1 . The Notting Hill Carnival is London’s biggest street festival and one of the most famous carnivals in the world. The carnival is an important cultural event for London’s Afro Caribbean community and celebration of multi-cultural British life.

Notting Hill Carnival takes place in London every August bank holiday. Bank holiday refers to a public holiday, for example Christmas Day. It is the most colourful and largest street event in the UK. The festival celebrates the traditions of the Afro-Caribbean community, who immigrated to England from the West Indies in the 1950s. They brought with them the Caribbean idea of the carnival, with colourful costumes, parades, steel bands and street dancing. The tradition to hold the carnival began in 1964 and it has taken place every year since then.

Preparations for the carnival start many months in advance. Costumes need to be made, and floats built, ready for the carnival street parades. Steel bands practise traditional Caribbean music on instruments built from used oil buckets. Just before the festival, the streets are decorated with yellow, green and red banners, and recording devices are set in place to carry the rhythmic sounds over the loud noise of the London traffic. The carnival is celebrated over three days, and is full of music and colour. Parades of steel and brass bands, floats, and dancers in colourful costumes make their way through the narrow London streets, watched by tens of thousands of people. The streets are lined with stands selling tropical fruits, such as fresh mangoes, watermelons and pineapples. Everyone in London dances—young and old, black and white—and even the policemen on duty take part in the fun. For these three days in August, a little Caribbean magic touches the streets of London.

1. What is the writer's main aim in writing the text?

A．To encourage people to celebrate the traditions of black people

B．To talk about problems with Afro-Caribbean community

C．To recommend people spend more time outdoors

D．To introduce and describe the Notting Hill Carnival

2. According to the passage, Notting Hill Carnival_______.

A．takes place every bank holiday

B．is held annually in August

C．is organized by the bank of England

D．is held at the beginning of July

3. During the Notting Hill Carnival, _______.

A．fruit stands are not allowed in the streets.

B．preparations start early in the morning

C．music and colour fill the streets of London

D．traffic is banned from the main shopping streets

4. What can we infer from the third paragraph?

A．The festival is popular with everyone in London.

B．Only Caribbean people take part in it.

C．It is gaining in popularity among the white in recent years.

D．The streets in London are filled with pop music.