1 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词， 在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

The Terracotta Army (兵马俑) was found in 1974 near Xi’an. It is formed of more than 8,000 sculptures, which     1     (bury) alongside the emperor Qin Shi Huang more than 2,200 years ago. Now, researchers have recreated the shoes of one soldier and analysis of them     2     (suggest) that shoes worn by the terracotta sculptures were surprisingly flexible and slip resistant. If the recreated shoes     3     (true) reflect the real ones, they can help build a better picture of     4     Qin dynasty soldiers wore and how this might have aided them in battles.

2 . 语法填空

In early November in 2023, a diver, swimming off the coast of Sardinia,     1     (notice) pieces of metal on the ocean floor. He called the authorities and more divers were sent to look. The pieces turned out to be ancient Roman coins. The coins mostly lay     2     (bury) in sand and seagrass not far from the coast. It is said that more than 30, 000 coins have been found,     3     are close to 2, 000 years old. Experts call this a major historical discovery.

3 . Frozen in time, a 125-million-year-old mammal attacking a dinosaur. A 39-million-year-old whale, the heaviest animal that ever lived. The oldest known jellyfish, from 505 million years ago. Paleontology (古生物学) produces newsworthy discoveries.

Fossils (化石), moreover, provide direct evidence for the long history of life, allowing paleontologists to test hypotheses (假设) about evolution with data only they provide. They allow investigation of present and past life on Earth. Flows of biological diversity, appearances of new life forms and the extinctions of long existing ones, would go undiscovered without these efforts. But the headlines over exciting new fossils greatly underestimate the true importance of paleontology. Its real significance lies in how such discoveries brighten the grand history of life on Earth. From its beginnings, more than three billion years ago, to the present day, fossils record how life adapted or disappeared in the face of major environmental challenges.

Paleontologists provide us with a unique vantage on modern climate change. They play an essential role in interpreting ancient environments, in reconstructing ancient oceans, continents and climates. Fossils provide key limitation on the climate models that are essential for predicting future climate change. And the fossil record gives important insights into how life will respond to predicted future climate conditions, because these have occurred before in Earth’s history.

In addition, paleontology has provided a fundamental contribution to human thought: the reality of species extinction and thus of a world that has dramatically changed over time. In documenting the history of life, paleontologists recognized that many extinction episodes could occur suddenly, such as the event 66 million years ago that ended the dinosaurs. The search for the causes of past mass extinctions started pioneering studies from across the scientific spectrum (科学界), focusing on potential future threats to humanity.

Not only do paleontologists know what happens to life when things go bad, they also know how long it takes for ecosystems and biodiversity to recover from these disasters, which can take far longer than modern humans have existed.

Paleontologists thus provide a unique perspective on the nature and future long-term ecological impact of the current human-produced biodiversity crisis, the so-called Sixth Extinction, and therefore the importance of protecting modern biodiversity. The very concept of a Sixth Extinction would not exist without paleontologists documenting the first five.

Paleontologists know that understanding life’s past is critical to anticipating and adapting to life’s and humanity’s future. Paleontology is important because it brings its unique and critical perspective to current challenges in climate change, biodiversity loss and the environment. Paleontologists can predict the future because they know the past.

1. The first two paragraphs are written to _______.

A．describe an event	B．raise a question
C．present an opinion	D．make a comparison

2. What does the underlined word “vantage” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．A positive effect.	B．A valuable suggestion.
C．A quick decision.	D．A comprehensive view.

3. Which of the following would the author agree with?

A．Ecological recovery takes shorter than imagined.

B．Past lessons can help to predict the future threats.

C．Paleontologists can handle the biodiversity crisis.

D．Fossil studies focus on the causes of mass extinctions.

4. What’s the best title for the passage?

A．Paleontology: A Pioneering Study

B．Paleontology: A History Recorder

C．Paleontology Tells More About Nature Than Humans

D．Paleontology Is Far More Than New Fossil Discoveries

5 .

Fossil by fossil, the story of the birds becomes clearer. It is now well established that modern birds are actually a group of dinosaurs, which survived a crash between the earth and a small planet 66m years ago. This impact wiped out the rest of the dinosaur world, along with a lot of other creatures.

Recently a paper, published in Nature, has released the details of a fossil, which those studying it believe provides our earliest view of what modern birds were like during the initial stages of their evolutional history. The fossil in question is called Asteriornis maastrichtensis. As its name suggests, the rock containing it was dug from deposits(沉积层)found near Maastricht. These deposits are between 66.8m and 66.7m years old.

This particular rock interested palaeontologists(古生物学家)because it included visible leg bones that looked as though they belonged to a bird. Such ancient fossils are rare, so instead of chancing their arms by using physical or chemical methods to explore the rock for more remains,Daniel Field of Cambridge University and his colleagues employed a CT scan, a process more familiar to most people as a medical-scanning technique. The result, an image of the animal’s skull with false colours added to clarify which bits are which, can be seen in the picture.

Asteriornis maastrichtensis does indeed turn out to be a member of the modern birds. Specifically, it is part of the Galloanserae, which includes both land fowl(家禽),such as chickens and its relatives, and modern waterfowl, like ducks and the like. The skull of Asteriornis maastrichtensis exhibits features of both groups, so it most probably predates the division between them. And its discovery in Europe opens up the debate about whether modern birds originated in the southern part of the earth, as has been proposed.

