2 . Discoveries in Greenland indicate that Vikings ( 维 京 人) lived there for hundreds of years, trading with the European continent before they disappeared.     1     In 980 C.E., Erik the Red headed farther west when he was driven away from Iceland for some reason. He set sail for land that was visible west of Iceland. Three years later, he returned to Iceland and convinced hundreds of others to join him in settling in this new country. Some 25 boats set out for what Erik the Red had called Greenland.     2    

Settling in Greenland posed an enormous challenge. Shelter, food, and clothing were, of course, essential to survival. There were no trees large enough to produce wood for housing. These settlers had to build homes of driftwood, stone, and sod (草皮). The summer was too short to grow grain crops, so they farmed domesticated animals imported from Europe and mainly relied on secondary products, such as milk and cheese.     3     The settlers usually wore clothes made of the fur of wild animals.

At some point during the fourteenth century, Greenland’s climate grew colder. Glaciers (冰川) began moving slowly over the land, bringing with them a runoff of sand, mud, and stones. These things slowly robbed the settlers of valuable grassland.     4     Recent evidence shows that their diet shifted from land-based food to sea products. Like their relatives in Norway, the Vikings in Greenland tried to take advantage of the sea. Soon, the percentage of their food taken from the sea had risen to 80 percent.

    5     According to Danish archaeologist (考古学家) Jette Arneborg, they struggled to adapt to the increasingly difficult conditions. As the weather worsened, they may have abandoned their settlements and returned to Iceland.

A．Who were the Vikings?

B．Besides, they netted fish and hunted deer.

C．However, the Greenlanders learned to adapt.

D．Sports were also widely practiced by the Vikings.

E．Well, what became of these early settlers in Greenland?

F．Only 14 boats survived the seas, and about 450 people set foot ashore.

G．A central figure in this story was Erik the Red, who grew up in Iceland.

4 . For late 19th-century North Americans and Europeans, a display of tableware (餐具)could reveal much about someone’s social position, as the wealthy took great care to get different kinds of forks for everything. Before the 18th century, people of all classes usually ate with a knife and a spoon.

The fork’s path to the table was hard-won and slow. In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, forks were used for slicing food into pieces or lifting meat from a pot or fire.

Following a reduction in size, the fork appeared to have entered dining areas in the courts of the Middle East and Byzantine Empire by the eighth and ninth centuries, and became common among wealthy families there by the tenth century. Early in the 11th century, it appeared in various pieces of European art. In the late 11th century, St.Peter Damian from Ostia wrote about a Byzantine princess who used forks and regarded her dying of a disease as punishment for such “luxury”.

The fork’s slow conquest of Europe was carried out from Italy. Motivated by the same concerns for hygiene(卫生)，forks were bought by wealthy Britons，inspired by Queen Victoria, who regarded fork use as a sign of good manners.

The fork’s introduction to North America dates back to 1633, when John Winthrop, a founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was gifted a set of forks. The Industrial Revolution strengthened the fork’s presence on dining room tables as production of flatware became less expensive. Writing in 1896 inSocial Eriquere，Maud C. Cooke declared the fork had finally conquered the knife in America and “any attempt to give the knife importance at table is looked upon as an offense(冒犯)against good taste.”

1. What can we learn about forks from paragraph1?

A．They were used improperly in the 18th century.

B．They had many different types in the 19th century.

C．They were popular in Europe before the 18th century.

D．They led to North American’s rise in social position.

2. What was a function of forks in ancient Egypt?

A．To eat food.	B．To decorate tables.
C．To cut food.	D．To create works of art.

3. Who was against the use of forks?

A．St.Peter Damian.	B．Thomas Coryate.
C．Queen Victoria	D．Maud C.Cooke.

4. What marked the beginning of the fork’s introduction to North America?

A．The appearance of flatware

B．The start of the Industrial Revolution.

C．John Winthrop receiving forks as presents.

D．Maud C.Cooke writing Social Etiquette.

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填人1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Papermaking technology is one of the four great     1     (invention) in ancient China. Before it was invented, the Chinese people carved or     2    (write) characters on tortoise shells, animal bones, bamboo slices, wooden plates or thin tough silk. Tortoise shells, animal bones and wooden plates were too heavy to use while silk was too expensive.

Till the Eastern Han Dynasty an official named Cai Lun created a kind of paper,    3     (use) bark (树皮) along with old fishnets, rags and hemp waste.     4     paper was suitable for writing and was also very cheap, so it became very popular. Therefore, Cai Lun’s contribution    5     the papermaking was great.

After the Eastern Han Dynasty, the papermaking technology was gradually improved. And then other materials such as bamboo and straw could also be used to make paper. Due to different material various types of paper were produced for different uses. For example, the Xuan paper     6    (make) in Xuanzhou of Anhui Province belonged to the high-quality paper     7    (special) adapted for use in Chinese calligraphy (书法) and painting.

Later, the technology     8    (introduce) to many countries. The invention of paper provides a more     9    (convenience) way for the storage and communication of information,    10     it also has great significance on the development of global civilization.

7 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

The Sanxingdui Ruins, in the city of Guanghan, is one of the     1     (important) ancient remains not only in China but all over the world. It is about 40 kilometers from Chengdu in Sichuan Province.

The Sanxingdui Ruins is best known for     2     (it) rich cultural content, large size, and the length of time it has been standing since it     3     (create). The Sanxingdui Ruins is made up    4     several large relic areas that are considered as the largest ancient Shu cultural relic sites in Sichuan Province,     5     (total) extending 12 square kilometers.

