2 . Here’s an everyday situation: you buy a magazine and you use money to pay for it. But think about that for a minute. You’ve actually given the shopkeeper just a piece of paper, a few pieces of metal or nowadays just a piece of plastic. It’s all very easy. However, at one time, there wasn’t any money. How were things paid for then?

In a barter system(易货贸易), things are exchanged by people. But there is a problem with barter: What if the bread-maker wants some eggs, but the egg seller doesn’t need any bread?   What will happen then?

The problem was solved by the introduction of money. The first things used as money were shells and stones. The first real coins were made of gold and silver by the Lydians in about 650BC(公元前) in what is now western Turkey. They were traders and soon their coins were being used all over the Mediterranean. The idea was taken to India by Alexander the Great and his army, and from there it spread to China and other parts of Asia. The first paper money was produced by the Chinese in the 9th century.

In the modern age, new ways of paying for things have been invented. More and more things are paid for by card or on a mobile phone. In the future everything may be paid for without using notes or coins at all.

1. The first real money was made ___________.

A．in India	B．over 2600 years ago
C．by a Lydian king	D．of shells and stones

2. According to the passage, which of the following is true?

A．China was the inventor of paper money.

B．No money will be used in the future.

C．These days all things are paid for by card or on a smart phone.

D．In a barter system, people had no problems exchanging things.

3. In which order were the coins spread?
a. India       b. Japan       c. Turkey       d. the Mediterranean       e. China

A．c-d-a-e-b

B．c-a-d-b-e

C．b-c-d-a-e

D．e-d-c-a-b

4. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A．The Importance of Money	B．The Popularity of Money
C．The Development of Money	D．Different Kinds of Money

3 . Thanksgiving Day is a special day for people _______ thanks in the United States. They thank for the good events that have happened and the good   _______ they have got during the year. A harvest is the fruit people take from the trees and the crops people take from the ground.

People _______ the Thanksgiving Day celebration for a long time. _______ first Thanksgiving celebration took place in 1619 in North America. At that time, English people _______ America and built their new home there. They felt _______ to be alive. To thank God for the safe _______ and the great harvest, they decided to have a celebration _______ a big meal. They cooked small animals and _______ else outside their houses on large fires. Many Indians also came to help and enjoy the meal. They ate and played together. The celebration lasted three days.

In 1789, President George Washington named November 26th ________ the Day of Thanksgiving. But in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln changed the date, and said that the last Thursday in November ________ be Thanksgiving Day.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving Day ________ in many countries but not always on the same day of the year. People in Canada celebrate it on the second Monday of October. The British who call it Harvest Festival celebrate it ________ in the year, in September. ________ Thanksgiving Day comes, people usually take small boxes of fruit, flowers, and vegetables to the churches to show their thanks. These days, as we can see, Thanksgiving Day makes ________ possible for people to get together with their families and have a happy time.

1.

A．giving

B．give

C．to give

D．given

2.

A．things

B．harvest

C．results

D．news

3.

A．have held

B．are holding

C．hold

D．held

4.

A．The

B．A

C．An

D．/

5.

A．arrived at

B．arrived in

C．reached out

D．reached to

6.

A．lucky

B．luck

C．luckily

D．unlucky

7.

A．travels

B．trips

C．tours

D．journeys

8.

A．in

B．for

C．with

D．by

9.

A．nothing

B．everything

C．anything

D．something

10.

A．during

B．as

C．on

D．of

11.

A．should

B．need

C．could

D．must

12.

A．celebrated

B．is celebrated

C．is celebrating

D．celebrates

13.

A．earlier

B．earliest

C．later

D．latest

14.

A．Since

B．Unless

C．When

D．Until

15.

A．this

B．them

C．that

D．it

4 .

Have you ever played crossword? It's a popular form of word puzzle. The player is given clues* and the number of letters and then fills in a grid of boxes with the right words.

The history of word puzzles might start from the ancient Rome. Today, many newspapers have a daily or weekly crossword. People also buy crossword books. Yet, the first published crossword puzzle was created by Arthur Wynne. Wynne was from Liverpool in the UK but he lived and worked for a newspaper called New York World. He wrote the first crossword puzzle for the "fun" section of the newspaper on December 21, 1913. Readers loved the puzzle and it became a weekly part of the newspaper. Then other newspapers also began publishing crossword puzzles and they became very popular in the USA.

The very first crossword puzzle didn't look much like the crosswords today. It was shaped like a diamond* and it didn't have any black squares. The squares were numbered and the clues were below the puzzle. It was called a "Word-Cross puzzle".

In the UK, the first crossword was published in 1922. It came out in the page of the London newspaper, The Times in 1930. The Times became famous for its "Cryptic crossword" － a very difficult crossword. To solve a cryptic puzzle, you have to find out the clue itself as well as the meaning, but they are very satisfying.

The crossword puzzles were at first created by hand. Only in 1997 the first computer software program that created crossword puzzles was developed.

Now the New York World is no longer around, but the crossword puzzle along with its popularity still continues.

1. Where did word puzzles first appear in history probably?

A．In Liverpool.

B．In London.

C．In New York.

D．In Rome.

