The word hutong was borrowed from the Mongolian word to mean, “water well”, about 700 years ago. Later it referred to a place
When the People’s Republic of China
Hutong that still exist are like oases (绿洲) of calm surrounded by the
2 . 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 |
Delicate, bright, and soft to the touch, the silk has passed the way throughout China’s history. No one can be
Like all kinds of art on the vast land of China, the style and texture (质地) of silk are also various. Hangluo from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, is known
Yunjin is best made by hand on large machines, in a complex procedure
In the Western Han Dynasty, with Zhang Qian
In the hands of Chinese artists, the thinnest string can make pictures of great possibilities and the
4 . Eating out seems to have been as popular 5,000 years ago as it is today, with archaeologists (考古学家) in Iraq uncovering an ancient tavern dating back to 2,700 BC. Researchers working in the ancient city of Lagash discovered that the pub, hidden just 19 inches below the surface, was split into an open-air dining area and a room containing benches, an oven, ancient food remains and even a 5,000-year-old “fridge”.
They initially found themselves in the open courtyard space, an area that was difficult to dig, being “open and exposed to the outdoors”, according to Reed Goodman, an archaeologist from the University of Pennsylvania. After returning to the mysterious courtyard a few months later, field director Sara Pizzimenti from the University of Pisa, widened the trench (沟渠) instead of digging straight down vertically in one spot.
The team then discovered the industrial-sized oven, an ancient “fridge” to keep food cool, and dozens of bowls, many containing fish remains, revealing the purpose of the courtyard to be an outdoor dining area.
Previous digs focused on religious architecture and understanding the elites (上层人士), but Holly Pittman, director of the Lagash Archaeological Project and curator of the Penn Museums Near East section, concentrated on non-elite areas during these latest digs to make people have a broader understanding of ancient cities. “Uncovering the tavern supports the perspective of Pittman and her team that society was not organized into just elites and enslaved people — the previous common view — but included an ancient middle class,” Goodman said.
The discovery provides insight into how people lived in this ancient city-state. It shows that even thousands of years ago, people enjoyed gathering in public places to socialize and enjoy food and drink.
1. What does the underlined word “tavern” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．City. | B．Pub. | C．Bench. | D．Container. |
| A．By broadening the trench in the courtyard. |
| B．By digging straight down vertically in one spot. |
| C．By making a hole in the middle of the outdoor space. |
| D．By splitting the open-air dining area into different parts. |
| A．It reveals the earliest settlers in Lagash. |
| B．It shows the social activities of the elites. |
| C．It reflects the life of the ancient non-elite class. |
| D．It focuses on studying religious architecture. |
| A．To share a travel experience. |
| B．To analyze a historical event. |
| C．To show the wisdom of ancient people. |
| D．To introduce an archaeological discovery. |
5 . Archaeologists in Germany have uncovered some of the earliest evidence of the use of clothing, with newly discovered cut marks on a cave bear’s paws suggesting the prehistoric animal was skinned for its fur some 300,000 years ago.
The discovery in Schöningen, northern Germany, is exciting because despite the written records of cave men and women covered in fur in some popular cultures, very little is truly known about how early humans clothed their bodies. Fur, leather and other organic materials typically can’t be preserved beyond 100,000 years.
“The study is significant because direct evidence of prehistoric clothing is scant and we know relatively little about how humans in the deep past were protecting themselves from cold winters. From this early time period, there are only a handful of sites that show evidence of bear skinning, with Schöningen providing the most complete picture,” said study author Ivo Verheijen from Tübingen University in Germany.
Cave bears were large animals, about the size of polar bears, that went extinct about 25,000 years ago. The cave bear’s fur, which has long outer hairs that form an airy protective layer, and short, dense hairs that provide good insulation (隔离), was suitable for making simple clothing or bedding.
The clothing in the site probably wrapped the human body without careful tailoring. The eyed needles needed to sew more excellent designs didn’t emerge in the archaeological record until about 45,000 years ago.
“We found the cut marks on the cave bear’s hands and feet where very little meat or fat is present on the bones, which argues against the cut marks originating from the butchering of the animal,” Verheijen said. “In these locations, the skin is much closer to the bones, which makes marking the bones inevitable when an animal is being skinned.”
