| bring as they Chinese go hundred across is easy about |
Long ago, traders (商人)
The Silk Road
2 . If you want to tell the history of the whole world, a history that does not privilege one part of humanity, you cannot do it through texts alone, because only some of the world has ever had texts, while most of the world, for most of the time, has not. Writing is one of humanity’s later achievements, and until fairly recently even many literate (有文字的) societies recorded their concerns not only in writing but in things.
Ideally a history would bring together texts and objects, and some chapters of this book are able to do just that, but in many cases we simply can’t. The clearest example of this between literate and non-literate history is perhaps the first conflict, at Botany Bay, between Captain Cook’s voyage and the Australian Aboriginals. From the English side, we have scientific reports and the captain’s record of that terrible day. From the Australian side, we have only a wooden shield (盾) dropped by a man in fight after his first experience of gunshot. If we want to reconstruct what was actually going on that day, the shield must be questioned and interpreted as deeply and strictly as the written reports.
In addition to the problem of miscomprehension from both sides, there are victories accidentally or deliberately twisted, especially when only the victors know how to write. Those who are on the losing side often have only their things to tell their stories. The Caribbean Taino, the Australian Aboriginals, the African people of Benin and the Incas, all of whom appear in this book, can speak to us now of their past achievements most powerfully through the objects they made: a history told through things gives them back a voice. When we consider contact (联系) between literate and non-literate societies such as these, all our first-hand accounts are necessarily twisted, only one half of a dialogue. If we are to find the other half of that conversation, we have to read not just the texts, but the objects.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．How past events should be presented. |
| B．What humanity is concerned about. |
| C．Whether facts speak louder than words. |
| D．Why written language is trusted. |
| A．His report was scientific. | B．He represented the local people. |
| C．He ruled over Botany Bay. | D．His record was one-sided. |
| A．Problem. | B．History. | C．Voice. | D．Society. |
| A．How Maps Tell Stories of the World | B．A Short History of Australia |
| C．A History of the World in 100 Objects | D．How Art Works Tell Stories |
3 . Who “discovered” America? And who managed the first successful sail around the world in history?
Well, our textbooks have the answers: they are Italian sailor Christopher Columbus and Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.
However, China’s great explorer, Zheng He（1371-1435）, may well have beaten the European explorers and sailed around the world first. The life and achievements of the great sailor are shown in a 59-episode TV drama.
Zheng was an officer of the Ming Dynasty’s Yongle Emperor. In 1405, the emperor asked Zheng to visit the “Western Seas”, which referred to the seas and lands west of the South China Sea.
Zheng traveled with 62 ships filled with silk, porcelain and 27, 800 men. The biggest ship was 126 meters long and could take the weight of 7. 000 tons. In the following 28 years, Zheng made another six successful journeys. He visited over 30 countries.
Since most of the records of Zheng’s voyages have been lost many historians（历史学家）believe Zheng’s achievements have been underestimated（低估）. British writer Gavin Menzies, who spent 14 researching the movements of the Chinese fleet, explained it was Zheng who first sailed around the world, in his book, 1421, The Year China Discovered America.
While Menzies was doing the research, he said he was shown a map, dated 1459, which included southern Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. Yet the Cape was not “discovered” by da Gama until 1497. On the map was a note about a voyage round the Cape in 1420——and a picture of a Chinese ship.
“What nobody has explained is why the European explorers had maps. Who drew the maps?” he asks in his book. “There are millions of square miles of ocean. It required huge fleets to chart them. If you say it wasn’t the Chinese, then who was it?”
1. What did Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan and Zheng He have in common?| A．They were all great explorers. |
| B．They were born in the same period. |
| C．They were all the officers of the Ming Dynasty. |
| D．Their life and achievement were featured on CCTV 8. |
①He saw a map with southern Africa and the Cape of Good Hope.
②Records of Zheng’s voyage have been lost.
③The European explorers had maps before exploration.