2. What did the world's first published crossword puzzle look like?

A．

B．

C．

D．

3. What does the writer think of "Cryptic crosswords"?

A．They look boring.	B．They require much effort.
C．They were the most difficult crosswords.	D．They became famous because of The Times.

4. What's the main idea of the passage?

A．How crosswords developed.	B．Why crosswords are played.
C．Where crosswords were created.	D．What people do with crosswords.

5 . The oldest stone buildings in the world are the pyramids(金字塔). They have stood for nearly5,000 years, and it seems likely that they will continue to stand for thousands of years. Yet there are over eighty of them scattered along the banks of the Nile( 尼 罗 河 ) and some of them are different in shape from the true pyramids. The most famous of these are the step pyramid and the bent pyramid.

1. ________They still look as much alike as they used to be when they were built thousands of years ago. However, there are no writings or pictures to show us how the Egyptians planned or built the pyramids themselves. As a result, we are only able to guess the ways they used.
2. ________The first thing they have to do was to choose a proper place. You may think this would have been easy because there was miles and miles of empty desert around, but a pyramid could not be built just anywhere. Certain rules had to be followed, and certain problems had to be solved.
3. ________This was for religious( 宗教的) reasons, because the sun sets on the side of it. The pyramid also had to stand well above the level of the river to protect it against the large amount of water.
4. ________In the old days, water transport was, of course, much easier than land transport. So the large stones needed to be carried in boats to the nearest place down the river.
5. ________It also had to be near the king’s palace so that he could visit it easily. And the king needed to check the progress himself. After all, it was his final resting place for his body.

A．There must have been careful planning before building.

B．The government has protected them from falling down.

C．Some of the pyramids can still be seen today.

D．Then pyramid had to be on the west side of the Nile.

E．Finally, the pyramid had to be near the capital.

F．The pyramid could not be too far from the Nile.

6 . Tofu is a popular food in China. There are many different stories about how it was invented. Here is one of them.

In the Han Dynasty, there was a man who loved his parents very much. But they had turned old, and had lost most of their teeth. They could only eat soft food, so the man decided to cook some soybeans (大豆) for them. He mashed the soybeans and made them into a soup.

The soybean soup didn't taste very nice in the beginning because there were too many soybean crumbs (碎屑) in it. So the man took the crumbs away from the soybean soup. But his parents sill didn't like the tasteless soup. He had no idea how to deal with the tasteless soup. He thought and thought many times. At last he thought of a good way to add some salt into the soybean soup and heated it up again. Because the soup was too hot, he left it to cool down. When it had cooled down, he found it had turned into a piece of jelly (胶状物).

The man had a taste of the jelly and was surprised by its taste and texture (口感). He served some of this soybean jelly to his parents in a hurry, and they loved it very much. He soon told the thing to his people in his countryside. People around the country all learned how to make tofu. And this is how tofu was invented.

1. According to the story, tofu was invented in       .

A．the Qin Dynasty	B．the Han Dynasty
C．the Yuan Dynasty	D．the Tang Dynasty

2. When the soup had cooled down, the man found it had turned into       .

A．a hard cube

B．soybean crumbs

C．a piece of jelly

D．soybean soup

3. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A．Tofu is loved by many Chinese people.

B．The taste and texture of the jelly was terrible.

C．There were many soybean crumbs in the soup at first.

D．Before adding some salt into the soup, it was tasteless.

7 . You may know the song Happy Birthday very well. It    1     (write) by an American girl. And now she has become one of the richest    2     (woman). She was poor when she was     3     child. Once some of her friends invited her to take part in their birthday party. She was very sad    4     she had no enough money to buy presents for them.

The party which was coming soon made the girl get into trouble. Later, her grandma knew the problem and said to her, “Don’t worry! You can sing the song Happy Birthday     5     your friends. It will be loved by 61.     6    .”

    7     a beautiful song! They sang and sang. Suddenly, she woke up. It was a dream! She decided    8     (write) it down at once.

The next day, she sang the song at the party. Her friends were very     9     (interest) in it. “How wonderful! Thank you for giving us the special present, said one of them. And they learnt to sing it    10     (happy) together. Later the girl became well-known in America.

8 . Everyone has a family name. In China, the family name is the first name, but in English countries the family name is the last name. Do you know how English people get their family names? And what do they mean? English people usually get their family name in these ways (方式).
Some family names come from the places of their homes. A man live on or near a hill, his family name may be (可能是) Hill. In England, people's names may be Wood, Lake because they live near the wood (树林) or the lake.
Some family names come from a person's job. If a person is a cook, his family name may be Cook.
And many people get their family names from their father's family names. If you hear the name "Jackson", you can know that he is the son of Jack.
1. In the passage, how many ways can English people get their family names?

A．two

B．three

C．four

D．five

2. A man lives near the lake. His family name may be ______.

A．Hill

B．Wood

C．Lake

D．Cook

3. Jack's family name is Cook. His family name may come from the ______.

A．place

B．hobby

C．job

D．country

4. A boy's family name is Jackson because he is ______.

A．Jack's father	B．Jack's best friend
C．the grandfather of Jack	D．the son of Jack

5. The passage mainly talks about ______ in English countries.

A．family names	B．English people
C．hills and lakes	D．jobs and homes