2024 is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar and it is the first time that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
Emperors in ancient dynasties were dressed in a Dragon Robe, a traditional silk-woven costume with dragon designs,
Contrary
In ancient Chinese belief, dragons
With the rising China Chic trend and the country’s booming cultural creative industry, the Chinese dragon in folktale is now
Whether it is through the hands of a national-level intangible (非物质) cultural heritage inheritor
2 . Every day people joined archaeologists and artists in finding some of the year’s most dramatic discoveries. Below are some examples of 2023.
“Naughty pupils”-ancient punishment method resurfaces
Archaeologists discovered 18,000 ink-carved pieces of pottery-known as “ostraca”—at the site of Athribis early this year, and among them were hundreds of fragments(碎片)with a single symbol repeated front and back.
Those scribbles(潦草的文字)are evidence of ‘naughty “pupils” being made to write lines, according to researchers a Germany’s University of Tuebingen. The fragments also included receipts, school texts, trade information and lists of names.
Van Gogh peers out in hidden portrait
There is one more known van Gogh’s self-portrait in the world, and it was hidden behind a painting of a peasant woman. People made the discovery when they took an X-ray of one of his portraits from 1885 and discovered the artist’s own image behind layers of cardboard and glue. While X-rays often reveal how artists-changed their compositions, the full self-portrait of van Gogh came as a huge surprise, who was known to reuse canvase(画布)to save money.
Another treasure collection from Sanxingdui
The Sanxingdui archaeological site has produced thousands of relics. The latest discovery, reported by Chinese state media in June includes 3,155 objects, a turtle shell-shaped box and a sacrificial altar among them. A team has been digging six places of the site, turning up more than 13,000 objects so far. Last year, the relics they uncovered included a golden mask, ivory artifacts(手工艺品)and a jade knife. The Sanxingdui culture still remains mysterious, as it left behind no written records or human remains, though many believe it to be part of the ancient kingdom of Shu, which ruled along the upper stream of the Yangtze River until it was conquered in 316 BC.
1. What led to the researchers’ conclusion about the fragments?| A．The repeated symbol. | B．Trade information. |
| C．Lists of pupils’ names. | D．The mark of ink. |
| A．To keep away from X-rays. |
| B．To save money. |
| C．To make his works more mysterious. |
| D．To help people find his composition. |
| A．A jade knife. | B．A golden mask. |
| C．A written record. | D．A turtle shell-shaped box. |
3 . Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed a Sphinx statue (狮身人面像) with a smiley face near the Hathor Temple, one of the country’s best preserved ancient sites. The smiling Sphinx is much smaller than the famous Sphinx in Giza, which is 20 metres high. The stone work of art, believed to be a stylized representation of an ancient Roman emperor, was found inside a two-level tomb near the temple in southern Egypt.
Next to the beautifully and accurately carved Sphinx, researchers had found a Roman stone written in hieroglyph (象形文字). Once fully translated, the stone may unveil the identity of the sculpted ruler, who could be Emperor Claudius.
The smiling Sphinx is among a series of discoveries announced over the past few months. The country has uncovered major archaeological discoveries in recent months, primarily in the Saqqara cemetery (墓地) south of Cairo as well as in Giza, home to the only surviving structure of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Recently, Egypt announced the discovery of a hidden nine-metre passage inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, which may lead to the actual burial room of pharaoh (法老) Khufu, or Cheops. Further south, in Luxor, archaeologists had discovered a 1,800-year-old complete residential city from the Roman times.
Hathor Temple, about 500 kilometres south of the capital Cairo, was home to the Dendera Zodiac, a heavenly map which has been displayed at the Louvre in Paris for more than a century. Since Frenchman Sebastien Louis Saulnier took it out of the temple in 1922, Egypt has been attempting to get it back.
Some experts see such announcements as having more political and economic weight than scientific, as Egypt is counting on tourism to revive its vital tourism industry in a severe economic crisis. The government aims to draw in 30 million tourists a year by 2028.
1. What do we know about the smiling Sphinx?| A．Its owner was confirmed as an ancient Roman ruler. |
| B．It has been the best-preserved Sphinx till now. |
| C．It is as high as 20 metres like the Sphinx of Giza. |
| D．It was discovered close to the Hathor Temple. |
| A．Reveal. |
| B．Seek. |
| C．Deny. |
| D．Maintain. |
| A．The diversity of cultural relics in Egypt. |
| B．The discoveries made recently in Egypt. |
| C．The status of the Great Pyramid of Giza. |
| D．The new discovery about pharaoh Khufu. |
| A．Scientific progress. |
| B．Political position. |
| C．Economic advance. |
| D．Cultural exchange. |
As the world’s longest man-made canal, the Grand Canal is a vast waterway system in the north-eastern and central-eastern plains of China,
The Grand Canal is a magnificent hydraulic (水利) project in human history.
