Great Wall Xmas BBQ

Beijing Hikers are organizing a three-hour hike on a rarely visited part of the Great Wall and will celebrate Christmas afterwards with a Christmas barbecue dinner in a small hotel at the foot of the Great Wall . Meet at 8:30 am. Dec. 25 in front of Starbucks at Lido Holiday Inn , Jiangtai Lu. Please write to info@beijinghikers.com or 139-100-25516.

Pingyao tour

High Club will guide a weekend trip to Pingyao , an ancient walled town near Taiyuan , capital city of Shanxi Province . The town is one of the best-preserved(保护) featuring courtyard buildings of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) . Among them is the Qiao family courtyard house, the shooting location of Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern （《大红灯笼高高挂》）. Leave on Friday (December 23) night by train and back to Beijing on Sunday morning . For sign-up and more information , contact Lucy at lucy@highclub.cn or 8580-5080,130-11171326.

New Year Harbin trip

The Chinese Culture Club is running a new year trip to Harbin , to catch a fresh view of its yearly ice and snow lantern festival .

As the temperature is expected to fall between minus 20 to 30℃, visitors are warned to prepare well with jackets , masks , fur gloves and boots. The trip sets out by train at night on December 31 and gets back on the morning January 2. The cost is 2,300 yuan (US$ 284) . Reservation(预订) is required at 8457-2772.

1.One who is interested in life of ancient Chinese is more likely to contact ______.

2.The term “BBQ” in the topic “Great Wall Xmas BBQ” should mean a kind of ________.

3.Pingyao is worth seeing mainly because ________.

4.The last advertisement of New Year Harbin trip offers NO information about _____.

The Sauna World Championships (世界桑拿锦标赛) ended in tragedy at the weekend when one of the two finalists collapsed and died. Vladimir Ladyzhenskiy, a Russian amateur wrestler in his 60s, suffered severe burns in the bizarre(怪诞的) annual event in the southern Finnish town of Heinola. He was pronounced dead late on Saturday after he collapsed alongside reigning (卫冕) champion Timo Kaukonen of Finland roughly six minutes into the final round. The “sport” calls on participants to sit in a 230-degree (110 Celsius) room as water was tossed onto a searing stove, officials and witnesses said. Medical workers pulled both men out of the sauna in front of nearly 1,000 horrified spectators.
Both were shaking and bleeding from what appeared to be severe burns, said Hakon Eikesdal, a photographer with the Norwegian daily Dagbladet. Kaukonen, about 40, was in hospital in stable condition Sunday, contest spokesman Ossi Arvela said. The event, which had over 130 participants from 15 countries, had been held since 1999. It will never be held again, Arvela said. A pint of water is added to the stove every 30 seconds and the last person to remain at the sauna is the winner. There was no prize other than “some small things” Arvela said. He declined to provide details. Arvela said Kaukonen — the defending world champion — had refused to leave the sauna despite getting sick. Sauna bathing is a popular past-time in Finland, which has an estimated 1.6 million saunas for a population of 5 million.
Temperatures are normally kept around 158 to 176 degrees (70~80 degrees Celsius). “I know this is very hard to understand to people outside Finland who are not familiar with the sauna habit,” Arvela said. “It is not so unusual to have 110 degrees in a sauna. A lot of competitors before have sat in higher temperatures than that.” Arvela said all rules in Saturday’s competition were followed and the temperatures and times were similar to those in previous years.
【小题1】Which of the following is True of Paragraph 1?

About 40 percent of the top students in college entrance examinations have chosen overseas universities for their postgraduate studies, according to a survey.

Most of them have stayed overseas after finishing their intended courses, showed a survey that tracked 130 top performers in college entrance exams from 1977 to 1998.

The survey, released on the China Alumni Association website, found it worrying that many of the top students would not ________ despite the country's rapid development in the past few decades.     

The government should find better ways to hold back talented students, said Cai Yanhou, a professor with Central South University in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province.

UNESCO figures show Chinese students comprise 14 percent of international students, the highest in the world. Their favorite destinations for higher studies are the US, Britain and Japan. Some experts said handsome scholarships, better job prospects and more opportunities to pursue further studies are the main attractions of foreign universities.

But Cai, who also led the survey team, said "top in exams" does not necessarily mean "top in career" because the study found none of the top students at college entrance exams had become a top Chinese expert or academic. Some of them are just more adaptable to exam-oriented education than their peers, experts said.      

The media fill pages and time slots with their "success" stories to gain wider readership and viewership. High schools promote their former students proudly to attract new ones, and universities want to show their superior status by recruiting them, they said.

Wang hoped future reforms would do away with the score-oriented method so that students can be judged from all aspects.

1. What is the best title of the passage? (Please answer within 10 words)

2. Which sentence in the passage can be replaced by the following one?

The top students’ “success” stories are widely announced by the media to attract the readers’ and the viewers’ interest.     

