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Do you know a mouse which typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves? Yes, it must be Mickey Mouse, one of the world’s most recognizable characters. He was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney Studios in 1928 and has been the official mascot of the Walt Disney Company. Mickey often appears alongside his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, his pet dog Pluto, his friend Donald Duck and Goofy, and his nemesis Pete.

Mickey officially made its first public appearance in the short film Steamboat Willie (1928). It was one of the first sound cartoons. He went on to appear in over 130 films, including The Band Concert (1935), Brave Little Tailor (1938). Mickey appeared mostly in short films, but also occasionally in feature-length films. Ten of Mickey’s cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award Best Animated Short Film. One of these cartoons, Lend a Paw, won the award in 1942. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

How many Mickey’s cartoons won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film?

When did Mickey become the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

How many Mickey’s cartoons won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film?

When did Mickey officially debut?

What is the official mascot of the Walt Disney Company?

1. What does Mickey Mouse typically wear?

Read the passage and answer the following questions.

Have you ever seen someone’s anger when you’re stuck in the traffic jam in rush hours? Have you witnessed any driver acting aggressively toward other people on the road? If yes, you have probably witnessed a case of road rage.

Road rage is aggressive or angry behavior of a driver in a road vehicle. Road rage includes rude gestures, verbal insults, physical threats or even dangerous driving methods. Those behaviors intend to release stress and frustration of the angry drivers. Road rage can cause noisy arguments between drivers and more seriously, physical attacks. That may result in severe injuries or even death. There are many reasons of road rage, one of them is traffic jam. With the increased number of private vehicles in the streets, congestion is getting worse and worse. People are easy to get angry if they are stuck in the traffic jam, so road rage is more likely to happen. People are recommended to calm themselves in the traffic jam by listening to radio or music, so they can prevent road rage.

Read the passage and answer the questions.

These days, if you want to travel from New York to Beijing, the flight takes about 16 hours. You also have to wait at the airport, and sometimes you have to transfer onto a different airplane. If you add all of that extra time, the trip takes at least 20 hours. But in the future, the trip from New York to Beijing might only take two hours.

Right now, a private company is developing something called ET3. ET3 stands for “evacuated tube transport technology”. Here is how it works. A tube goes all the way from New York to Beijing. The tube is only a few meters wide. Capsules move through the tube. Six people can sit in one capsule. The capsules use electricity instead of gasoline. For international travel, the capsules can travel at about 6,500 kilometers per hour. That is much faster than an airplane - most modern airplanes usually only fly at about 800 kilometers per hour.

So how is this possible? How can these capsules travel so fast? The answer is that there is no air inside the tube. When airplanes fly, they have to move through the air. The air slows the airplanes down. Because there is no air in the ET3 tubes, the capsules are able to move at a very high speed. Besides, the capsules are quite light. They only weigh 183 kilograms.

It is exciting to think of how ET3 will change travel in the future. Maybe someday, you will be able to have lunch in New York and dinner in Beijing.