1. According to the woman, how long are whales’ teeth today?
| A．About half a foot long. | B．Around a foot long. | C．Two feet long. |
| A．Five million years old. | B．Twelve million years old. | C．Thirteen million years old. |
| A．At the man's home. | B．On a beach. | C．In a museum. |
| A．He would like to go to Australia. |
| B．Animals were very different years ago. |
| C．He wishes he found something important. |
In Asia, especially the so-called “rice bowl” cultures of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, food is usually eaten with
Chopsticks are usually two long, thin pieces of wood or bamboo. They can also
Five thousand years ago, Chinese people probably cooked their food in large pots,
Some people think that the great Chinese scholar Confucius, who lived
Chopsticks are not used everywhere in Asia. In India, most people traditionally eat
3 . People have been painting pictures for at least 30,000 years. The earliest pictures were painted by people who hunted animals. They used to paint pictures of the animals they wanted to catch and kill. Pictures of this kind have been found on the walls of caves in France and Spain. No one knows why they were painted there, Perhaps the painters thought that their pictures would help them to catch these animals. Or perhaps human beings have always wanted to tell stories in pictures.
About 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians and other people in the Near East began to use pictures as kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs to represent things and ideas, and also to represent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kind of alphabet. The Egyptians used to record information and to tell stories by putting picture writing and pictures together. When an important person died, scenes and stories from his life were painted and carved on the walls of the place where he was buried. Some of these pictures are like modern comic strip stories. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the comic strip. But, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their way of writing simple. The ordinary people could not understand it.
By the year 1,000 BC, people who lived in the area around the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they used were very easy to write, and there were fewer of them than in the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter, represented only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this system and formed the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied the idea, and the Roman alphabet is now used all over the world.
These days, we can write down a story, or record information, without using pictures. But we still need pictures of all kinds: drawing, photographs, signs and diagrams. We find them everywhere: in books and newspapers, in the street, and on the walls of the places where we live and work. Pictures help us to understand and remember things more easily, and they can make a story much more interesting.
1. Pictures of animals were painted on the walls of caves in France and Spain because ________.| A．the hunters appreciated the pictures. |
| B．the painters advocated protecting animals |
| C．the painters had superb talent and imagination. |
| D．the pictures were considered helpful |
| A．The Egyptian signs later became a particular alphabet |
| B．The Egyptians liked to write comic strip stories |
| C．The Roman alphabet was developed from the Egyptian one. |
| D．The Greeks copied their writing system from the Egyptians |
| A．A magazine. |
| B．A travel journal. |
| C．A guidebook. |
| D．A science report. |
Chinese archaeologists announced Saturday
Covering 12 square km, the relics site,
The warm weather outside may look perfect for outdoor exercise. But for those
But are you familiar with the culture of afternoon tea ― its origins, what is included, and
While the tradition of drinking tea
In 1840, Anna Maria Russell, the
This pause for tea quickly became a fashionable social event.
6 . In the mid-1980s, a study compared mtDNA from people around the world. It found that people of African descent (后裔) had twice as many genetic differences from each other than as did others. Because mutations (基因突变) seem to occur at a steady rate over time, scientists were able to conclude that modern humans must have lived in Africa at least twice as long as anywhere else. They now calculate that all living humans descend from a single woman who lived roughly 150,000 years ago in Africa, “Eve”. If geneticists are right, all of humanity is linked to Eve through an unbroken chain of mothers. This Eve was soon joined by “Y-Chromosome (染色体) Adam”, the genetic father of us all, also from Africa. DNA studies have confirmed that all the people on Earth, with all their shapes and colors, can trace their ancestry to ancient Africans.
What seems certain is that at a remarkably recent date—probably between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago—one small group of people, the ancestors of modern humans outside of Africa, left Africa for western Asia, either by migrating around the northern end of the Red Sea or across its narrow southern opening.
