Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival is the first festival in China for farmers. The festival starting from 2018, falls1the Autumnal Equinox (秋分) each year. The Autumnal Equinox is one of the 24 solar terms (节气) of the Chinese lunar calendar and usually falls between September 22nd and 24th, during2harvest season.

    As we all know, China has the3population all over the world. It was difficult4so many people in the past. After reform (改革) and opening, with the5of modern agriculture (农业), people's life is getting better and better, and their living conditions6a lot. Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival shows7our government is paying more attention to agriculture and farmers' life. It will greatly encourage farmers to farm and develop8modern agriculture. China has  a long history of agriculture. Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival, the cultural symbol,9to show China's long farming culture to the world. It also connects the excellent traditional Chinese culture to modern civilization (文明) and improves the cultural self-confidence and national pride.

    Since the festival is especially created for farmers, they10to think of their own ways to celebrate harvest. The celebrations will be11based on local customs. Some activities are held across the country,12most of the celebrations will take place at a local level that comes from local customs. Also, local government usually hosts all kinds of activities13attract various people for the festival, such as folk culture performances and food tasting.

    Some people think the festival is the happiest time of a year, even better than the Spring Festival, because food gives people14sense of safety and hope. For15people, the harvest festival is a time to look back at the past and look forward to the future.

A Bite of China

Are you an eating-lover? Do you want to eat every delicious food in the world? Then do you watch the popular program A Bite of China? It's a TV program on Chinese delicious food which has been produced by CCTV. Is there any holiday that isn't celebrated with special festival food? Here are several traditional Chinese foods:

Noodles are a symbol of long life in Chinese culture. They are as much a part of Chinese birthday celebration as a birthday cake with its candles lit in many western countries. Since noodles mean long life, it is considered very unlucky to cut it off.

Although westerners sometimes may be very sorry to see fish lying on the plate, in China a whole fish is a symbol of richness. In fact, at a party it is a tradition to serve the whole fish last, pointed towards the most valued guest. Fish also has a special meaning because the Chinese word for fish, yu, sounds like the word for richness or plenty, and it is believed that eating fish will help your wishes come true in the year to come.

A very popular dish during the Dragon Boat Festival is Zongzi. This tasty dish is made of rice dumplings with meat, peanuts or other delicious food in bamboo leaves. The tradition of Zongzi is meant to remind us of a great man, Qu Yuan in Chinese history.

阅读下列短文, 从下面每个小题的A、B、C、D四个选项中选出最佳选项。

A study conducted by the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom suggest that watching cute animals may lead to a reduction in stress and anxiety.

The study examined how watching images and videos of cute animals for 30 minutes affects blood pressure, heart rate(心率) and anxiety. In December 2019, 19 people, including 15 students, joined in the study.

"There were some kittens, there was puppies, there were baby gorillas, there were quokkas —cute creatures found in Western Australia, are often referred to as 'the world's most cheerful animals'." Dr. Andrea Utley, a professor at the University of Leeds told CNN. The study was timed during winter exams, a time when stress is at an especially high level for students, according to Utley.

 The study recorded that the average blood pressure dropped from 136/88 to 115/71, which the study pointed out is "within ideal blood pressure range." Average(平均的) heart rates were lowered to 67.4 bpm, a reduction of 6.5%. Anxiety rates also went down by 35%.

"I was quite pleasantly surprised that during the session, every single measure for every single participant dropped some — heart rate reduced, blood pressure reduced," Utley said. "When they left, they filled the questionnaire(调查问卷) in again and showed that they were feeling less worried."

When questioning the participants, the study found that most preferred video clips over still images, particularly of animals interacting with humans.

Has your mother or grandmother ever made embroidered (刺绣的)clothes for you? In the past, Chinese people often embroidered on hats, shoes and dresses. Some girls would even embroider on a sachet (香囊)as a gift for their lovers.

Shu embroidery comes from Sichuan. It is said that Shu embroidery is the old lest kind of embroidery in China. People began to make it during the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD).They sold it to other countries such as ancient Rome.

Shu embroidery takes time. It might take as long as a whole day to finish just 10 cm. Embroidery workers need to divide each silk thread (丝线) into more than 10 or over 30 smaller threads. Each smaller thread is thinner than a human hair.

Meng Dezhi, who used to work at the Chengdu Shu Embroidery Factory，has been making Shu embroidery for over 40 years. She loves this form of art and wants more people to try it, so she gives lessons in universities. She said. "Although the work is hard, Shu embroidery stands for thousands of years of Sichuan culture. It is a symbol of Chinese culture as well."

Every year, wildfires destroy millions of hectares of forest land. Homes are damaged, and thousands of people die. Smokejumpers help to stop this. 

Smokejumpers are a special type of firefighter. They jump from planes or are lowered by helicopters into areas that are 1 to reach by car or on foot, such as the middle of a mountain forest. They race to put out fires as fast as they can. 

At a fire site, smokejumpers first examine the land and decide 2 to fight the fire. Their main goal is to stop a fire from spreading or to slow its progress  3 ground—based firefighters arrive. Using basic equipment such as shovels (铲子) and axes(斧头), smokejumpers clear land of burnable material, like dry grass and dead trees. They carry water with them, too, but only a limited amount. 

Most smokejumpers are men. The most important factors are your height and  4 .Smokejumpers employed in the United States must be between 54 and 91 kilograms so they don't get blown away by the strong winds or get 5 when they land. 

The work is dangerous, and the hours are long. But for these firefighters, smoke jumping isn't just a job. They6 being able to jump out of planes, fight fires, and live in the forest. As 28-year-old Russian smokejumper Alexi says, "This is the best job for tough guys. "

Walking around the city，you will see girls wearing hanfu on the underground or people wearing T—shirt with Chinese characters in the streets.A new trend （潮流） is getting popular in China.It's guochao or China—Chie.Guochao adds traditional Chinese culture into products

Guochao got people's attention in 2018.Before that，the market was controlled by foreign companies.There were few Chinese brands.To win the market share，many Chinese brands followed the footsteps of these Western brands.In 2018，but also included elements（元素） of traditional Chinese culture.It quickly caught people's attention at home and abroad.And it created amazing sales.

Later，many Chinese brands，from food，started to add Chinese culture into their products.Even the film and music industries made every effort to create Chinese styles."We want our products to be the ones that young people would like to share."They said.

These brands got what they wanted.Young people gradually converted their attention from Western culture to guochao.They accepted it with pleasure.What's more，they started to develop interest in traditional Chinese art and literature.Now they wear traditional clothes，practice Chinese calligraphy（书法）

No matter how guochao develops，there is one thing that won't change——people's confidence in our country's development and culture is growing.