1 . Mary Dickins had been a member of the audience at poetry nights before and knew “the poetry clap”. She made a polite tapping of fingers. But when she made her debut (首次演出) as a performer at the age of 62 at the legendary Bang Said the Gun night in south London, she said, “It was so wild — like nothing I had ever seen before.” The audience stamped their feet and shook shakers. “It felt transformative. I thought, ‘I’ve got to have more of this,’ ” Dickins said. Becoming a performance poet has given her a place on a stage of her own making.

All her life she has written, mostly without being seen or heard. Her mother died when she was nine, and, after she went into a care home at 13, Dickins’ writing stayed in notebooks. Really, she says, a lot of her adult life has been about getting over childhood shyness. At university — she studied education — she met her husband of 40 years, but in three years of seminars she did not say a word. Some of this results from her years at the children’s home. She says, “It gave me a sense of what it’s like to be excluded. I never fitted in anywhere.”

After she graduated, she discovered that she loved working with people with learning disabilities. She became an expert in inclusive education. “That was my niche (称心的职业),” she says. She published books and returned to the University of North London as a senior lecturer in early childhood studies.

Dickins now sees that in adulthood she has been giving herself permission to be silly. “The sillier I allow myself to be, the better the writing is,” she says. Her observations are humorous.

“Putting things into words and giving shape to your emotions is an important part of coming to terms with the things that happen in life,” she says.

Does she still feel like an outsider?

“I think I’ve made it into a virtue. I celebrate the fact that I don’t fit into a box. Finally! You have to wait till you’re 62 to feel confident!” she says. “But I have a sense of who I am and I'm proud of it. I wouldn’t be anyone else now — and it took me a long time to say that.”

2 . They call America’s Got Talent the biggest stage in the world, and I definitely felt like it that day last April. I stood on that huge, brightly lit stage in California. As I stared out at the audience of thousands, it hit me that this moment could change my life forever.

I’d always loved to sing and had already signed up for the school talent show in fourth grade when I started stuttering (结巴). I went from being a carefree 10-year-old to a shy one. I was afraid of speaking in class, ordering at restaurants, and even introducing myself. So I decided to practise over and over again. To my astonishment, the words came smoothly when I sang. My stutter disappeared. I felt so free onstage performing in the talent show.

By the summer I was 16, one afternoon I started practising my guitar at home. On the spot, I wrote a song I called “I Will Trust”. I sang about how lost I felt. The next day, I filmed a video of myself performing the song and posted it on YouTube. Hundreds of complete strangers left comments that I had cheered them up with my music.

Then I signed up for the America’s Got Talent audition (试镜). When I finished, the judges and the whole crowd were on their feet. I couldn’t believe it! Judge Cowell told me I had a pure and beautiful voice. When introducing myself to the judges and audience, I stammered my name, Amanda, and then my age, 18. “As you can probably tell…” I explained, “I have a bit of a speech stutter... But I found that I don’t stutter when I sing.”

I couldn’t hold back my tears. My stutter made me shy and fearful, but I was given the gift to speak through my music. My wildest dreams were coming true, dreams I’d never thought possible.

The lion dance is a     1     (tradition) dance performed during Chinese New Year. It is     2     (wide) believed that it will bring good luck.

Two dancers dress up as the lion. One dancer holds the large head of the brightly colored costume and the other dancer is the body. The dancers have to be very fit as they perform lots of moves. They dance to music     3     (play) by drums, gongs and cymbals. A performer     4     is dressed as a laughing Buddha sometimes joins the lion dance. He     5     (wear) a longrobe (袍子) and teases the lion with a fan to make it perform tricks.

People will often hang the head of a lettuce (生菜) from ceilings or doorways. The lion will go in search     6     these. Sometimes, red envelopes with money inside     7     (hide) in the lettuce. The lion pretends to eat the lettuces and money. The     8    (leaf) are then thrown into the crowd for good fortune. The lion dance ends with       9     message of good luck written on a scroll, unfolding from the lion’s mouth. Firecrackers are set off     10     (frighten) away any evil beings.

4 . One of the most popular Al-generated songs spread quickly on social media last month, getting millions of plays. The song was eventually removed from streaming platforms, but not before sending a scare throughout the music industry about the future of artificial intelligence in music. Will Al replace pop stars?

Many students argued that Al-generated music would not have the emotional pull of music made by humans. Aleena, a student from Philadelphia says, “Even if the lyrics imitate a real pop star’s, whether it talks about love or family, it would never have the same impact like one created by a real pop star because the listeners know it is all just to sound good and appeal to the listeners. I like listening to artists I know having gone through similar things or having the same feelings as me.”

Furthermore, pop stars often have a unique charm and talent that allows them to connect with their audience on a personal level, something that AI may struggle to copy. The music industry is also heavily influenced by marketing and public relations. The excitement of seeing your favorite artists onstage and singing along with them are what AI can’t achieve. This is not something that AI can replicate.

The use of AI in the music industry has the potential to revolutionize the way music is made and consumed. One of the biggest benefits is the ability to create personalized music for each and every person. AI can also help artists create new sounds.

5 . Undoubtedly, music can comfort the soul for some, and it could also be a temporary reliever for physical pain. Listening to favorite songs could reduce people’s sensibility of pain, according to a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research. And the most effective pain relievers were songs describing bittersweet experiences and causing strong feelings.

The study invited 63 young adults to bring two of their favorite songs, which were required to be at least 3 minutes and 20 seconds long. One selection represented their favorite music of all time, and the other was the song they could use to comfort loneliness. The researchers also had the young adults pick one of seven songs that the team considered relaxing and were unfamiliar to the study participants. Each person experienced 7-minute blocks (隔音) where they were instructed to stare at a monitor screen while listening to their favorite music, or one of the seven relaxing instrumental songs, or a scrambled (打乱) version of both songs and the relaxing song chosen. One 7-minute block had people sitting in silence. All the while, the researchers stuck a hot object to the participants’ left inner forearms. When assessing their experiences, people were more likely to report feeling less pain when listening to their favorite songs compared with hearing the unfamiliar relaxing song or silence.

After interviewing the participants about the song they brought and their rating of pain, the researchers found people who listened to bittersweet and moving songs felt less pain than when they listened to songs with cheerful themes. People who listened to bittersweet songs also reported more chills — the thrill and tremble you get on your skin from listening to pleasurable music. “When people are listening to music they enjoy, by our measurements it can reduce the pain that we’re feeling by 10%,” said Patrick, a professor of biomedical and molecular sciences.