1 . As more and more people speak the global language of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000-7,000 languages spoken around the world today will be likely to die out by the next century, according the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations — UNESCO and National Geographic among them — have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Center, Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials —including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes — which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection. Now, through the two organizations that he has founded — the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project — Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to schools but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.
1. Many scholars are making efforts to ________.| A．promote global languages | B．rescue disappearing languages |
| C．search for languages communities | D．set up language research organizations |
| A．having detailed records of the languages | B．writing books on language users |
| C．telling stories about language speakers | D．living with the native speakers |
| A．The cultural studies in India. | B．The documents available at Yale. |
| C．His language research in Bhutan. | D．His personal experience in Nepal. |
| A．Write, sell and donate. | B．Record, repair and reward. |
| C．Collect, protect and reconnect. | D．Design, experiment and report. |
2 . Hanukkah (光明节) is a Jewish festival. It is celebrated on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev (犹太教历), which is usually sometime in December. It is often called the festival of lights. The festival celebrates the time, over 2，000 years ago, when the Jewish people fought against an emperor who would not let them follow their own traditions and religion. When the Jewish people won back their temple in Jerusalem, they found there was only little holy oil to keep the sacred light burning for one day. However, to their surprise, this small amount of oil kept the light burning for eight days and nights until the people had time to make more oil.
At the center of the Hanukkah celebrations is a candlestick (called a Menorah) that holds nine candles. On the first night of Hanukkah the first candle is lit, and each day this candle is used to light another candle, until on the eighth day, the last day, all the candles are lit. During Hanukkah, people go to the synagogue (犹太教堂) to pray and to remember the miracle (奇迹) of the holy oil. Hanukkah is a time for family and friends to come together. People exchange gifts and greeting cards, and children go to parties. Parents often give their children money at Hanukkah. Potato cakes, called latkes, are a traditional Hanukkah food.
1. From the first paragraph we know that Hanukkah is a festival about ________.| A．Jewish month of Kislev | B．Jewish traditions and religion |
| C．how to make more holy oil | D．traditional Hanukkah food |
| A．Oil. | B．Money. | C．Cards. | D．Candles. |
| A．The war that they fought 2，000 years ago. |
| B．The God that they honored best. |
| C．The miracle of the holy oil that happened 2，000 years ago. |
| D．The church they built 2，000 years ago. |
| A．the history of Hanukkah and how it is celebrated |
| B．why Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah |
| C．why Jewish people protect their traditions |
| D．the miracle of the holy oil in the Jewish temple |
3 . Sometimes it’s hard to let go. For many British people, that can apply to institutions and objects that represent their country’s past-age-old castles, splendid homes… and red phone boxes.
Beaten first by the march of technology and lately by the terrible weather in junkyards (废品场), the phone boxes representative of an age are now making something of a comeback. Adapted in imaginative ways, many have reappeared on city streets and village greens housing tiny cafes, cellphone repair shops or even defibrillator machines (除颤器).
The original iron boxes with the round roofs first appeared in 1926. They were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Battersea Power Station in London. After becoming an important part of many British streets, the phone boxes began disappearing in the 1980s, with the rise of the mobile phone sending most of them away to the junkyards.
About that time, Tony Inglis’ engineering and transport company got the job to remove phone boxes from the streets and sell them out. But Inglis ended up buying hundreds of them himself, with the idea of repairing and selling them. He said that he had heard the calls to preserve the boxes and had seen how some of them were listed as historic buildings.
As Inglis and, later other businessmen, got to work, repurposed phone boxes began reappearing in cities and villages as people found new uses for them. Today, they are once again a familiar sight, playing roles that are often just as important for the community as their original purpose.
In rural areas, where ambulances can take a relatively long time to arrive, the phone boxes have taken on a lifesaving role. Local organizations can adopt them for l pound, and install defibrillators to help in emergencies.
Others also looked at the phone boxes and saw business opportunities. LoveFone, a company that advocates repairing cellphones rather than abandoning them, opened a mini workshop in a London phone box in 2016.
The tiny shops made economic sense, according to Robert Kerr, a founder of LoveFone. He said that one of the boxes generated around $13,500 in revenue a month and cost only about $400 to rent.
Inglis said phone boxes called to mind an age when things were built to last. “I like what they are to people, and I enjoy bringing things back,” he said.