Once in Asia, genetic evidence suggests, the population split. One group stopped temporarily in the Middle East, while the other commenced a journey which would last tens of thousands of years. Moving a little further with each new generation, they followed the coast around the Arabian Peninsula, India, and Southeast Asia, all the way to Australia. ''The movement was probably unnoticeable,'' says Spencer Wells. ''It was less of a journey and probably more like walking a little farther down the beach to get away from the crowd.''
Although archaeological evidence of this 13,000-kilometer (8,000-mile) migration from Africa to Australia has almost completely disappeared, genetic traces of the group that made the trip do exist. They have been found in the DNA of native peoples in the Andaman Islands near Myanmar, in Malaysia, and in Papua New Guinea, and in the DNA of nearly all Australian aborigines (土著). Modern discoveries of 45,000-year-old bodies in Australia, buried at a site called Lake Mungo, provide some physical evidence for the theories as well.
People in the rest of Asia and Europe share different but equally ancient mtDNA and mutations. The mutations which they possess show that most are descendants of the group that stayed in the Middle East for thousands of years before moving on. Perhaps about 40,000 years ago, modern humans first advanced into Europe.
1. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?| A．Mutations occasionally take place over time |
| B．Modern humans probably have only one ancestor. |
| C．Modern humans must have lived in Africa for a shorter time than anywhere else. |
| D．Scientists confirm all of humanity is linked to Eve with physical evidence . |
| A．Most of the migrants turned back into Africa. |
| B．They separated into two groups. |
| C．Most of the migrants moved directly into Europe. |
| D．They stayed in the Middle East for tens of thousands of years. |
| A．Discovery of human remains in Australia | B．DNA of people in Southeast Africa |
| C．DNA of immigrants to Australia | D．Discoveries from modern societies in Asia |
| A．Finding Y-Chromosome Adam | B．Who were the First Humans? |
| C．The Discovery of DNA in Africa | D．Migrating Out of Africa |
7 . Long before the arrival of Europeans on the Canadian prairie (the wide grasslands of what is now called Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba), the First Nations people lived in a harmonious relationship with their natural surroundings. Every item of their culture, from sewing needles to homes was from nature. Their homes were called teepees and were like large tents made from the skins of deer. These people are different tribes(部落) who travelled from place to place following the animals they hunted or the growth of the berries and fruits on the bushes and trees.
They had horses, although horses came to North America after escaping from the Spanish explorers who brought them here to explore the areas around Mexico and Texas. Boys and girls were both expert riders. They did not use saddles or reins or stirrups; they rode “bareback”. Their clothes were made from deer skins and buffalo( 水 牛 ) skins and decorated with the parts of other animals — tails from squirrels and gophers, quills from porcupines and the bones of birds.
These children of nature did not ever have to go to school. They did not have to study to get into a top college, nor did they have to worry about finding a job after graduation. This does not mean their life was easy. The winters were very long and very cold and there were sometimes wars between tribes. There were also the very great dangers involved in the buffalo hunt. Hunters rode at top speed beside the huge buffalo shooting arrows to bring them down. The chances of a buffalo turning suddenly or of falling off the horse were very great. We must remember that there were also no hospitals in those days.
Even so, the young people of the tribes must have enjoyed a very pleasant lifestyle: fishing and gathering berries in summer, hunting in the forests in the early morning, dancing around the fire at night and listening to the old people tell stories and legends from long ago.
1. What can we learn about the First Nations people?| A．They were tribes from Europe. |
| B．They largely depended on nature. |
| C．They stole horses from Spanish explorers. |
| D．They killed animals mainly for decorations. |
| A．Failing to find good jobs. |
| B．Big dangers from animal hunting. |
| C．Great chances of wars between tribes. |
| D．Going to school in long and cold winters. |
| A．To show the early settlers’ cruelty to animals. |
| B．To show the Canadians’ occupation of nature. |
| C．To present the wild life of early Canadian tribes. |
| D．To describe the happy life of young people of the tribes. |
A comforting cup of tea is an essential part of the day for hundreds of millions of people around the globe. Worldwide, three cups of tea
The art of tea extended to its fancy containers, which are
9 . The Globe was built in 1599 using timber from an earlier theatre, The Theatre, which had been built by Richard Burbage’s father, James Burbage, in Shoreditch in 1576. The first performance for which a firm record remains was Jonson’s Every Man out of His Humour — with its first scene welcoming the “gracious and kind spectators” — at the end of the year.
