The Yellow Crane Tower is one of the Four Great Towers of China.
2 . A letter written by Charles Darwin in 1875 has been returned to the Smithsonian Institution Archives(档案馆)by the FBI after being stolen twice.
“We realized in the mid-1970s that it was missing,” says Effie Kapsalis, head of the Smithsonian Institution Archives. “It was noted as missing and likely taken by an intern(实习生), from what the FBI is telling us. Word got out that it was missing when someone asked to see the letter for research purposes, and the intern put the letter back. The intern likely took the letter again once nobody was watching it.”
Decades passed. Finally, the FBI received a tip that the stolen document was located very close to Washington, D. C. Their art crime team recovered the letter but were unable to press charges because the time of limitations had ended. The FBI worked closely with the Archives to determine that the letter was both authentic and Smithsonian’s property.
The letter was written by Darwin to thank an American geologist, Dr. Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, for sending him copies of his research into the geology of the region that old become Yellowstone National Park.
The letter is in good condition, despite being out of the care of trained museum staff for so long. “It was luckily in good shape,” says Kapsalis, “and we just have to do some minor things in order to be able to unfold it. It has some glue on it that has colored it slightly, but nothing that will prevent us from using it. After it is repaired, we will take digital photos of it and that will be available online. One of our goals is to get items of high research value or interest to the public online.”
It would now be difficult for an intern, a visitor, or a thief to steal a document like this.
“Archiving practices have changed greatly since the 1970s,” says Kapsalis, “and we keep our high value documents in a safe that I don’t even have access to.”
1. What happened to Darwin’s letter in the 1970s?| A．It was recovered by the FBI. | B．It was stolen more than once. |
| C．It was put in the archives for research purposes. | D．It was purchased by the Smithsonian Archives. |
| A．They proved its authenticity. | B．They kept it in a special safe. |
| C．They arrested the suspect immediately. | D．They pressed criminal charges in vain. |
| A．The evolution of Yellowstone National Park. | B．His cooperation with an American geologist. |
| C．Some geological evidence supporting his theory. | D．His acknowledgement of help from a professional. |
| A．Reserve it for research purposes only. | B．Turn it into an object of high interest. |
| C．Keep it a permanent secret. | D．Make it available online. |
3 . The Three Kingdoms Period played an important part in Chinese history.
| A．The fairies agreed |
| B．So the fairies had to fly up to heaven shyly |
| C．Not willing to lose the city, Guan thought hard and then an idea occurred to him |
| D．Here is a legend where the ‘Jiunu Zhuo’ (Nine Girls Mound) beside the city gate originates |
| E．Jingzhou, as the focus of quarrels then, has left many cultural relics that are related to the stories of Three Kingdoms |
| A. to see B. was built C. that D. which E. its F. kindness G. but H. poorly I. asking J. on |
If you’re in Wuhan, an absolute must-see is the Yellow Crane Tower. Regarded as one of the Four Great Towers of China, the tower stands on the banks of the Yangtze River at the top of Snake Hill. It is very beautiful and
According to legend, Yellow Crane Tower
5 . 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。
Yu Rong, a famous artist (艺术家), thinks of a new way to introduce the ancient story of Hua Mulan (花木兰) in her picture book. In the book, I Am Hua Mulan, she tells the story by
Hua Mulan
To better tell the story, Yu Rong draws inspiration from her several (几次)
注意：1.词数 150 左右；
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：打磨burnish
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7 . Artist Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell clearly remembers the day in high school when the teacher asked her to write about her family history. She saw that it was impossible to answer the questions “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?”
Nzinga Terrell told VOA about her childhood memories.“So the white kids were able to get up and talk about hundreds of years of their background. And there was me and one other black kid in the class who could go back to a plantation in Virginia and that’s it.” She talked about her family’s history. “My people were brought here on the bottom of a ship. And they were sold and they were re-named.My dad’s side of the family took the last name of the job that they had,which is butlers. My mom’s side of the family took the last name of the plantation that owned them.”
