【推荐1】下列文段直接来自所学的课文。请根据英文首字母提示，填入符合课文含义的词，使到文段意思完整，通顺，符合课文原意。

Trade and curiosity have often formed the f    1     of mankind’s greatest a    2    . To complete the great map of the world was a strong p    3     for the people of early civilizations. Marco Polo’s tales inspired European explorers to search for sea r    4     from west to east. However, merchants and e    5     from the East set sail from east to west many years before Columbus first did.

In ancient times, silk from China found its way o    6     to India, the Middle East, and Rome, along what became known as the Silk Road. A trading route across the sea was also e    7     along the coasts of the Indian Ocean, centered around Ceylon (now Sri Lank) Here, merchants from China and many other places met to n    8     trade deals, which also led to more a    9     of each other’s cultures. Over the centuries, further t    10     allowed more exploration of the regions to the west of China, as recorded in Du Huan’s Record of My Travels in the eighth century.

【推荐2】Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. alternative             B. capacity             C. characteristic             D. extinct             E. exclude             F. identity G. increasingly       H. interacting             I. measuring                    J. narrative             K. restore

The earliest storytellers

A stunning cave painting discovered in Indonesia may be the earliest evidence of storytelling. The artwork is at least 43,900 years old, and shows that humans were depicting scenes tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

The painting is a 4.5-metre-wide hunting scene, discovered by Maxime Aubert of Griffith University, Australia and his colleagues. It depicts at least eight small human-like figures hunting two pigs and four dwarf buffaloes with spears or ropes. “It’s a(n)    1    scene,” says Aubert. He and his colleagues calculated the painting’s age by    2    the levels of uranium (铀) in stone layers that cover the images. At 43,900 years old, it could be the oldest figurative cave painting that has yet been found although we don't know what type of human made them. Until this discovery, the oldest known artworks depicting visual “stories”, with humans and animals    3    in a recognizable scene, dated from around 20,000 years ago and was found in Europe, such as the famous Lascaux paintings in France. “Now we show that at least 44,000 years ago, in South-East Asia, humans were telling stories and they were depicting them in rock art,” says Aubert.

“It’s really an exciting discovery,” says Genevieve von Petzinger at the University of Victoria, Canada, “It shows a (n)    4    timeline of how art developed. When you get a scene like this one, it opens the door a little further." The human-like figures appear to have animal    5    .” They are half human, half animal. The oldest previously known example was the Lion Man statue. Carved around 40,000 years ago, it combines a lion's head and human body. Until now, it was the earliest evidence of the ability of humans to depict things that don’t exist in nature-a(n)    6    linked to imagination and spirituality. “Now it seems the same thing was happening in South-East Asia, but even earlier,” says Aubert.

The cave painting gives us a glimpse into the minds of the people who created the Indonesian art, but we don’t yet know whether they were modern humans or one of our    7    cousins. The team hasn't found human remains in the Sulawesi cave, says Aubert, so it isn't possible to be sure of the    8    of the artists.

One possible group is the Denisovans, who may also have lived in Asia at this time. Earlier this year, while studying a site in China thought to have been home to Denisovans, a team of researchers revealed artistic engravings on a piece of bone.

“We can’t completely    9    Denisovans or another species,” says Aubert of the Indonesian cave art, “There were probably at least two other species that lived in this region at the same time as modern humans.”

The discovery comes as archaeologists    10    turn their attentions towards Asia. “People should stay tuned to Asia,” says von Petzinger, “In the next decade there will be many exciting announcements coming from this part of the world.”

【推荐3】Directions: Complete the following passages by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. historical          B. rationing          C. original          D. regulated                 E. reflected F. refuge               G. stored             H. removal          I. typical                    J. character K. restored

The 1940s House

The house is at 17 Braemar Gardens, West Wickham, Kent, now a suburb of Greater London. Series art director Lia Kramer, who had helped create The 1900 House, identified the property and oversaw its restoration. The     1     house was built in 1932 by Bradfield Bros & Murphy, and was retrofitted（翻新）so that the technology and fashions of a middle-class English home of the late 1930s were     2     . It is a three-bedroomed home, with a boiler fueled by coke providing hot water, and there was no telephone or refrigerator. The retrofit included the     3     of central heating, the custom-fitted kitchen cabinets and appliances, and the carpeting as well. The carpeting had been used to cover the original checkerboard floor tiles. Fireplaces were     4     to working condition, and the original French doors which led outside were reinstalled. The existing beds were replaced by iron bedsteads, including twin beds for Michael and Lyn. When neighbours learned of the project, many donated period home furnishings for free. The garden was changed to be     5     of a victory garden, which was also called war garden or food garden for defense.

The family's work in the show was demanding. The family had to act like a typical family of the time, which included the sewing of curtains, building an air-raid shelter, and facing wartime food     6    . Air raids were like real during the show, forcing the family to take     7     in its air-raid shelter. The near-nightly sound of the air-raid siren（fixed in a hallway in the home）left the family upset, even after they returned to their regular lives. The family had to stay in     8     all the time, including when the boys went to school. Even minor aspects of life, such as the depth of water in the bath tub, which could be no deeper than five inches, were     9     .

Filming began on 15 April 2000, and lasted nine weeks. Unlike other     10     reality television shows, the Hymers were not isolated. Their neighbours helped them dig their air-raid shelter, the family also visited a retirement home. Nonetheless, Lyn Hymers later said that the family did feel isolated, and seldom got the sense of community spirit that people living in the 1940s would have felt.