a 21st-century concept. NASA imagined the possibility of space tourism back in the 1970s. Space tourism was     1     a hopeful concept, one focused on increasing access for ordinary citizens to visit space. However, the modern space tourism industry looks different as early ticket     2     by Virgin Galactic ranged from S200,000-$250,000; Blue Origin has not announced ticket prices, but it recently sold one seat for $28 million as part of a charity sale. This     3     prices access to space well outside the range of all but the extremely wealthy； it's one of the primary criticisms of space tourism today.

Part of the reason spaceflight is so expensive is that just a few people are carried at a time. "If you want to get to get the price from $250,000 down to four     4    , like an airline, you have to spread it over far more bodies," Ron Epstein, an aerospace analyst. But it might be decades before companies get to that point. The costs for fuel and energy currently don't make it     5     to offer space travel to large numbers of people.

Another complaint is that the funds spent on spaceflight might be better spent elsewhere such as solving problems here on Earth. Alan Ladwig, a writer, says this commentary is not without     6    —or historical precedent（先例）as people said the same thing about NASA. "There has been criticism that money spent in space would be better     7     to other societal needs. This has been a matter of     8     for a range of space activities for the past 60 years and is not likely to change regardless of what happens with space tourism," he says. And several items we take for granted like memory foam and scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses, came from NASA inventions.

Finally, space tourism is     9     for its environmental impact. "The most often talked about 'harm' involves pollution caused by black carbon from some spacecraft engines," Ladwig explains. "Virgin Galactic has     10     this problem, saying is impact on climate change is minor and that it also plans to invest in sustainable fuels for the future. Blue Origin's engines rely on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that burns as water vapor. However, critics note that it still takes electricity to manufacture the fuels."

8 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. genuinely       B. pocket       C. mass-produced       D. seemingly       E. inspiration F. familiarize       G. group       H. encounter       I. customary       J. symbolic       K. motivation

A Deeper Meaning behind Souvenirs

“Nobody sits us down and tells us to collect objects when we’re young,” writes Rolf Potts, “it’s just something we do, as a way to    1    ourselves with the world, its possibilities, and our place in it.”

Few of us would call ourselves collectors, but most travelers     2    a seashell from a vacation, or bring a keychain. As Mr. Potts notes in a book called “Souvenir,” there is more to this     3    simple practice than meets the eye. For one thing, it can date back to the oldest described journeys, so it’s a    4    practice that goes back thousands of years. And academic researchers have classified souvenirs -- even    5    items like “I Love New York” T-shirts and plastic miniatures of Michelangelo’s David -- into various categories, likely unknown to many travelers.

Which categories do the things we’ve bought or found in our travels fall into? Further, what’s     6    behind our need to bring home souvenirs?

Over time, intellectual curiosity became the driving    7    for personal travel. Yet even as travelers began collecting historical and scientific souvenirs, not just religious items, the things they brought home stood for feelings for holy objects.

Scholars    8    these souvenirs into different buckets, including “markers” (location branded items like T-shirts and teacups), “pictorial images” (postcards and posters), and “    9    landmarks” (for example, Statue of Liberty key chains), with the latter two categories symbolizing, though not exclusive to, mass tourism.

In the end, “Souvenir” suggests that its meaning is not fixed because its importance to the owner can change over time and that its significance is closely related to the traveler’s identity. Mr. Potts himself has had plenty of souvenirs, things that remind him not merely of the places he’s been and the extraordinary     10    between him and local people, but of former life phases. “When we collect souvenirs,” he writes, “we do so not to evaluate the world, but to tell the self.”

9 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. inclusion     B. significant     C. exclude   D. implement   E. saving   F. house G. confirmed   H. interconnected     I. desirability       J. ambitious   K. concentrating

Plans revealed for high-tech “10-minute city” in Seoul

The idea of a “15-minute city”, in which residents can all reach work and leisure facilities within a quarter-hour walk — or cycle — of their homes, has gained     1     attention among urban planners during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now, a group of architects is planning an even more     2     neighborhood in South Korea’s capital, Seoul: a 10-minute city.

Named “Project H1”, the development is set to transform an old industrial site into a(n)     3     “smart” city. Combining eight residential buildings with co-working offices and study spaces, the 125-acre district is also set to     4     entertainment sites, fitness centers, swimming pools and even urban farms.

Designed by Dutch architecture firm UNStudio and backed by a real estate firm, the neighborhood will also be completely car-free. A press release for the project claimed that “all the conveniences of the city” will be within a 10-minute walk of people’s homes.

In a statement, UNStudio co-founder Ben van Berkel said that residents’ “daily life experience” is the project’s “top priority”.

“We do this through the     5     of a rich density of uplifting, on-site experiences that provide an extensive range of options for how they can spend their living, working and leisure time, thereby also     6     them the time needed to travel elsewhere in the city,” he is quoted as saying.

A spokesperson for UNStudio     7     that project has been green-lit but did not reveal when it is likely to break ground.

The architects also said that clean energy will be produced on site, while systems to capture and store rain are being designed to reduce water use.

Critics have suggested that the concept could cause urban renewal by further     8     wealth in the most accessible and convenient districts. The     9     of “15-minute” neighborhoods may, in turn, result in home prices that     10     low-income and marginalized communities. But the Covid-19 pandemic has seen growing interest in the concept.

10 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. displaced                    B. feature                 C. grouped          D. headlines        E. house          F. inevitable G. neutral                       H. projected             I. solution            J. sustainable          K. withstand

Floating Cities: The Wave of the Future?

Rainwater pouring into the New York City subway. Towns and roads in Pennsylvania overtaken by floodwater. These dramatic scenes made     1     in September 2021. As many as 40.5 million people have already been     2     by the effects of the climate crisis. Rising sea levels, along with extreme flooding, are putting more and more coastal residents and others at risk. By 2050, more than 1 billion people will live in countries that lack the basic systems and services to     3     sea-level rise, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace. And all these climate refugees will need to seek out new homes on dry land.

One     4     architects and others have been exploring with more urgency in recent years is to build floating cities. In 2019, the United Nations brought together a group of innovators, scientists, and marine engineers to discuss the future of     5     sea-based communities. "As our climate and water ecosystems are changing, the way our cities retake to water needs to change, too." said U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed. "Floating cities are a means of ensuring climate adaption, as buildings can rise along with the sea."

These cities can be designed as climate     6     . They can take advantage of plentiful wind and water power for electricity, and grow food using hydroponics（水耕法）. "From traditional houseboat communities to high-tech experiments, there are many examples to learn from," she added.

Some of these experimental floating cities are already in development. Another planned community that's attracting a lot of attention is Oceanix City, which is     7     to have one-third of its 118 islands below sea level within 60 years.

Plans for Oceanix City     8     groups of hexagon-shaped（六边形）islands powered by solar and water energy. Tied to the seafloor, each human-made island would     9     around 300 people; the islands would be     10     together in communities of about 10,000 residents. Oceanix citizens would drink processed ocean water and extracted humidity from the air, and dine on a ready supply of seafood.