The Schöningen site in Germany is most famous for the discovery of the oldest known wooden weapons that were used to kill prey 300,000 years ago.
But it’s still challenging to figure out exactly when ancient humans began wearing clothing. Genetic studies of lice (跳蚤) indicate that clothing lice separated from their human head louse ancestors at least 83,000 years ago and possibly as early as 170,000 years ago, which suggests humans were wearing clothes before major migrations out of Africa. Bone tools found in what’s now Morocco suggest that humans were processing animal skins 90,000 to 120,000 years ago.
1. What did archaeologists find in Schöningen?| A．Fur of a cave bear. | B．Bones with cut marks. |
| C．Pieces of prehistoric clothing. | D．Evidence of prehistoric hunting. |
| A．Not correct. | B．Not very much. |
| C．Not valuable. | D．Not clear enough. |
| A．To give an explanation. | B．To provide some examples. |
| C．To offer more details of the study. | D．To show the importance of the study. |
| A．Previous studies on human clothing. |
| B．The process of studying human clothing. |
| C．Other new discoveries of human clothing. |
| D．An unsolved mystery about human clothing. |
1. What will the woman take tomorrow morning?
| A．A history exam. | B．A history lecture. | C．A physics experiment. |
| A．Mr. Smith’s lectures. | B．The American society. | C．The American Civil War. |
| A．The lecture room. | B．The library. | C．The lab. |
7 . Dreams of world peace are as old as wars. But as the women of Wales were recovering from World War I, they demanded peace in droves.
Still sorrowing the husbands, sons, and loved ones who fought in the war, in 1923 the Welsh League of Nations United (WLNU) drafted a petition (请愿书) at Aberystwyth University calling for a warless world.
The petition was signed by roughly three quarters of all the women in Wales and was said to be seven miles long. The document was then packed in a large oak chest and sent across the Atlantic.
It was the WLNU’s hope that America would join in their mission for peace, and so they toured with the petition across the country before President Calvin Coolidge gave it to the Smithsonian for preservation.
As the centennial anniversary of World War I approached, a plaque was found in the archives at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff mentioning the petition, but nobody knew what it was, says Mererid Hopwood, chair of the Women’s Peace Petition Partnership.
So in 2017, an email was sent to the Smithsonian inquiring about the status and location of the chest and its petition.
Having arrived at the National Library of Wales on March 29 this year, Hopwood received it along with other members of the Peace Petition Partnership and described opening the chest and finally getting to see its contents (内容) as an emotional moment.
Hopwood is hoping more Welsh citizens will have similar experiences now that the petition has returned to its original home. The petition will be digitized, along with all signatures and addresses, so the public can view it online and see if their grandmothers or previous tenants of their homes signed 100 years ago.
Clearly the world has not yet achieved the petition’s great goals, but Hopwood said the signatures gave her hope.
1. What was the petition meant for?| A．A thirst for peace. | B．An end to WWI. |
| C．A fight for Wales. | D．A call for apology. |
| A．Most Welsh signed on the petition. | B．Welsh asked for Americans’ help. |
| C．Welsh women wished for peace. | D．Welsh women honored the war. |
| A．She could lead the petition. | B．Her hope for peace is on fire. |
| C．Welsh could be free of wars. | D．It would cause a big storm. |
| A．To memorise World War I. | B．To remind to value peace. |
| C．To prove Welsh bravery. | D．To inform reappearance of a petition. |
8 . The Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque complex in New Delhi is home to an ancient wonder of metal work — the Iron Pillar (柱) of Qutub Minar, which is very unusually resistant to rust (铁锈). This 1,600-year-old monument measures 7.21 meters tall, has a diameter of 41 centimeters and weighs about 6 tons.
Even though it has spent all that time outdoors, the Pillar of Qutub Minar shows almost no sign of rust damage. There was a time when many believed that the rust-resistant pillar was made out of some mysterious, non-earthly metal, while others believed that whoever made it used an extremely modern technique that was lost in the mists of time. That second theory is technically true, as metallurgists showed in a paper published in the journal Current Science.