④The map was dated in 1459.
⑤A picture of a Chinese ship on the map.
| A．①②③⑤ | B．①③④⑤ | C．①②③④ | D．②③④⑤ |
| A．the European explorers drew the map |
| B．the European explorers gave their maps to the Chinese |
| C．the huge European fleets charted the map |
| D．the Chinese are most likely to discover America |
| A．Great European Explorers | B．Successful Journey |
| C．Who Discovered America | D．A Research on Western Seas |
Last week, Li Ming and his friends talked about Marco Polo and the Silk Road for
Li Ming described two pictures for their project. One picture had old soldiers and horses that looked like
5 . In the 19th century, millions of Europeans went to the USA because they wanted to find a better life. Many of them couldn’t find work in cities like New York.
Some of these people hoped to find gold in California. The journey sometimes took more than one year. There are a lot of films, called Westerners, about the settlers on the trail. In most of the films, we see the Native Americans (American Indians) attacking the settlers, and the “Indians” killing many white people. But the truth is that the Native Americans were not the biggest problem for the settlers. In fact, most of them were very helpful to the settlers.
More than 50000 people, including many women and children, died on the trail. A lot of people died of illnesses like cholera, because the drinking water wasn’t clean.
| A．It is true that the settlers’ journey was extremely difficult. |
| B．Many parents also had to carry their small children. |
| C．Many of them lost their home. |
| D．They hoped they could make more money. |
| E．There were also a lot of accidents. |
| F．So they left and went to find farmland in the west. |
6 . La Gomera is one of a few places in the world which has a whistled (口哨) language. We do not know how and why it began because we do not know the complete history of the island. But we can certainly imagine the reasons for the beginning of the whistled language. There are many deep valleys on the island. A person on one side of a valley cannot easily shout to a person on the other side. But he can whistle and be heard. Some of the best whistlers can be heard from four miles away and the record is seven miles. The people who live on the island usually have good teeth, and this helps them to whistle well. They must also have good ears so that they can hear the other whistlers.
We can understand why the whistled language continues. It is very useful on the island, and quite easy to learn. When somebody is hurt or ill, the whistled language takes the place of the telephone. If the sick person is quite far away from the town, people pass the message from one to another. A boy guarding cattle on a hillside whistles to a man fishing from his boat. The last one is able to describe the trouble fully and exactly to the doctor in town. People help one another in the same way when a car breaks or a cow is lost.
The whistled language is hundreds of years old, and probably it will continue to live on for hundreds of years more. Radio and TV often kill the special ways of speaking in different parts of a country. But on La Gomera you are nobody if you cannot whistle. Perhaps soon after TV arrives on the island, the people there will be whistling the news and other facts and opinions.
1. Why did the whistled language begin in La Gomera?| A．There were many deep valleys on the island. |
| B．The people on the island had good ears. |
| C．The people on the island had good teeth. |
| D．The whistlers could be heard four miles away. |
| A．what people think of the island |
| B．how people pass messages |
| C．who continues the whistled language |
| D．where people learn the whistled language |
| A．an unreal person | B．an unlucky person |
| C．an unhappy person | D．an unknown person |
| A．Whistlers, Passers on an Island | B．Lo Gomera, a Famous Island |
| C．Reasons, the Start of a Whistled Language | D．Whistling, a Special Language that committee. |
Researches show that the fork was first used in Ancient Egypt, China and Greece. And then it t
The fork began to get acceptance in Italy by the late 16th century, because the upper-class Italians had great i
8 . It may be hard to believe, but the American Revolution (革命)—the war that freed the American states from British control—began over a cup of tea. Tea was not the only thing that caused the war, of course, but it played a very big part.
The British people’s love of tea is well-known. When the British won control over much of North America in the early 1700s, they brought their tea-drinking habits with them. Tea quickly became the continent’s most popular drink. As tea could not be grown locally, just as in Britain, it was shipped into the country—mostly from India.