The Grand Canal represents the
5 . Before humans stored memories as zeroes and ones, we turned to digital devices of another kind — preserving knowledge on the surface of fingers and palms.
When Mogao Caves was uncovered in 1900, an aging drawing was lifted from a trove of religious manuscripts. The drawing illustrates a mnemonic (助记符号) system, a way of projecting knowledge onto the hands so it can be studied, memorized, and stored in a pocket. Around the same time this mnemonic was made, a monk named Bede halfway around the world was developing a different system of manual knowledge. These two systems are perhaps the earliest examples of manual mnemonics.
Beginning roughly twelve hundred years ago, we started using the hand itself as a portable (便携的) place of knowledge, a place to store whatever tended to slip our mental grasp. The hand became an all-purpose memory machine.
In different times and places, hands provided mnemonic maps of sound. As early as the thirteenth century, Chinese scholars were projecting syllable charts (音节图表) onto the palms and fingers. The so-called “Guidonian hand” owes its name to the eleventh-century Italian music teacher, Guido d’Arezzo. Arranging the different pitches in a scale onto the joints, he developed this technique to help students learn “unheard melody most easily and correctly”. Other thinkers in Europe, perhaps inspired by Guido, developed systems for learning the sounds of language.
Then questions arise. First, what makes the hand so popular as a mnemonic prop? A large part of the answer, surely, involves portability. The hands are always, well, ready to hand. A further advantage stems from how hand mnemonics offer both visual and kinesthetic (动觉的) routes to memory: They are both seen and felt.
It’s also hard to determine when and why hand mnemonics faded out. Hand mnemonics are still used to teach the “right-hand rule” in physics classrooms and remain especially popular in medicine. Today, we increasingly store our “thoughts” in virtual realms (领域), but we sometimes still reach for that original “digital” repository (存储库) in our pockets.
1. What do we learn about the two earliest examples of mnemonics?| A．Bede made a hand mnemonic in Mogao Caves. |
| B．They are the same system of manual knowledge. |
| C．The drawing was uncovered on the fingers and palms. |
| D．The drawing from Mogao Caves illustrates a mnemonic system. |
| A．Human hands mapped sound charts. |
| B．Human hands played a role in sound mnemonics. |
| C．Guido helped his students learn unheard melody. |
| D．Scholars projected syllable charts onto the palms and fingers. |
| A．The hand is always available for use. |
| B．The hand can feel what people memorize. |
| C．Fingers can easily be marked with characters. |
| D．Hand mnemonics help memorize visible things. |
| A．Positive. | B．Pessimistic. | C．Uncertain. | D．Indifferent. |
Kite flying dated from China and became popular around the country. With a long history, it is considered as the
In the past, people fastened bamboo-made whistles onto a kite. While
In the 7th century, kite
Around the Qingming Festival, usually on early April, many people fly kites in public squares. The sky is dotted with kites of different
The traditional Chinese kite expresses harmony between human and nature, a long-held belief
7 . Walled Cities Of The World
There are numerous historical walled cities across the world, whose walls date back several centuries. These walls were fortification (碉堡), a necessity throughout medieval eras for defense. They have been preserved as historical monuments and popular tourist attractions in the modern time.
York, England
The city of York is a medieval city situated in the north of England. Historically, the city was ruled by the Romans, Angles, and the Vikings before being incorporated as part of the Kingdom of England in 954. Located in the city are walls built in 71 AD which have been restored and extended with time.
Xi’an, China
The city of Xian is one of the oldest cities in China. It prospered economically as the eastern last station of the Silk Road. The existing walls were originally built in 770 BC and reconstructed in the 14th century under the Ming Dynasty. The walls are well preserved and are a major tourist attraction in the city.
Quebec City, Canada
Quebec City was a colonial (殖民地的) town which was fortified by the settling Europeans. The walls began to be built in 1608 under both British and French regimes (政权). A fort was constructed by the British as an additional defensive measure and remains undamaged to date. The city’s fortifications were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
Mexico City, Mexico
Historically, the City of Mexico gained importance as the Aztec Capital. The Spanish then drove out the Aztecs and rebuilt it as the Spanish Capital. The walls protecting the city were built in 1521. Mexico City is also home to numerous colonial-era buildings which together with the walls are major tourist attractions in the city.
