I ordered some snacks on my phone the other afternoon. Once I got home from work that evening, I saw they were already at my door. So fast!
Have you ever thought about how people in the past communicated and did things without mobile phones?
Take the post for example. Before phones, if you wanted to stay in touch with someone far away, you needed to send them a letter in the mail. When my mom was in primary school, she used to do this with her “pen pal”. A pen pal is a name for a person you keep in touch with mainly through postal mail. My mom would write to her pen pal every few months, and then, after a little while, her pen pal would write back. Later, once email became a common thing, sending letters in the post felt so slow to people. It became known as “snail mail”!
What if you were at an airport in the time before mobile phones? My dad said that in the 1970s there used to be message boards at some airports. If you needed to exit （离开） the airport and wanted to leave a message for a friend who would be arriving later, you could write them a message and stick it on the message board. Then, your friend could go, check the board later and see what you wrote to them!
1. When the writer went back home from work, he saw some snacks were ________.| A．in the room | B．at the door | C．at the airport | D．on the message board |
| A．By talking on phones. | B．By mailing letters. |
| C．By visiting every few months. | D．By writing diaries. |
| A．To make fun of people still sending letters. | B．To say that postal mail was famous. |
| C．To say that email was a common thing. | D．To say that postal mail was very slow. |
| A．On the message boards. | B．At the information desk. |
| C．On the door of the exit. | D．On the boarding gate of the plane. |
| A．How fast it is to buy things nowadays. | B．How people stayed in touch before. |
| C．The importance of communication. | D．Ways of making friends in the past. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】
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Enjoying face changing Sichuan Opera that is especially popular in the southwest of China is the most powerful local opera. Face- |
Playing diabolo (空竹) 
changing is its Top 1 Wonder. It is said that ancient people painted their faces to drive away wild animals. Sichuan Opera takes in this ancient skill and perfects it into an art. Artists in traditional clothes dance around, shaking their heads up or down and changing the thin painted masks (面具) over their faces. They do this so quickly that you will be left surprised at how they can control the masks so skillfully. 1. In which SECTION of the newspaper can we read the news?
| A．DEVELOPMENT. | B．ENTERTAINMENT. | C．TOURISM. | D．MYSTERY. |
| A．Special costumes. | B．Perfect moves. | C．Excellent skills. | D．Painted masks. |
| A．Developing traditional customs | B．Getting lost in the leisure of life |
| C．Falling in love with Mahjong | D．Keeping the Chinese style |
| A．Children throw and catch excitedly. | B．Children dance with great joy. |
| C．Children run and chase closely. | D．Children jump happily. |
| A．They are only performed in China. |
| B．They might stand for our national culture. |
| C．They are well received and widely spread. |
| D．They should be handed down to future generations. |
【推荐2】Honeybees (蜜蜂) are great dancers, but they don’t just dance for fun. Dancing is also their way of communicating. The bee dance is called the “waggle dance” (摇摆舞).
Waggle dance helps bees find food. If a bee finds something to eat, it will start dancing. First, the bee’s position shows other bees which way to go. Second, if the bee shakes a lot, that means the food is far away. Less shaking means the food is closer. Third, if the bee dances for a long time, it means the food is very delicious.
A research team studied honeybee dance moves. The scientists are from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院西双版纳热带植物园). They found out how bees learn the waggle dance. Young bees learn from older bees.
The scientists recorded videos of bees in a laboratory. Then they compared two groups of young bees. The bees were only 10 days old. In one group, young bees could watch older ones dance. These young bees became good dancers. In the other group, young bees could not watch older dancers. These young bees could not dance as well as the first group.
This study changed how scientists think about bees. They used to think all bees could do the waggle dance without having to learn it. Now they know young bees learn it by watching the older ones.
1. ________ is a way of communicating for honeybees.| A．Fighting | B．Flying | C．Speaking | D．Dancing |
| A．the food is closer | B．the food is terrible |
| C．the food is far away | D．the food is delicious |
| A．By recording videos. | B．By learning from older bees. |
| C．By dancing for 10 days. | D．By learning from scientists. |
| A．Scientists compared two groups of young bees. |
| B．Young bees could never dance as well as older bees. |
| C．All bees can do the waggle dance without having to learn it. |
| D．Now scientists still know nothing about how bees learn the waggle dance. |
| A．novel | B．guidebook | C．storybook | D．science magazine |
【推荐3】Nowadays, phone calls and messages help us communicate with others more often. It means that we seldom write letters now. But a TV show. Letters alive, is bringing back this old habit.
Letters Alive invites famous actors and actresses but there are no funny jokes or different competitions. Instead, only one person walks up to a microphone and reads a letter. The letters were written by people from different times in history. For example, in one episode(集), they read a letter written by the famous writer Xiao Hong to her younger brother in 1941. The letter shows that Xiao Hong missed her brother so much and had great hopes for his future.