1. The phone boxes are making a comeback ______.| A．to form a beautiful sight of the city |
| B．to improve telecommunications services |
| C．to remind people of a historical period |
| D．to meet the requirement of green economy |
| A．They were not well-designed. | B．They provided bad services. |
| C．They had too short a history. | D．They lost to new technologies. |
| A．their new appearance and lower prices | B．the push of the local organizations |
| C．their changed roles and functions | D．the big funding of the businessmen |
4 . Modern buildings are set up on a large scale in the city. Should they be allowed to be built next to older buildings in a historic area of a city? In order to answer this question, we must first examine whether people really want to preserve the historic feel of an area. All historical buildings are not attractive. However, there may be other reasons — for example, economic reasons — why they should be preserved. So, let us assume that historical buildings are both attractive and important to be the majority of people. What should we do then if a new building is needed?
In my view, new architectural styles can exist perfectly well alongside an older style. Indeed, there are many examples in my hometown where modern designs have been placed very successfully next to old buildings. As long as the building in question is pleasing and does not dominate its surroundings too much, it often improves the attractiveness of the area.
It is true that there are examples of new buildings which have spoilt the area they are in, but the same can be said of some old ones too. Yet people still speak against new buildings in historic areas. I think this is simply because people are naturally conservative （保守的）and do not like change.
Although we have to respect people's feelings as fellow users of the buildings, I believe that it is the duty of the architect and planner to move things forward. If we always reproduced what was there before, we would all still be living in caves. Thus, I would argue against copying previous architectural styles and choose something fresh and different, even though that might be the more risky choice.
1. What is the author's view of historical buildings in Paragraph 1?| A．Some of them are unattractive. |
| B．Many of them are too old to preserve. |
| C．They don't offer the historic feel of an area. |
| D．They are more pleasing than modern buildings. |
| A．We should reproduce the same old buildings. |
| B．Buildings shouldn't fit in with their surroundings. |
| C．Some old buildings have reduced the interest of the area they are in. |
| D．No one knows why people are against new buildings. |
| A．destroy old buildings |
| B．put things in a different place |
| C．respect people's feelings |
| D．choose new architectural style |
| A．To explain why people dislike change. |
| B．To warn that we could end up living in caves. |
| C．To answer the questions people show great interest in. |
| D．To argue that modern buildings can be built in historic areas. |
5 . A message slick was form of ancient and nonverbal（非语言的）communication that came from Australia, particularly among aboriginal people. It was a wooden stick with designs and symbols on it. These objects were relayed by couriers（信使）among various tribes and thus functioned as a means of cross-cultural communication.
" Aboriginal" is a term that refers to those who are believed to be the first known people living in a particular place, and in this case, it is used to describe several subgroups of native Australians. Each group might have its own unique customs and language. They were often divided into tribes , so these groups needed a means to communicate. Message sticks were first invented for this purpose.
The stick itself was often made of the wood of native Australian trees. Messages were placed on the sticks using a variety of methods, including carving, painting or burning symbols onto the wood. The markings usually consisted of wordless symbols that had to be translated by the courier. The courier was thus usually a physically fit young man who had mental sharpness to properly convey message details.
Message sticks functioned as a neutral（中立的）area between tribes. Couriers were allowed to have safe passage, even if they came from an enemy land. Sometimes, the method of delivery consisted of a single courier carrying a message stick from tribe to tribe. Other methods had one tribe begin a passing process among tribes, with each tribe using its own courier to convey the message to the next tribe.
This object also has survived as part of Australian cultural celebrations. Some schools, for example, design and transport message sticks as a means of learning about the past, In addition, the term" message stick" is often used in Australian language as a reference to other communication forms such as newspapers or radio broadcasts.
1. For what purpose did aboriginal people use a message stick?| A．To learn from each other. |
| B．To show one tribe's power. |
| C．To show their designs and symbols. |
| D．To make communication across different tribes. |
| A．What " aboriginal" means. |
| B．Why message sticks were created. |
| C．What the customs of native Australians were. |
| D．How native Australians were divided into groups. |
| A．He would be let go. |
| B．He would be killed. |
| C．He would be greatly respected. |
| D．he would be driven out immediately. |
| A．'To learn aboriginal language. |
| B．'To learn about aboriginal history. |
| C．To refer to newspapers and the radio. |
| D．To communicate among themselves. |
6 . In 1947 a group of famous people from the art world headed by an Austrian conductor decided to hold an international festival of music, dance and theatre in Edinburgh. The idea was to reunite Europe after the Second World War.
It quickly attracted famous names such as Alec Guinness, Richard Burton, Dame Margot Fonteyn and Marlene Dietrich as well as the big symphony orchestras(交响乐团). It became a fixed event every August and now attracts 400,000 people yearly.