3. Please fill in the blank in the second paragraph with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence. (Please answer within 10 words)      

4. If you are one of the top students in college entrance examinations, will you choose to study abroad? Why or why not?(Please answer within 30 words)

5. Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese

    One day,Raul was miles away from the small ranch（牧场） house in a large valley. 36  seemed to be all right, yet he felt strange and somewhat uneasy.The wind had picked up, and angry, dark clouds  37  across the sky. He could smell the rain coming. And it did. 38  ,the lightning flashed through the clouds, nearly  39  Raul. The thunder（雷声） was so loud that he buried his  40   in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Then he heard it. Hoofbeats（蹄声）.He  41 .There before him stood a tall, white  42 . An old man stared down at him from its back.

    “Wh-wh-who are y-y-you?” asked Raul. “My name is Gray Cloud,” the old man answered  43 . “Come with me.”

    Raul followed on his horse. A  44 feeling came over him. All  45  them the rain was pouring down,  46  not a drop fell on them. They seemed to be  47   back toward Raul’s home. Raul lost track of time. Then all at once he found  48  at the ranch gate. The old man turned his horse,  49  his hand, and smiled. Lightning flashed again. The old man and his horse were  50 .

    Raul’s father ran out across the yard  to   51  him. “we have been  52  sick about you. Are you okay? Hurry. Let’s get in out of the  53  .”

    “Wait,” said Raul. “Have you ever heard of an old man called Gray Cloud?”

    “Can’t say I … wait. I  54  my great-grandfather used to tell storied about a man called Gray Cloud. He died a long time ago. They say he was  55  by lightning during a terrible thunderstorm. Why do you ask?”

36. A.Something  B.Everything               C.Anything                  D.Nothing

37.A.dropped        B.fell                   C.rolled                       D.covered

38.A.Suddenly      B.Strongly            C.Quickly             D.Hardly

39.A.beating                B.blinding            C.burning             D.touching

40.A.nose             B.hair                   C.neck                  D.head

41.A.looked up     B.woke up            C.lay down           D.sat down

42.A.tiger             B.horse                C.lion                   D.elephant

43.A.lazily            B.angrily              C.coldly                      D.slowly

44.A.natural         B.common            C.strange              D.bad

45.A.around         B.beside               C.through             D.above

46.A.yet               B.for                    C.so                     D.or

47.A.walking               B.leading              C.heading             D.returning

48.A.them            B.themselves         C.him                   D.himself

49.A.shook           B.waved               C.held                  D.took

50.A.gone             B.left                   C.followed            D.lost

51.A.see               B.meet                C.beat                  D.ask

52.A.waited         B.thought             C.worried             D.excited

53.A.yard             B.wind                C.grass                D.rain

54.A.believe                B.consider            C.doubt                       D.forget

55.A.defeated        B.caught               C.damaged            D.struck

Cittaslow has discovered China, and it is awarding a little village in Jiangsu the title of "slow city"

The bored teenagers of Gaochun are impatient with the leisurely pace of hometown life．For them there is no nightlife to speak of, no bright lights, no excitement and they cannot wait to grow up and leave for the urban attractions of the big cities．But it is this laid-back lifestyle that has attracted international attention．At least, a quiet village within Gaochun county has come under the spotlight．Yaxi village, population 20,000, is about to be designated China's first "slow city" by Cittaslow, the sustainable lifestyle movement that first surfaced in Italy 11 years ago．

At home, the residents at Yaxi are unfazed and pretty much unimpressed by the honor．To them, life has been like this for as long as they can remember．Here, growing old gracefully is natural．

Nobody living in this little county had heard of Cittaslow or the words "slow city" before this．

"The first time I heard the term was last July, when the vice-president of Cittaslow, Angelo Vassallo, visited Yaxi village," says Zuo Niansheng, the chief editor of local newspaper Gaochun Today．

"Vassallo was deeply impressed by this village's natural and cultural resources and said it perfectly fitted the requirements for a slow city," says Zuo．"That was how Yaxi became connected with Cittaslow．

The Slow City must also be committed to protect and maintain the natural environment as well as promote a sustainable way of development ?all of which are the current strategies adopted in Gaochun．"We've been doing this for years," adds Zuo．

Cittaslow was founded in Tuscany, Italy in 1999．It was a spin-off from the Slow Food movement which started, also in Italy, in 1986 as a protest against the first McDonald ' s opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome．The movement championed a return to healthy, nutritious home-grown, home -cooked food．

Slow Food has since expanded globally to more than 130 countries．Its mission has also broadened to include the promotion of sustainable foods and local small businesses, and the localization as opposed to globalization of food production．

Cittaslow is an expansion of the Slow Food movement, and it actively advocates a lifestyle that is sustainable, that will improve quality of life, and will preserve cultural and culinary （烹饪的）heritage．

1.According the passage, Cittaslow is a（n） ____．

2.What' s the reaction of the residents at Yaxi to the award according the passage? They feel

3.Why is the village Yaxi awarded the title of “slow city”? Because          .

4.It can be inferred from the passage that         .