1. Which city has walls of the longest history?| A．York, England. | B．Xi’an, China. |
| C．Quebec City, Canada. | D．Mexico City, Mexico. |
| A．They were once colonies of other countries. |
| B．They were once the capital of the Aztec empire. |
| C．Their walls were once built under British regime. |
| D．Their walls were once damaged after construction. |
| A．Culture. | B．Entertainment. | C．Science. | D．Society |
The Silk Road was a network of trade routes
Many merchants (商人) along the Silk Road were involved in relay trade,
The Silk Road established
9 . The phrase Stolen Generation refers to the countless number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families under government policy and direction. This was active policy during the period from the 1910s into the 1970s, and arguably still continues today under the banner of child protection.
The removal of Indigenous (本土的) children was rationalized (合理化) by various governments by claiming that it was for their protection. A further reason used by the government of the day was that it was believed that “Pure Blood” Aboriginal people would die out and that the “Mixed Blood” children would be able to assimilate into (融合) society much easier, this being based on the prejudice that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were racially inferior to people with Caucasian (白人) background.
Once a child was removed from their family, they were forced to assimilate into the White Society. This included being forbidden to speak their traditional language or participate in any form of cultural practice or activity, and having to adopt new names and identities. Many of these children were informed that their families had either given them up or had died. For some of them, they developed a shame of their Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage and as they grew older and started their own families, they continued to hide their heritage from their family.
On the 13th February 2008, Kevin Rudd, the then Prime Minister of Australia, made an apology to the members of the Stolen Generation. Although the period known as the Stolen Generation technically ended in 1969, the effect of the Stolen Generation is still being felt by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples today. Many Aboriginal families have experienced inter-generational trauma (创伤). The Stolen Generation has resulted in traditional knowledge being lost as this knowledge was not able to be passed down to the next generation.
1. What does the underlined part “under the banner of” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．With the aid of. | B．With the intention of. |
| C．In the name of. | D．In the hope of. |
| A．They have succeeded in assimilating into the White Society. |
| B．They have failed to pass down their own tradition and heritage. |
| C．They had been abandoned by their families or had lost them. |
| D．They have forgotten the trauma caused by the removal policy. |
| A．The Indigenous children were racially secondary to Caucasians. |
| B．The removed children could keep their own original identities. |
| C．The government still denied what they did to the removed children. |
| D．Some removed children were not willing to reveal their heritage. |
| A．The Removal Policy | B．The Lost Children |
| C．The Stolen Generation | D．The Abandoned Children |
10 . The Roman Colosseum was built almost two thousand years ago. Despite its age and a 14th century earthquake that knocked down the south side, most of the 150-some foot building is still standing. Scientists and engineers have long suspected a key to the building’s durability (使用年限) is the use of a specific Roman concrete. But exactly how this solid concrete has contributed to the architecture’s strength has been a mystery to researchers across the globe.
A team of researchers recently discovered a potential answer to why these ancient Roman buildings have been able to weather the test of time while many modern concrete structures seem to fall apart after a few decades. The answer is self-healing concrete.
The material has three components: limestone (石灰石), volcanic material and water. What the researchers found was that the self-healing feature might be simply caused by chemistry accidentally. The limestone in the concrete is likely the secret.
When the ancient Romans made mortar (灰浆), they heated up the lime to turn it into a substance called “quicklime”. And, because they introduced water to the quicklime during mixing, the heat it produced set up a chemical foundation that could strengthen the concrete later. When tiny cracks start to form later, the quicklime stops them from becoming bigger. When it rains, the lime reacts with the water to recombine as various forms of calcium carbonate (碳酸钙), quickly filling the crack or reacting with the volcanic ash to “heal” the material.
For materials scientist Ainissa Ramirez, this new understanding of ancient Roman concrete is a welcome discovery. “This is one way that the material can be more environmentally friendly,” says Ramirez. “It’s sort of like a message in a bottle. The Romans made the material. We had to kind of figure out how they did it so that we can make better materials — and then, you know, in turn, be better protectors of our environment.”
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．The secret of Roman concrete has been revealed. |
| B．The Roman Colosseum was built in the 14th century. |
| C．The whole Roman Colosseum survived the earthquake. |
| D．Roman concrete is essential to the architecture’s strength. |
| A．Take. | B．Stand. | C．Avoid. | D．Fail. |
| A．The lime itself could fill the crack later. |
| B．The quicklime should be made on rainy days. |
| C．The chemical foundation could weaken the concrete. |
| D．Combining water and quicklime would produce heat. |
| A．People can be inspired to make greener materials. |
| B．The secret of Roman concrete is hidden in a bottle. |
| C．Roman concrete has greatly improved the environment. |
| D．Roman concrete is popular in making modern architecture. |