Today,she and her husband, artist James Terrell, explore that identity in their work. Their new exhibit of paintings is called “Born at the Bottom of the Ship.” The show recently opened at the Center for the Arts in Manassas, Virginia.
Over the generations, Africans became African Americans with a new culture, and Nzinga Terrell includes different parts of that story in her art. There are things that look like African cloth and design and things that make you think of American culture and clothing.
James Terrell’s style is more abstract. “Mami Wata”, the first painting visitors see in the new exhibit, shows a woman rising from the ocean. Terrell explains the painting.“Mami Wata is a goddess of the sea...There’s no light going through;there’s not a lot of colour being seen, as opposed to the other ones. So, it’s just showing the time of the slaves being brought to America.”
But the artist says he also likes to play with colour.Growing up, Terrell attended a church with coloured glass in many windows. Because of that experience, he learned how light goes through the windows. He makes lines in his painting that look like the lines between pieces of coloured glass in the church windows.
Terrell’s works show how he sees himself as an African American. Visitors to the art exhibit say they see themselves and their family members in the works.
1. When young,Nzinga Terrell’s memory of her family dates back to .| A．the time when the slaves were sold and re-named |
| B．the time when she was born at the bottom of a ship |
| C．the time when the black slaves were brought to America |
| D．the time when her family worked on a plantation in Virginia |
| A．It was named after a plantation. |
| B．It was named after their owner’s name. |
| C．It was named after the job the family did. |
| D．It was named long ago after a place in Africa. |
| A．It’s typical of native American style. |
| B．It reflects a dark time of the black slaves. |
| C．It’s abstract with rich and bright colours. |
| D．It describes a church James once attended. |
| A．Strange. | B．Curious. |
| C．Depressed. | D．Moved. |
8 . 200,000 miles from Earth, the crew of the third manned mission to the Moon faced an astronaut’s worst nightmare: an explosion on the spacecraft. It’s what happened in the Oscar-winning film Apollo 13, but it’s also a true story.
The lift-off of Apollo 13 took place on 11th April 1970. Two days into the mission, the three-man crew were in big trouble. They had been carrying out routine checks when there was a loud bang. Warning lights were starting to flash. Looking out into space, they could see a trail of gas — the spacecraft was leaking oxygen. They sent out a short message to the scientists back on Earth: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” At first, they thought that a meteor (流星) had hit them, but they later found out that a short circuit had caused an oxygen container to explode. Whatever the cause, they knew there was no time to lose. Their electricity supply in the command module (指令舱) depended on that oxygen and pretty soon they would run out of both.
The only solution was to move into the lunar module — the section of the spacecraft that would have landed on the Moon. Now though, they were using it as a kind of lifeboat. With its own power supply, oxygen and water, the three men could survive in the lunar module and return to Earth. There was another problem though. In an enclosed space like a lunar module, the carbon dioxide the crew was breathing out was dangerous. The equipment to clear the air of carbon dioxide was only built for two people. Now it had to deal with three. Amazingly, the crew managed to build an adapter out of materials onboard to reduce the carbon dioxide to a safe level.
There was one final hindrance. The lunar module wasn’t strong enough to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere so the crew had to go back into the damaged command module. To everyone’s relief, the crew of Apollo 13 arrived safely in the South Pacific Ocean on April 17th. Although the crew didn’t land on the Moon, NASA still considered the mission a success.
1. What was the astronauts’ first reaction to the explosion?| A．They went out to land on the Moon. | B．They informed scientists on Earth. |
| C．They moved into the lunar module. | D．They looked into the cause of the explosion. |
| A．By moving back to the command module. | B．By lowering the carbon dioxide level. |
| C．By creating a new oxygen supply. | D．By limiting the oxygen use. |
| A．Surprise. | B．Mission. | C．Obstacle. | D．Circumstance. |
| A．A Successful Mission | B．An Amazing Adventure |
| C．Deep Space Exploration | D．Life-and-Death Drama in Space |
9 . Hundreds of years ago, a Roman army came north from England to make war on Scotland. The Scots, a brave people, love their country. They fought hard to drive the enemy out of Scotland. But there were too many of the Romans. It looked as if the Romans would win.