As to what it looked like when alive, the animal’s left upper leg, its best-preserved bone besides those of its skull, suggests Asteriornis maastrichtensis was a long-legged creature that marched around. This, and evidence that the rock it was preserved in was originally part of a fossil shoreline,has led to reconstructions of modern waterfowl.

Asteriornis maastrichtensis shows that a single fossil can help to nail down previously uncertain dates. The age of the fossil, in fact, suggests that those previous estimates, based on so-called molecular clocks(分子钟),might have overestimated how early the modern birds arose.Based on the discovery of Asteriornis maastrichtensis, the smart money is now on the modern birds as a group being only a little older than the dinosaur-killing impact itself.

1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?

A．The details of the fossil are still in doubt.

B．The deposits were named after the fossil.

C．The crash caused the extinction of dinosaurs.

D．The fossil is seen as the oldest modern bird skull.

2. What can be inferred about Asteriornis maastrichtensis from the passage?

A．It attracts palaeontologists as a rare ancient species.

B．It can present the whole picture of modern waterfowl.

C．It allows researchers to confirm where modern birds emerged.

D．It may be the common ancestor of modern chickens and ducks.

3. According to the passage, the author may agree that_______.

A．fossils promote the accuracy of historical dates

B．it’s not wise to dig the deposits for more remains

C．we can’t trust fossils more than molecular clocks

D．more investment should be made to study fossils

6 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

The Sanxingdui Ruins site in Sichuan province,     1     (consider) as one of the greatest findings of mankind in the 20th century, has continued to amaze the world. Since May, 2001, more than 500 cultural relics     2     (find) at the site, including bronze ware (青铜器), gold and bronze masks and so on. Among them, a gold mask is catching the world’s attention. It’s 37.2 cm wide, 16.5 cm high and     3    (weigh) about 100 grams, which is strong proof of the existence of ancient Shu state.

7 . 语法填空。

Since Chinese archaeologists (考古学家) discovered two deep holes in Guanghan, Sichuan in 1986, and     1     (dig) thousands of precious cultural relics with a history of about 3000 years, the Sanxingdui site has always been a     2     (mystery) existence. As the largest and best-preserved pre-Qin site in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in China, the Sanxingdui site is an important evidence for     3     (study) the Chinese civilization. This year, the six newly discovered holes     4     (expect) to further reveal the origin and formation process of Chinese civilization.

8 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Sanxingdui Site,     1     (date) back to 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, was first discovered in 1929. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

    2     (get) a better understanding of the unique civilization, archaeologists reconducted an     3     (invest) of No. 1 and No. 2 pits in October 2019. This time, six more pits were discovered, including the largest gold mask ever found, ivory and silk.

9 . Oracle Bone Scripts

China’s oracle bone scripts, an ancient type of Chinese characters inscribed on animal bones or turtle shells, have successfully entered the UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, according to the Chinese Ministry of Education. So far, China has 11 pieces of documentary files on the list, including the documents of the Nanjing Massacre.

The characters inscribed on the bones and shells have contributed greatly to Chinese civilization, enabling Chinese culture to be passed on from generation to generation and become the only civilization to last up to the present. However, in the past 100 years since being discovered, only about 2,000 characters from the oracle bone scripts have been decoded. There are at least 3,000 more remaining to be deciphered.

According to published materials, there are about 150,000 pieces of unearthed oracle bone scripts, and about 100,000 were preserved in the Chinese mainland, 30,000 in Taiwan and the other 20,000 were scattered across the world. It is expected that by entering the Memory of the World Register, the archaeological study of the ancient characters could be encouraged.

“It is only a new beginning,” said Song Zhenhao, director of the Oracle Bone Scripts Study Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, hoping that the new achievement could inject a vigor into the ancient study.

1. What is oracle bone scripts according to the passage?

A．A form of Chinese characters inscribed on animal bones or turtle plastrons used in divination.

B．A form of Chinese literature inscribed on animal bones or turtle plastrons used in divination.

C．A kind of inscriptions on ancient bronze objects.

D．A kind of traditional painting on ancient bronze objects.

2. Before oracle bone script enters into UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, China had how many pieces of documentary files on the list?

A．12 pieces.

B．11 pieces.

C．10 pieces.

D．9 pieces.

3. Which statement about oracle bone script is wrong?

A．Oracle bone script enables Chinese culture to be passed on from generation to generation.

B．In the past 100 years since being discovered, only about 2,000 characters from the oracle bone scripts have been decoded.

C．There are at least 3,000 more oracle bone scripts remaining to be deciphered.

D．Study on oracle bone script is sound enough and needs no more progress.

4. According to published materials, the majority of unearthed oracle bone scripts are preserved in_________.

A．Taiwan

B．America

C．India

D．Chinese mainland

5. Which of the following culture phenomenon doesn’t fall into the same category as oracle bone scripts?

A．Regular script.	B．Chinese bronze inscriptions.
C．Blue and white porcelain.	D．Cursive script.