Performances
Let's Face the Music
Ria Jones, the world-famous star of Cats and Les Misérables, returns home for two special concerts. Ria invites you on a memorable journey that goes from musical to classical and from classical to pop. Songs from Miss Saigon perfectly mix with Disney favorites from Beauty and the Beast along with popular standards for a great evening in the company of a very special vocal talent.
Song Recital
Judy Coe performs widely as a soloist (独唱者) in America and is also a music teacher. The program includes songs from Porgy and Bess, a successful American opera, with special solo piano arrangements by Katherine Morris. Judy ends the concert with songs whose texts are by Shakespeare, Yeats, Eliot, Oscar Wilde and Emily Dickinson.
Mayte Martin
Mayte Martin is the best-known Catalan singer. She has been very popular since her early twenties, when she won a string of prizes. She has taken part in Barcelona's WOMAD festivals and in the Gipsy King's celebrated festival Mustique Gitano at Nimes. She will be accompanied by her regular solo guitarist, two dancers and a “clapper”.
The Adventure of Malic
This show is about the fantastically dangerous life of an imaginary Iberian character called Malic. In this show he visits China and gets into fights with dragons and then travels to Barcelona where he comes across many dangerous characters. The show is told using Chinese shadow puppets (皮影), with a live narrator-musician who gives life to the show in English.
My violin is like a soulmate that whispers words of wisdom to me. Together, we've gone through both tears and happiness.
About 12 years ago, I made acquaintance with it following an order from my mom. Many hours of boredom were spent practicing it. And to make things worse, the disappointment in my teacher's eyes as I played the wrong notes was like an invisible hammer, striking on my heart. One day, I finally decided: I hate it!
By chance, things changed when I was seven. I was at home lying on the sofa, wondering how those famous violinists dealt with this terrible dilemma(进退两难). I searched online for the E-minor Concerto, a well-known violin work by German composer Felix Mendelssohn, and listened to it.
A beautiful and mysterious sound came from the violin as the bow moved across it. It was like the music slid over the flowers, rose up, and started to fill the air. The violin's voice woke up the sun, made the trees green, and freshened the air. As the music changed, the sky turned back to gray. A gloomy shade covered the grass as all the sunshine disappeared. I could hear children crying and men shouting. It was like an invisible claw(爪子)had grabbed my heart tightly, making it unable to beat.
That glorious day set off my passion and interest in violin — I grabbed mine and never let it go. Before the memories faded, I stared at my instrument. Without hesitating, I picked it up, rosined the bow, and began to play. Peace filled my heart.
My violin has been by my side for 12 years. When I feel happy, an energetic tune makes it even better; when I'm deep in sorrow, a peaceful tune washes it away； when I'm walking on air, feeling especially pleased with my achievements, solemn tunes calm me down. Gradually, it has become a part of my life.
My violin, shall I compare you to a summer's day?
s works.
While the start of a new school year is always exciting, this year was even more so for some elementary school students in Auckland, New Zealand. They became the world's first kids to be "taught" by a digital teacher. Before you start imagining a human-like robot walking around the classroom, Will is just an avatar that appears on the student's desktop, or smartphone screen, when ordered to come.
The autonomous animation platform has been modeled after the human brain and nervous system, allowing it to show human-like behavior. The digital teacher is assigned to teach Vector's "Be sustainable with energy" — a free program for Auckland elementary schools.
Just like the humans it replaced, Will is able to instantly react to the students' responses to the topic. Thanks to a webcam and microphone, the avatar not only responds to questions the kids may have, but also picks up non-verbal cues. For instance, if a student smiles at Will, he responds by smiling back. This two-way interaction not only helps attract the students' attention, but also allows the program's developers to monitor their engagement, and make changes if needed.
Nikhil Ravishankar believes that Will-like avatars could be a novel way to catch the attention of the next generation. He says, “I have a lot of hope in this technology as a means to deliver cost-effective, rich, educational experience in the future.”
The program, in place since August 2018, has been a great success thus far. Ravishankar says, " What was fascinating to me was the reaction of the children to Will. The way they look at the world is so creative and different, and Will really captured their attention." However, regardless of how popular it becomes, Will is unlikely to replace human educators any time soon.
If you believe that scientists and artists are most creative when they're young, you are missing an important part of the story. A new study published in De Economist looked at Nobel Prize winners in the field of economics. It found there are two different peaks of creativity. One comes early in a person's career, while another comes later.
The research supports previous work by the authors that found similar patterns in the arts and other sciences.
"We believe what we found in this study isn't limited to economics, but could apply to creativity more generally," said Bruce Weinberg, lead author of the study and professor of economics at The Ohio State University.
"Many people believe that creativity is exclusively associated with youth,but it really depends on what kind of creativity you're talking about."
In the study, those who did their most groundbreaking work early in their careers tended to be "conceptual" innovators(创新者).