At the same time, the “Fringe” appeared as a challenge(挑战) to the official festival. Eight theatre groups turned up uninvited in 1947, in the belief that everyone should have the right to perform, and they did so in a public house disused for years.
Soon, groups of students firstly from Edinburgh University, and later from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Durham and Birmingham were making the journey to the Scottish capital each summer to perform theatre by little -- known writers of plays in small church halls to the people of Edinburgh.
Today the “Fringe”, once less recognized, has far outgrown the festival with around 1,500 performances of theatre, music and dance on every one of the 21 days it lasts. And yet as early as 1959,with only 19 theatre groups performing, some said it was getting too big.
A paid administrator(行政人员) was first employed only in 1971, and today there are eight administrators working all year round and the number rises to 150 during August itself. In 2004 there were 200 places housing 1,695 shows by over 600 different groups from 50 different countries. More than 1.25 million tickets were sold.
1. What was the purpose of Edinburgh Festival at the beginning?| A．To bring Europe together again. | B．To honor heroes of World War II. |
| C．To introduce young theatre groups. | D．To attract great artists from Europe. |
| A．They owned a public house there. | B．They came to take up a challenge. |
| C．They thought they were also famous. | D．They wanted to take part in the festival. |
| A．unpopular groups | B．non-official groups |
| C．foreign groups | D．local groups |
| A．has become a non-official event | B．has gone beyond an art festival |
| C．gives shows all year round | D．keeps growing rapidly |
7 . The Harlem Renaissance
The word “renaissance” means “rebirth”. The Harlem Renaissance took place during the 1920s. It was a time when the African American artistic community grew and flourished, producing a ton of work in a short period of time. The work celebrated African American culture and spoke to their experiences as minorities---both the good parts and the bad parts.
After the Civil War, many African Americans left the South to escape unfair treatment and laws that discriminated against them. Between 1910 and 1920, massive numbers of black Southerners moved from the rural south into the urban North and West in the Great Migration. The African American population of Chicago more than doubled during that time! And in New York, African Americans flocked to uptown Manhattan, setting in a neighborhood called Harem. Forming a community within the big city let African Americans keep their cultural identity in a white-dominated society. It was a good thing, and a lot of important cultural issues were brought to light during the Harlem Renaissance. One of the most important figures of the time was the African American writer, W. E.B Du Bois. In his book, The Souls of Back Folk, in 1903, Du Bois wrote that African Americans suffered from something called “double consciousness”. They had their own self-image while they saw themselves through the eyes of white Americans. And performers like Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson brought African American culture to all New Yorkers. The Renaissance was so influential that “Harlem” grew into something of a brand name
African Americans were pushing boundaries across all aspects of society. Black businesses began to flourish, creating a growing middle class, like Madame C.J. Walker, who tuned her cosmetics line into a million dollar empire. All together, the artists, and thinkers of this period helped mobilize the larger black population. Young African-Americans took advantage of improved access to higher education. This opened up new career paths and opportunities to attain advanced degrees. Perhaps most importantly, people---black and white---began the push for racial integration, planting the seeds of what would eventually become the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
1. Why did many African Americans leave the South after the Civil War?| A．To escape slavery | B．To find jobs in agriculture |
| C．To avoid racial discrimination | D．To gain citizenship |
| A．He led to movement to return to Africa |
| B．He composed folk music based on African American theme |
| C．He wrote plays about the African-American experience |
| D．He wrote about the struggle for African-American identity |
| A．Nearly all were unemployed at that time |
| B．The vast majority were considered lower class |
| C．Most were regarded as middle class |
| D．A large percentage were recognized as wealthy |
| A．Spread of black businesses | B．Access to higher education |
| C．Shift from agriculture to industry | D．Push for unity among all Africans |
8 . Living in a foreign culture can be exciting, but it can also be confusing(令人迷惑的). A group of Americans who taught English in other countries recently discussed their experiences. They found that miscommunication was always possible, even over something as simple as “yes” and “no”.
On her first day in Micronesia, an island in the Pacific, Lisa thought people weren’t paying any attention to her. The day was hot. She went into a store and asked, “Do you have cold drinks？” The woman there didn’t say anything. Lisa repeated the question. Still the woman said nothing. She later learned that the woman had answered her: She had raised her eyebrows(眉毛), which in Micronesia means “yes”.
Jan remembered an experience she had in Bulgaria, a country in Europe. She went to a restaurant that was famous for its cabbage. She asked the waiter, “Do you have cabbage today？” He nodded his head. Jan waited, but the cabbage never came. In that country, a nod means “no”.