In the early 1700s, the Britain government made a special deal with the East India Company, an English trading company. They agreed that no other company was allowed to bring tea to Britain or any country controlled by Britain, including America. It was a great deal for the East India Company, since it meant that the company could decide whatever price it wanted for its products. And it always decided on a high price!
In North America, the local people did not like having to pay such high prices. Instead of overpaying for tea from the British, they turned to Dutch traders, who secretly brought tea to the country that was just as good—and much less expensive. Although this broke the law, the American people didn’t care. They got the same cup of tea at a much lower price.
The East India Company, however, didn’t like this at all. By the 1760s, they were losing millions of pounds each year to Dutch traders—a huge amount of money in a time when £60 a year was considered a good income. Instead of reducing their prices to compete with the Dutch, the company asked the British government for help and the government agreed.
In 1767, the British introduced new laws that increased the prices of all goods which were brought into America. These laws helped make the East India Company even richer and forced local people to pay much more for everything. The American leaders asked the British government not to do so, but the British refused to listen. These unfair laws increased Americans’ anger about British rule and the rest, as they say, is history.
1. The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 3 refers to ________.| A．the tea maker | B．the American government |
| C．the British government | D．the East India Company |
| A．The tea was much cheaper. | B．The tea was a lot healthier. |
| C．They could buy it more easily. | D．They didn’t want to support the British. |
| A．It reduced the price of its tea. | B．It improved the taste of its tea. |
| C．It introduced a new kind of tea. | D．It asked the British government for help. |
| A．Tea trade in eighteenth-century America |
| B．The relationship between America and Britain. |
| C．A reason for the start of the American Revolutionary War. |
| D．The introduction of British tea-drinking habits into America. |
1. How many people went into outer space according to this picture?
| A．3 | B．2 | C．1 | D．4 |
| A．Edmund Hillary | B．Jessica Watson |
| C．Valentina Tereshkova | D．Robert Ballard |
| A．important events in the exploration history | B．stones next to roads to show the way |
| C．excellent explorers in history | D．news reports in different times |
10 . There is a fun fact. Each year, people in all 28 European Union (EU) member countries are asked to change their clocks twice. They move forward by one hour (12 p.m. becomes 1 p.m.) on the last Sunday of March and back by one hour (1 p.m. goes back to 12 p.m.) on the last Sunday in October. This is called “daylight saving time (DST, 夏/冬令时)”.
But in 2019, they will no longer need to do so. On Sept 14, 2018, the EU announced that it will stop practicing DST in October 2019, USA Today reported. The change comes following an online survey conducted in EU countries. Eighty-four percent of the 4.5 million Europeans who took the survey said they oppose (反对) seasonal clock changes.
DST was first introduced in Germany during the World Wars and became law across the continent (大陆) in 1996. It helps people make better use of longer summer days and save energy.
For example, with DST, people get up and go to bed an hour earlier during the summer. By having an extra hour of sunlight, people can save electricity, since they don’t need to turn their lights on.
However, after over 20 years of DST, people believe that the practice is out of date, especially since we now have energy-saving technology like LED light. “We are clearly headed toward smart cities, smart buildings and smart solutions which will bring much more savings than a change of the clock,” European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic told Deutsche Welle.
Others have pointed out that clock changing can lead to imbalance (失衡) in our bodies’ internal (体内的) clocks and cause long-term health problems, Reuters noted.
1. “Daylight saving time” lasts about ________ a year.| A．five months | B．six months | C．seven months | D．eight months |
| A．In France. | B．In Germany. | C．In the US. | D．In the UK. |
| A．Because it helped people save energy. | B．Because it was fashionable and modern. |
| C．Because people wanted to enjoy longer nights. | D．Because people opposed seasonal clock changes. |
| A．What we can use to save energy. | B．Why changing clocks is no longer needed. |
| C．What changes new technology can bring. | D．Why clock changing can harm our health. |