These type of innovators "think outside the box", challenging conventional wisdom and suddenly coming up with new ideas. Conceptual innovators are not yet immersed(沉浸于)in the accepted theories of their field, Weinberg said.
But there is another kind of creativity, he said, which is found among "experimental" innovators. These innovators accumulate knowledge through their careers and find new ways to understand it.
The long periods of trial and error for important experimental innovations come later in a Nobel laureate's(荣誉获得者的)career.
"Whether you hit your creative peak early or late in your career depends on whether you have a conceptual or experimental approach," Weinberg said.
The researchers took a novel, empirical(经验主义的)approach to the study, which involved 31 laureates. They arranged the laureates on a list from the most experimental to most conceptual.
This ranking was based on the laureates' most important work, classifying them into "conceptual" or "experimental".
After classifying the laureates, the researchers determined the age at which each laureate made his most important contribution to economics and could be considered at his creative peak.
They found that conceptual laureates peaked between ages 25 and 29. Experimental laureates peaked when they were roughly twice as old, in their mid-50s.
"Our research suggests that when you're most creative is more about how you approach your work."
Competition is all around us and it makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker. It can also teach us how to survive in a fast-paced and stressful world. . How many of us have seen young boys weeping because their teams didn't win inter-school tournament? How many of us have seen young teenagers cheat just to win? So it's important to develop healthy competition among children.
When it comes to encouraging healthy competition among children, the first thing to do is set goals for them to stick to.
Since children may be easily affected by wrong ideas from popular media and the Internet, it's up to you to develop the right kind of spirit in them. Team spirit will help them grow into human beings who aren't easily annoyed by small losses or too excited by victories. So give them examples where family members refused to cheat to win.
. When they take an exam, don't ask about how much they expect to score; instead, ask what they wrote about. If your son played a cricket match at school, don't ask him whether his team won or lost; ask him how many runs he scored and encourage him to score higher next time instead. When you let your children know that you're more interested in how they performed rather than whether they lost or won, they will surely try to better themselves.
A. However, you mustn't push them too hard and burden them with too high a goal
B. We should also encourage healthy competition among children
C. These are the effects of unhealthy competition
D. In addition, they may also not want to adopt just any method to win, like cheating or lying
E. Care more about children's performance rather than the results in a sports match
F. However, children can be hit by competition
G. Sending your children the right signals is also important
I grew up as the "baby" of my family. I was the 1 of three sons, My brothers were five and seven years older than me and 2 most of the small routine tasks that my mom and dad needed to do around the house. I spent most of my time riding my bike, playing basketball, walking in the woods, or reading books by the 3 in the cold winter. I spent my 4 with all the fun and none of the responsibility.
By the time I entered my early teens, 5, both of my brothers had moved out of our home. My dad had injured his back seriously and become 6. Later, we moved to a mountain top house heated by a stove. I soon 7 that I did more work than I had ever done before. I 8 our garden in the spring and summer. In the fall I cut and piled wood up to keep us 9 in the winter. And all year round I 10 heavy containers of water from a mountain spring back to our 11 so that we could have water to drink and cook with.
At first I 12 and wasn't satisfied. After a while, I began to find 13 in helping my parents. I sang to myself while I piled wood up and smiled while I carried water. I14 found myself helping my mom with the dinner dishes and cleaning. I started to realize something that I would carry with me the rest of my 15 too: When your work is done in love, it isn't just work.
Some 10,867,300 locals and foreigners travelled in Guangzhou during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, (contribute) 7.368 billion RMB to the city's tourism income.
During this period, 15 key tourist attractions in Guangzhou (receive) 1,998,900 visitors in total. The city's museums and (library) received 233,300 visitors in all. Among (they), Guangzhou Chimelong Tourist Resort and Baiyun Mountain Scenic Area ranked first and third (respective) in the number of reservations in Guangdong, the total number of reservations for scenic spots in Guangzhou ranked first in the province as well.
addition, 5,890,100 tourists traveled to rural areas in Guangzhou during this holiday, accounted for 54.20% of the visitors received in the city. (compare) with the same period in previous years, the proportion was more than 50% for first time.
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man called Ben was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man, Leo, had to spend all his time flat on his back.
The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.
And every afternoon when Ben could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. Leo began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and lightened by all the activity and color of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm among flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city could be seen in the distance. As Ben described all this in detail, Leo would close his eyes and imagine the beautiful scene.
One warm afternoon Ben described a parade passing by. Although Leo
couldn't hear the band — he could see it in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the
window described it with descriptive words. Each time the nurse saw the warm and
touching scene 
she was always struck by devoted friendship between these two men. Days and weeks passed.
注意：
1）续写词数应为 150左右 。
2）请在答题卡的相应位置作答。
One morning, the nurse arrived to check the two men, only to find the lifeless body of Ben.
……
However, he could see nothing but a blank wall of another building.