According to     6     the experts were able to find, the Sanxingdui Ruins housed actual life about 2,800 to 4,800 years ago, which means the people     7     (live) behind the mysterious Ruins were during the late Neolithic (新石器时代的) age. While you are visiting the Sanxingdui Ruins, the highlight (最精彩的部分) will be the very unique Sanxingdui Museum in the northeastern part of the Ruins. The museum     8     (cover) a total area of 200,000 square meters and has lots of modern equipment. The government spent over 30 million yuan on the     9     (construct) of the museum, creating     10     simple but very solemn (庄严) style.

9 . Scientists have solved a puzzle about modern humans, after research showed that a famous skull of a human ancestor found in South Africa is a million years older than experts thought. This discovery has changed what we know of human history.

The skull, which scientists have named “Mrs Ples”, is from an ape-like human relative from a species called Australopithecus africanus (南方古猿). It was found near Johannesburg in 1947 and, based on evidence from its surroundings, was thought to be between 2. 1 and 2. 6 million years old. This puzzled scientists, because although Mrs Ples looks like a possible early ancestor of early humans, the first true humans had already evolved by the time she apparently lived. For this reason, scientists had decided that Australopithecus afarensis, a similar species from East Africa that lived about 3.5 million years ago, was our most likely ancestor instead.

To get a more accurate age for Mrs Ples, a team led by Professor Darryl Granger of Purdue University in Indiana, US, used a new method to date the sandy rocks where the skull lay. They measured the amount of certain chemicals in rocks, which form at a steady rate when they are exposed to cosmic rays (宇宙射线) on Earth’s surface. Once rocks are buried, these chemicals stop forming and slowly disappear;the surviving amount reveals how much time has passed since the rock (or bones) were on the surface.

The new study shows that Mrs Ples and other australopithecine bones nearby are between 3.4 and 3.7 million years old. This means they lived at the same time as their East African relatives, so that either group could have given rise to modern humans. However, team member Dr Laurent Bruxelles pointed out that over millions of years, at only 2,500 miles away, these groups had plenty of time to travel and to breed with each other. In other words, the groups could quite easily have met, had children together and both been part of the history of modern humans.

1. What can we learn about Mrs Ples from the first two paragraphs?

A．It is a skull found in East Africa.

B．It is the most possible ancestor of humans.

C．It is a million years older than scientists expected.

D．It is proved to live between 2.1 and 2.6 million years ago.

2. How did scientists get the accurate age of “Mrs Ples”?

A．By studying the effect of cosmic rays.

B．By calculating the forming rate of chemicals.

C．By locating the sandy rocks where the skull lay.

D．By measuring the surviving amount of chemicals.

3. What can we infer from the new study?

A．Modern humans came into being in East Africa.

B．Mrs Ples travelled and had children with East African relatives.

C．The history of modern humans might begin 3.5 million years ago.

D．Ape-like species from Africa could have interacted with each other.

4. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A．Historical Puzzle Unsolved	B．Ancestor Mystery Solved
C．Mrs Ples: The Earliest Human Being	D．Mrs Ples: A Famous Skull

10 . Four Historic American Theatres

Today, theatres remain a key part of a city’s lifeblood. The following are four historic theatres in America.

Pantages Theatre, Minneapolis, MN

The Pantages Theatre, which now seats 1,014, opened in 1916 as part of Alexander Pantages’s well-known group of theatres. It was designed by the local firm Kees and Colburn. In 1922, the theatres was rebuilt by Scottish theatres architect Benjamin Marcus Priteca. After going through several owners, in 1984, it was closed and remained unopened until 1996. Some theatre supporters had it repaired and improved, resulting in its reopening in 2002.

Saenger Theatre, New Orleans, LA

New Orleans’s Saenger Theatre was built two years before the Great Depression, in 1927, and cost a then unheard-of $ 2.5 million. It was designed by Emile Weil, featuring a 15th-century Florentine courtyard and gardens, and Greek and Roman statues. Although the theatre was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, after a $ 53 million renovation (修葺), it reopened in 2013.

Thalian Hall, Wilmington, NC

Thalian Hall has been in almost continuous use since its opening in 1858. It is the only surviving theatre designed by John Montague Trimble, one of America’s foremost 19th-century theatre architects, and originally housed the town government, a library, as well as an “Opera House”, seating 1, 000 people. Some repairs in 1909 led to the removal of the side balconies and the installation of electric stage lights.

Providence Performing Arts Center, Providence, RI

It was originally opened as a movie palace in 1928, and the silent movies it showed were accompanied by a $ 90, 000 Robert Morton organ. After several decades, the theatre suffered from the increased popularity of television, as well as damage by two hurricanes. Over the past decade and a half, it has undergone extensive renovations and modernization.

1. What can we know about the Pantages Theatre?

A．It has a seating capacity of 1, 916.	B．It will be turned into a movie house.
C．It was designed by Alexander Pantages.	D．It was once shut down for over a decade.

2. Of the following theatres, which is the oldest?

A．Pantages Theatre.

B．Saenger Theatre.

C．Thalian Hall.

D．Providence Performing Arts Center

3. What do the listed theatres have in common?

A．They went through major renovations.

B．They were hit by terrible natural disasters.

C．They were built by American theatre architects.

D．They belong o Alexander Pantages’s group of theatres.