1 . First established as a state capital in 229 CE, Nanjing, China, has long been one of the country’s most important (and largest) inland river ports and is recognized as one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China.

Why do people love it?

    1    Xuanwu Lake provides a peaceful escape right in central Nanjing, with temples, teahouses and restaurants located in nearby Xuanwu Lake Park. Unlike city walls in Beijing or Xi’an, Nanjing’s old wall isn’t geometric and instead contours the lake and mountain areas.     2    The sense of surprise delivered by these central natural expanses, like the Yangtze River, Zhongshan Mountain range and Xuanwu Lake, is what new residents love about living here.

What’s it like living here?

For those who miss the foods of home, there’s no shortage of foreign restaurants and cafes that cater   to   expats   and   international   students.       3    Nanjing has an efficient and expansive metro system that covers most of the city, but cycling is also an option, with bike-friendly wide and straight roads.

Residents rave about how affordable Nanjing is compared to other Chinese cities, especially when it comes to housing.     4    That said, the weather can be rough in winter, since most buildings lack central heating. Summers are also very hot and humid.

In general, a certain traditionalism and conservatism can be felt more strongly here than in other Chinese cities, which can make it more of a challenge to make local friends quickly. The language and cultural barrier tends to be high.     5    

A．Rent for an 85-sq-m apartment is more than 50% cheaper than Beijing and 65% less than Shanghai.

B．If you want to experience more of Nanjing’s past, the streets of Lao Men Dong is a must-see.

C．As a result, natural sites often appear in unexpected areas of the city.

D．Though home to 8.3 million people, Nanjing is one of the few big cities left in China to offer easy access to peace.

E．The city also has plenty of low-key and live-music clubs.

F．Getting around the city is easy.

G．So learning and speaking Mandarin Chinese can help with integrating into the local community.

2 . In the 1960s, while studying the volcanic history of Yellowstone National Park, Bob Christiansen became puzzled about something that, oddly, had not troubled anyone before: he couldn’t find the park’s volcano. It had been known for a long time that Yellowstone was volcanic in nature — that’s what accounted for all its hot springs and other steamy features. But Christiansen couldn’t find the Yellowstone volcano anywhere.

Most of us, when we talk about volcanoes, think of the classic cone(圆锥体) shapes of a Fuji or Kilimanjaro, which are created when erupting magma(岩浆) piles up. These can form remarkably quickly. In 1943, a Mexican farmer was surprised to see smoke rising from a small part of his land. In one week he was the confused owner of a cone five hundred feet high. Within two years it had topped out at almost fourteen hundred feet and was more than half a mile across. Altogether there are some ten thousand of these volcanoes on Earth, all but a few hundred of them extinct. There is, however, a second less known type of volcano that doesn’t involve mountain building. These are volcanoes so explosive that they burst open in a single big crack, leaving behind a vast hole, the caldera. Yellowstone obviously was of this second type, but Christiansen couldn’t find the caldera anywhere.

Just at this time NASA decided to test some new high-altitude cameras by taking photographs of Yellowstone. A thoughtful official passed on some of the copies to the park authorities on the assumption that they might make a nice blow-up for one of the visitors’ centers. As soon as Christiansen saw the photos, he realized why he had failed to spot the caldera: almost the whole park—2.2 million acres—was caldera. The explosion had left a hole more than forty miles across—much too huge to be seen from anywhere at ground level. At some time in the past Yellowstone must have blown up with a violence far beyond the scale of anything known to humans.

1. What puzzled Christiansen when he was studying Yellowstone?

A．Its complicated geographical features.

B．Its ever-lasting influence on tourism.

C．The mysterious history of the park.

D．The exact location of the volcano.

2. What does the second paragraph mainly talk about?

A．The shapes of volcanoes.

B．The impacts of volcanoes.

C．The activities of volcanoes.

D．The heights of volcanoes.

3. What does the underlined word “blow-up” in the last paragraph most probably mean?

A．Hot-air balloon.	B．Digital camera.
C．Big photograph.	D．Bird’s view.