【推荐3】Directions: Complete the following passage 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. loved   B. cause   C. honored   D. spreading   E. partially   F. cheer G. properly   H. reflect     I. symbol   J. gathering   K. touching

(Since 1952, the Queen’s Christmas message has been televised in some form. The following is the one given by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on December 25th, 2015. )

At this time of year, few sights arouse more feelings of     1     and goodwill than the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree.

The popularity of a tree at Christmas is     2     due to my great-great grandparents, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. After this     3     picture was published, many families wanted a Christmas tree of their own, and the custom soon spread.

In 1949, I spent Christmas in Malta as a newly-married naval wife. We have returned to that island over the years, including last month for a meeting of Commonwealth leaders; and this year I met another group of leaders: The Queen’s Young Leaders, an inspirational group, each of them a     4     of hope in their own Commonwealth communities.

Actually,     5     round the tree gives us a chance to think about the year ahead. It also allows us to     6     on the year that has passed, as we think of those who are far away or no longer with us. Many people say the first Christmas after losing a(n)     7     one is particularly hard. But it’s also a time to remember all that we have to be thankful for. We should be thankful for the people who bring love and happiness into our own lives, and look for ways of     8     that love to others, whenever and wherever we can.

One     9     for thankfulness this summer was marking seventy years since the end of the Second World War. On VJ Day, we     10     the remaining veterans (老兵) of that terrible conflict in the Far East, as well as remembered the thousands who never returned. ...

I wish you a very happy Christmas.

【推荐1】Directions: Complete the following passage 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. spread       B. predicted       C. boomed       D. redefined       E. agricultural        F. trade G. accelerated       H. continued       I. exchanging       J. seeking       K. continents

Globalization is term used to describe how     1     and technology have made the world into a more connected and interdependent place.

When did globalization begin? Many scholars say it started with Columbus’s voyage 10 the New World in 1492. People traveled to nearby and faraway places well before Columbus’s voyage,     2     their ideas, products, and customs along the way. The Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes across China, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean used between 50 B. C. E. and 250 C. E. is perhaps the most well-known early example. As globalization     3    , new technologies played a key role in the Silk Road trade. Advances in metallurgy (冶金术) led to the creation of coins; advances in transportation led to the building of roads connecting the major empires of the day; and increased     4     production meant more food could be trafficked between locales. Along with Chinese silk, Roman glass, and Arabian spices, ideas such as Buddhist beliefs and the secrets of paper-making also     5     via these tendrils of trade.

Unquestionably, these types of exchanges were     6     in the Age of Exploration, when European explorers were     7     new sea routes to the spices and silks of Asia. Again, technology played an important role in the maritime trade routes that flourished between old and newly discovered     8     Trade and idea exchange now extended to a previously unconnected part of the world, where ships carrying plants, animals, and Spanish silver between the Old World and the New also carried Christian missionaries.

The web of globalization     9     to spread out through the Age of Revolution, when ideas about liberty and equality spread like fire from America to France to Latin America and beyond. It rode the waves of industrialization, colonization, and war through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, powered by the invention of factories, railways, steamboats, cars, and planes.

With the Information Age, globalization went into overdrive. Advances in computer and communications technology launched a new global era and     10     what it meant to be “connected.”

【推荐2】Directions: Complete the following passage 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. unremarkable     B.drawn        C. practical   D.sensation     E.setbacks       F.resolving G.applauding              H.inevitably          I.originality     J. subsequent       K.essentially

How did the Wright brothers take flight?

Wilbur and Orville Wright didn’t care much for attention. But after publicly demonstrating their flying machine, the inventors of the airplane became overnight international    1    . Crowds gathered, watching them go airborne (升空) and    2    their genius and courage. Thousands followed their achievements, which repeatedly made front-page news. While it might sound nice to say the Wrights were born inventors and geniuses who had always been     3     to aeronautics (航空学), that’s not really the case. Beginning in their Midwestern youth, the brothers faced numerous    4    . Their achievements stemmed from their own initiative and    5    .

Before they made history, Wilbur and Orville were, in one sense, fairly    6     children. They didn’t meet the typical standards of success.Though Wilbur was well read and Orville took advanced courses, neither graduated from high school and both struggled to get by on their own early in life. At the start, the brothers didn’t intend to invent the airplane. They simply reviewed what others had published about aeronautic, hoping they could make some sort of contributions. And that was when they noticed, to their surprise, very little progress had been made in the field. Wilbur and Orville realized that flight experiments had hit three main roadblocks to progress. They lacked a way to control the aircraft, a good wing design and a propulsion (推动力) system to power the flight. From there,     7    these problems became the brothers’ goal. Through trial and error, on December 17, 1903, the brothers flew the first manageable aircraft into the air, which proved the Wright Flyer could make a sustained, controlled and powered heavier-than-air flight. The aerial age truly began.

Though the Wright brothers had made history, their airplane was    8    only a proof of concept. It could make straight-line flights, but the design didn’t yet have any     9    use for society. In the     10    years of hard work and devotion, the brothers refined their aircraft. In1908, Wilbur demonstrated their plane in France, successfully proving what he and Orville had done.

【推荐3】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.”