“Every letter opens another world for us,” said Guan Zhangwen, the director of the TV show. “It seems that we can experience the real lives and feelings of the writers.” Since its first episode on December 5, 2016, Letters Alive has been widely praised. Many audiences (观众) say that it has provided a breath of fresh air to today’s TV shows.
Besides Letters Alive, some other cultural TV shows have also attracted (吸引) Chinese audiences. They include the Chinese Poetry Conference, a traditional Chinese poetry competition and Readers, a program that invites people to read poems and articles they like or wrote. It suggests that cultural values and true feelings are becoming our interest.
1. Letters Alive, a TV show, invites famous people to ________.| A．read and share letters | B．tell audiences jokes | C．enter different competitions |
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. |
| A．highly praise | B．don’t mind | C．show no interest in |
| A．Letters Alive is not popular enough to attract audiences. |
| B．Chinese Poetry Conference invites people to read poems and articles. |
| C．We can experience the real lives and feeling of the writers by reading letters. |
You can see the red telephone boxes in the streets in London. Everyone can use the phone in the boxes. But the boxes are disappearing now. Why? Because many people now have got a mobile phone. They don’t need to find a pay phone when they want to make a call.
BT is the British phone company. It has a lot of telephone boxes. There are now 42,000 left in Britain. BT says most of the telephone boxes are losing money. So it makes a plan to take down over 20,000 telephone boxes by 2022.
To save the telephone boxes, BT thinks of some good ways. BT starts to turn the red telephone boxes into some new things. Some become libraries, and others become cafes and hat shops. BT also mends some boxes and sells them to other companies. The Red Kiosk Company is one of them. It buys the old telephone boxes and then rents them for about $480 a month. That’s very cheap in London. It helps people who want to start their own business but don't have enough money in London.
1. The red telephone boxes are disappearing because ________.| A．not many people use them now | B．most of them are old and dirty |
| C．it takes so much time to make a call | D．using the phones in the boxes is expensive |
| A．rents out the telephone boxes cheaply |
| B．takes down all the red telephone boxes |
| C．mends some phone boxes and sells them |
| D．gives old telephone boxes to young people |
| A．cafes | B．book shops | C．hat shops | D．libraries |
| A．Mobile Phones And Telephone Boxes | B．Telephone Box Companies in London |
| C．London Builds New Telephone Boxes | D．Save the Red Telephone Boxes in London |
【推荐2】Reading newspapers has become an important part of our life. Many people begin their day by reading the papers. In this way they learn what is going on in the world.
Sometimes, however, they do not have enough time to read all the news carefully, so they just take a quick look at the front page. At other times, they may be in such a hurry (匆忙) that they have time only to look at the headlines (标题).
There are newspapers to meet the needs of every reader. In big cities there are many kinds of papers. In small towns there are fewer newspapers. In some places the paper is published once a week.
Today, as a group, English language newspapers enjoy the largest number of readers. With the development (发展) of the world, some new newspapers will be published in the years to come.
1. When people are busy, they ___________ .| A．still read newspapers carefully | B．only look at the front page of the paper carefully |
| C．do not read newspapers | D．take a quick look at the front page or only look at the headlines |
| A．印刷 | B．发明 | C．出版 | D．创造 |
| A．In some places papers are published every two weeks. |
| B．There are more papers in small towns than in big cities. |
| C．There are different kinds of newspapers to meet people’s need. |
| D．The most important news is not on the front page. |
【推荐3】As an ordinary person, what can we do when our nation is in danger? Gong Dafei has set us a good example. 30-year-old Gong comes from Datong, North China’s Shanxi Province. Not long ago, he was building Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province. After finishing his work there, he decided to give away all his salary(薪水) to the hospital.
It was not easy to build Huoshenshan Hospital. For thousands of workers like Gong Dafei, they had much trouble working there. However, all the workers never gave up. Instead, they kept working hard day and night. It took them only ten days to finish building a large hospital for saving more patients with COVID-19.
When Gong Dafei heard the news about building the hospital, he made a decision to join in without thinking twice. Although most of his family members disagreed because he might be in danger, Gong still left his home and arrived in Wuhan on January 30, 2020.
“Since the epidemic(传染病) broke out and spread, I’ve kept paying attention to the conditions of the disease,” he said. “We all know the hospital is of great importance to Wuhan and even the whole country, so I decide to give away all my salary from my work to the hospital.”
“I just want to do what I can and hope to welcome victory soon,” he added.
1. Why did Gong Dafei go to Wuhan?| A．To make some money. | B．To save more patients with an epidemic. |
| C．To give away money to Wuhan. | D．To help build Huoshenshan Hospital. |
| A．Hard and quickly. | B．Easily and quickly. | C．Easily and happily. | D．Difficulty and slowly. |
| A．hard-working | B．honest | C．brave | D．careful |
| A．An important hospital. | B．A kind building worker. |
| C．A fight against the epidemic. | D．Money spent on the hospital. |