Tom had a similar problem when he arrived in India. After explaining something in class, he asked his students if they understood. They answered with many different nods and shakes of the head. He thought some people had not understood, so he explained again. When he asked again, they did the same thing. He soon found out that his students did understand. In India, people nod and shake their heads in different ways depending on where they come from. You have to know where a person is from to understand whether they mean “yes” or “no”．
1. The Americans teaching English in other countries found that they ________.| A．had problems with communication | B．needed to learn foreign languages |
| C．should often discuss their experiences | D．should go abroad for vacations |
| A．nodding heads | B．raising eyebrows |
| C．shaking heads | D．saying “no” |
| A．he didn’t know where the students came from |
| B．he didn’t explain everything clearly enough |
| C．some students didn’t understand his questions |
| D．he did not know much about Indian culture |
| A．In Bulgaria, nodding heads means “no” |
| B．Jan taught English on a Pacific island. |
| C．Lisa was trying to buy some cabbage. |
| D．In India，only shaking heads means “yes”. |
9 . Ready to take a gap year？ A "Gap Year" is a period of time when a student takes a break before going to university. It is often spent travelling or working．
Gap years are popular with European and Australian students, but remain less popular in America. However, in recent years, more and more American students are preparing for college by taking a gap year. The advantages of taking a gap year are as follows：
Although you don't have to go abroad to experience gap years, most gap year students catch the chance to travel abroad. You are able to work out who you are and what you are for. The experiences of different cultures offer you interesting lessons. You can learn more about the world and get to know yourself better．
Face challenges and have fun
A gap year is not only a time to take a vacation, but also a time to face challenges. Gap year students usually work, volunteer or take service projects. You have to learn how to get along in the real world. This process isn't always easy, but it is an important part of growing up．
Save money and improve your college admission chances
There's a common thought that gap years are only for rich students, but it's not true. Actually, taking a gap year can save your money. Gap year students often take a part-time job. Besides, at the end of a gap year, students are much more likely to know what to study in college.
| A．Learn about the world and yourself |
| B．Only in this way can you enjoy life and have fun． |
| C．Check out your gap year choices before making the right decision． |
| D．It can give young people useful learning experiences and new skills． |
| E．Imagine an admission officer trying to admit only one between two students． |
| F．More students than ever before are taking a gap year before going to university． |
| G．Clear learning goals can keep the students working hard instead of wasting time and money playing． |
10 . Experts say there are about 6，500 languages spoken throughout the world.But the United Nations estimates that about half of these languages are in danger of disappearing.
One non-profit organization seeking to save world languages is a New York-based group called Wikitongues.Officials from Wikitongues say the organization has a simple goal:to provide the tools and support that people need to save their languages.
Udell is the co-founder of Wikitongues.He said when a language disappears，many other things can go away as well.For example，parts of a community’s culture，knowledge and identity can also be lost.Because of this.Udell believes the process of bringing languages back must be done by community members themselves，“from the ground up，”he said.
“There is no way an outside organization can save someone’s language for them.”
Wikitongues was launched in 2016 as an open internet collection of world languages.The self-described“community”is operated by volunteers from around the world.The collection is in the form of language videos that people add to the Wikitongues website.
There are currently more than 400 languages and dialects represented on Wikitongues’YouTube channel.Udell says more than 1,500 people from 70 different countries have added videos to the system.
“We have people from India who record dozens of languages，which is beyond their own.”he said.
One of Wikitongues’volunteers is Kolokwe，who lives in Namibia.His native language is Subiya，however，he does not get the chance to speak his native language every day.Like many other educated people from his area，he speaks a lot of English and Afrikaans.
Kolokwe is hoping his involvement with Wikitongues call help keep Subiya and other African languages from going extinct.He wants the world to know about his language.But his goal goes beyond just sharing his language with others through video.He is also working to create a dictionary and language teaching materials that can be used in schools.
1. What is tile result of languages disappearing?| A．People are uncertain about who they are. |
| B．All the customs and beliefs are still existing. |
| C．People can not communicate with each other. |
| D．The community becomes more independent. |
| A．It was founded by the United Nations. |
| B．Officials from it want to make money. |
| C．It contributes to saving languages. |
| D．1500 languages are uploaded on its website. |
| A．He has no chance to speak his native language. |
| B．He dislikes speaking English and Afrikaans. |
| C．He wants to stop his native language dying out. |
| D．He hopes to teach his language in school himself. |
| A．The majority of languages have been saved. |
| B．Wikitongues can save languages disappearing. |
| C．Internet plays a more important part than volunteers. |
| D．Only community members can save their own languages. |