On 29th June 1613, the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of Henry VIII. A theatrical gun, set off during the performance, misfired, burning the wooden beams and straws. According to one of the few surviving documents of the event, no one was hurt except a man whose burning breeches (炮后膛) were put out with a bottle of ale. It was rebuilt in the following year.
Like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritans in 1642. It was pulled down in 1644, or slightly later — the commonly cited document dating the act to 15 April 1644 has been identified as false — to make room for other buildings.
A modern reconstruction of the theatre, named “Shakespeare’s Globe”, opened in 1997, with a production of Henry V. It is an academic approximation of the original design, based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings, and is located approximately 750 feet (230m) from the site of the original theatre.
1. How did the Globe Theatre begin to be on fire on 29 June 1613?| A．It was set fire to by a performer by design. |
| B．It caught fire by accident during a play. |
| C．A man put out breeches with a bottle of ale. |
| D．It was started by wooden beams and straws. |
| A．Time | B．Space | C．Importance | D．Flashback |
| A．James Burbage. | B．Every Man out of His Humour |
| C．Henry VIII. | D．Henry V |
| A．The popularity of the Globe Theatre. |
| B．The construction of the Globe Theatre. |
| C．The function of the Globe Theatre. |
| D．The history of the Globe Theatre. |
10 . It is well known to car drivers that red means “stop”, green means “go” and yellow means “hurry up and make that damn light”. Why those colors, though? The answer lies in the fact that the earliest traffic signals were designed for trains, not cars. They were red and green, gas-powered, and more than a little dangerous in the event of a leak.
Red is an inherited (继承的) symbol from railroads, which symbolizes danger in many cultures. As red has a longer wavelength than any other color on the visible spectrum (光谱), it can be seen from a greater distance than other colors. Red has meant “stop” since long before cars existed, with train signals’ use of red dating back to the days when mechanical arms lifted and lowered to indicate whether the rail ahead was clear.
Green’s wavelength is next to (and shorter than) yellow’s on the visible spectrum, meaning it’s still easier to see than any color other than red and yellow. Back in the early days of railway lights, green meant “caution”, while the “all-clear” light was, well, clear or white. It is said that several disastrous collisions happened after an engineer mistook stars in the night for an all-clear. Thus, green became “go”, and for a long time, railways used only green and red to signal trains.
From the earliest days of motoring up until mid-1900s, not all stop signs were red-many were yellow, because at night it was all but impossible to see a red stop sign in a poorly lit area. In 1950 the yellow stop-sign craze began in Detroit, a city that five years later installed its first electric traffic signal, which happened to include the very first yellow traffic light.
But what of those mysterious yellow stop-signs? As materials and technologies evolved, the ability to produce highly reflective signs meant that red could resume its natural spot in the sign hierarchy (层次体系，等级体系), leaving the still-highly-visible yellow to the domain (领域) of “caution”. That’s why school zones and buses, crosswalks, and other important warnings are yellow today.
1. What’s the main reason for the color red’s long being used to mean “stop”?| A．It has the longest wavelength on the visible spectrum. |
| B．It represents danger in many cultures. |
| C．It can be seen even in the dark area. |
| D．People prefer red to other colors. |
| A．The meaning of red is culture–specific. |
| B．Yellow functioned as stop signs in the 1900s. |
| C．Green’s wavelength is just second to that of red. |
| D．Green’s role in traffic lights has changed over time. |
| A．The significance of road traffic signs. |
| B．The history of railroad transportation. |
| C．The symbolic meaning of different colors. |
| D．The origin and development of traffic lights. |