One night, the leader of the Scots marched his soldiers to the top of a hill. “We will rest here tonight, my men,” he said, “Tomorrow we will fight one more battle. We must win, or we will die.”
They were all very tired so they ate their supper quickly and fell asleep. There were four guards on duty, but they were very tired, too, and one by one, also fell asleep.
The Romans were not asleep. Quickly they gathered at the foot of the hill. Slowly they went up the hill. Closer they came to the sleeping Scots. They were almost at the top. A few minutes more the war would be over. Suddenly, one of them put his foot on a thistle (蓟). He cried out and his sudden cry woke the Scots. In a minute, they were on their feet and ready for a battle. The fighting was hard, but it did not last long. The Scots wiped out the Romans and saved Scotland.
The thistle is not a beautiful plant. It has sharp needles all over it. Few people liked it. But the people of Scotland liked it so much that they made it their national flower.
1. At first it looked as if the Romans would win because ________ .| A．the Scots were not brave. | B．the Roman army was so strong. |
| C．the Scots did not have a good leader. | D．the Romans had the support from the Scottish. |
| A．began to fight the Romans hard. |
| B．stood up without putting on their shoes and began to fight. |
| C．woke and rose immediately, ready to fight. |
| D．put their feet into their shoes at once and were ready to fight. |
| A．they were too tired to sleep well. | B．one of the guards pretended to sleep. |
| C．one of the Romans stepped on a thistle and let out a cry. | D．because the Romans got too close and they discovered them. |
| A．is lovely, though not beautiful. | B．gave them happiness. |
| C．is a kind of useful plant. | D．helped the Scots in wiping out the Romans. |
10 . In the winter of 1664-65, a bitter cold fell on London in the days before Christmas. Above the city, an unusually bright comet (彗星) shot across the sky, exciting much prediction of a snow storm, Outside the city wall, a woman was announced dead of a disease that was spreading in that area. Her house was locked up and the phrase “Lord Have Mercy On Us” was painted on the door in red.
By the following Christmas, the virus that had killed the woman would go on to kill nearly 100,000 people living in and around London—almost a third of those who did not flee.
In The Great Plague (瘟疫), historian A.Lloyd Moote and microbiologist Dorothy C.Moote provide a deeply informed account of this plague year. Reading the book, readers are taken from the palaces of the city’s wealthiest citizens to the poor areas where the vast majority of Londoners were living, and to the surrounding countryside with those who fled. The Mootes point out that, even at the height of the plague, the city did not fall into chaos. Doctors, nurses and the church staff remained in the city to care for the sick; city officials tried their best to fight the crisis with all the legal tools; commerce continued even as businesses shut down.
To describe life and death in and around London, the authors focus on the experiences of nine individuals. Through their letters and diaries, the Mootes offer fresh descriptions of key issues in the history of the Great Plague: how different communities understood and experienced the disease; how medical, religious, and government bodies reacted; how well the social order held together; the economic and moral dilemmas people faced when debating whether to flee the city; and the nature of the material, social, and spiritual resources supporting those who remained. Based on humanity, the authors offer a masterful portrait of a city and its residents attacked by—and daringly resisting -unimaginable horror.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．A comet always follows a storm. | B．London was prepared for the disease. |
| C．London was under an approaching threat. | D．The woman was the beginning of the disease. |
| A．The cit remained organized. | B．The people tried a lo in vain. |
| C．The plague spared the rich areas. | D．The majority fled and thus survived. |
| A．They were famous people in history. | B．They all managed to survive the plague. |
| C．They united by thinking and acting as one. | D．They provided vivid stories of humanity in the disaster. |
| A．To record an epidemic. | B．To introduce a book. |
| C．To report a new survey. | D．To correct a misunderstanding. |