R. Balasubramanian, co-author of the study, called the pillar “living evidence for the skill of metallurgists of ancient India”, explaining that the iron structure features a protective layer called “misawite” — a substance that forms a barrier between metal and rust. The formation of misawite is caused by the high phosphorus (磷) content in the iron.
While modern iron has a phosphorus content of under 0.05%, the iron that the Iron Pillar of Qutub Minar is made of contains as much as 1 percent phosphorus. According to Dr. Balasubramanian, instead of removing the phosphorus from the iron as workers do today to prevent the metal from breaking up, ancient people kept it in, and simply kept hitting the pillar hard with hammers to push the phosphorus from the core towards the surface. This kept the iron strong, and also led to the formation of the misawite barrier.
As is often the case with these ancient wonders, they can be easily harmed by humans. The pillar gained a reputation for bringing good luck to whoever managed to wrap their arms around the metal structure, and more and more people engaged in the practice over the years. But the misawite barrier is an extremely thin layer, so the practice has led to a visible discoloration of the pillar near its base. Luckily, authorities realized the danger and built a protective fence around the pillar.
1. What is a probable reason that the Iron Pillar of Qutub Minar can resist rust?| A．Its structure is extremely strong. |
| B．It contains some mysterious metal. |
| C．Its outside is covered with misawite. |
| D．It was made out of some non-earthly metal. |
| A．Important. | B．Ordinary. | C．Imperfect. | D．Dangerous. |
| A．To check its quality. |
| B．To remove phosphorus from the iron. |
| C．To push the phosphorus towards its surface. |
| D．To produce more phosphorus in the pillar’s core. |
| A．Improving its quality. |
| B．Making it more popular. |
| C．Bringing good luck to it. |
| D．Weakening its barrier layer. |
Niangao, a sweet rice cake, is a popular dessert eaten during the Spring Festival. It was originally used as an offering before it gradually became a Spring Festival food. The
10 . The Oldest Cookbooks from Libraries Around the World
Libro de arte coquinaria
The Library of Congress
The 15th-century Libro de arte coquinaria, or The Art of Cooking, is the work of Maestro Martino da Como. Martino was known for cooking for his employer. Along the way, he achieved fame as “the prince of cooks.” Martino’s work is significant for another reason too. In the 15th century, his recipes made up a major part of the world’s first printed cookbook, Platina’s De honesta voluptate et valetudine.
Shanjia Qinggong
The Harvard-Yenching Library
Harvard-Yenching owns a 17th-century copy of the Simple Offerings of Rural Households (Shanjia Qinggong). Containing over 100 recipes, Simple Offerings is probably the earliest surviving cookbook in Chinese. The author, Lin Hong, was a man of letters who lived in the Southern Song Dynasty. Lin evidently preferred vegetarian foods, as most of his recipes were plant-based.
Wushi Zhongkui lu
The Harvard-Yenching Library
Harvard-Yenching is also home to a 17th-century copy of the Cooking Manual of Madame Wu (Wushi Zhongkui lu), one of two surviving cookbooks by a Chinese woman before the 20th century. Unfortunately, few of Madame Wu’s personal details are known. Scholars guess that she lived in the larger Shanghai region during the Southern Song Dynasty. Madame Wu apparently had a weakness for sweets, as she devoted a full chapter of her cookbook just to desserts.
Complete Kitchen and Cellar Dictionary The Oslo Public Library
The Oslo Public Library, known as the Deichman Library, has a 1716 copy of the Complete Kitchen and Cellar Dictionary, written by the German writer Paul Jacob Marperger. It belonged to a Norwegian lawyer named Johan Fredrik Bartholin, who donated it to the city of Christiania (the former name for Oslo) in 1784. The book has been in the Deichman collection since it opened in 1785.
1. Who greatly contributed to the world’s first printed cookbook?| A．Lin Hong. | B．Paul Jacob Marperger. |
| C．Maestro Martino da Como. | D．Madame Wu. |
| A．Their authors were a man of letters. |
| B．They focused on plant-based recipes. |
| C．Their copies first appeared in Shanghai. |
| D．They were written in the Southern Song Dynasty. |
| A．Shanjia Qinggong. | B．Wushi Zhongkui lu. |
| C．Libro de arte coquinaria. | D．Complete Kitchen and Cellar Dictionary. |
