1 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Archaeologists in China have recently found the world’s oldest known coin manufacturing(制造)site. The site     1     (use) to make metal money around 2,600 years ago. It is located in the ancient city of Guanzhuang, in     2     is now China’s Henan Province.

Using radiocarbon(放射性碳)dating, the researchers came to the     3     (conclude) that the workshop began minting(铸造)operations between 640 BC and 550 BC. The discovery of the coin mint is     4     (true) exciting as it shows the existence of a very old coin workshop.

The coins     5     (make) at the workshop are “spade money”. They replaced     6     (shell) during the Spring and Autumn Period (about 770 to 476 BC). The workshop was close to the city’s administrative center,     7     suggests that it may have begun minting coins on government orders.

The new study adds fuel     8     a long-standing debate about the origins of currency. Some scholars argue that money     9     (begin) as a way to help trade between merchants and customers. Others say governments created it     10     (allow) for the collection of taxes and debts.

2 . On July 31, 1697, a French lawyer named Jacques Sennacques wrote a message to remind a cousin in the Netherlands to send him a relative’s death certificate. To prevent others from reading the message, the note was carefully folded, or “letter locked.” The technique was used before the invention of envelopes. However, for reasons unknown, the note never reached the recipient and was instead stored in a postmaster’s trunk, where it remained undetected for centuries. Now, a team of international researchers has deciphered (破译) the contents of the over 300-year-old sealed letter — without opening it!

The chain of events leading to this technology began in 2015 when MIT expert Jana Dambrogio got a call from Daniel Starza Smith, a researcher at King’s College London. “He asked me, ‘What would you do if I told you there was a trunk with 600 unopened letters?’”

The trunk had once belonged to 17th-century postmaster Simon de Brienne. Historians believe the post office stored the undelivered letters. That’s because, in the 17th century, it was the recipient, not the sender, who bore the postage cost. When Brienne died in 1707, he donated the trunk of letters to an orphanage. Somehow, the trunk eventually made its way to the postal museum, where it lay until recently.

Since opening the letters would destroy them, Dambrogio and her team decided to develop technology to unseal them virtually. They began by using a high-resolution X-ray scanner to create a detailed three-dimensional image of a sealed letter. While the writing inside showed up very clearly, the numerous layers of folded paper pressed close together caused the words to overlap (重叠).

To solve the issue, the researchers created sophisticated algorithm (算法) capable of deciphering the writing in the cleverly folded letter, crease by crease. The virtual opening allowed the team to read the contents “while preserving letter locking evidence.” The algorithm took almost five years to perfect. Once perfected, they used it to open four locked letters and fully decode(解码) the one from Sennacques.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．Quite a few people could write letters.	B．Envelopes were not invented in 1697.
C．Jacques Sennacques was a postmaster.	D．Researchers couldn’t figure out the letter.

2. Why did the post office store the undelivered letters?

A．To get paid.	B．To find the senders.
C．To save the cost.	D．To scan the letters.

3. We can conclude that the folded letters________.

A．were badly damaged	B．were all decoded
C．remained very fresh	D．were very fragile

4. How did the researchers decode the letter from Sennacques?

A．Physically.

B．Chemically.

C．Occasionally.

D．Digitally.