1. Why did the young worker hide the skull?
| A．He wanted to keep it safe. | B．He wanted to sell it later. | C．He wanted to do research on it. |
| A．In 1978. | B．In 2018. | C．In 2021. |
| A．The location where it was found. |
| B．The dragon-like features. |
| C．The name of its finder. |
| A．Heilongjiang. | B．Hebei. | C．Shaanxi. |
The Confucian Analects or The Analects (论语) is a collection of the sayings and teachings of Confucius and his disciples (门徒). It
The present-day analects is based on the Lu version compiled during the Han Dynasty and contains
Apart from ren, Confucius put forward another concept, which is yi or righteousness. Yi is the codes of conduct under the
3 . The TV dramas concerning the unique Empress of China are always hot among audiences. Actresses who play the role of Empress Wu Zetian, are indeed all beauties. What did Wu Zetian, China’s only female emperor, look like in real life? Let’s explore the possibilities.
The famous Chinese scholar Guo Moruo researched this, and he thought that an empress in a painting by Tang Dynasty painter Zhang Xuan is Wu Zetian. Zhang left many famous paintings, such as Paintings of Lady of Guoguo on a Spring Outing of the Tang Dynasty, Court Ladies Preparing Newly-Woven Silk and Lady of Wei. It is guessed that Zhang Xuan was a court painter and had met Wu Zetian before, so the portrait by him is quite reliable.
Another frequently seen image of Wu Zetian is the block-painted edition of Images of Ancient People in History, created in 1498, during the government of Emperor Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty. However, as the painting was recreated by Ming people, it is not very reliable and possibly a portrait born out of imagination.
There are also many stone statues of Empress Wu Zetian, and the most ancient one is now at her birthplace, Guangyuan in Sichuan province. The statue is said to be very close to the real appearance of Wu Zetian. When Empress Wu Zetian came into power, she built many temples and Buddha statues. Many Buddha statues in the Longmen Grottoes in today’s Luoyang in Henan province were constructed during her reign. Among them, a large Vairocana Buddha in Fengxian Temple is considered to be a “portrait” of Wu Zetian at 44 years old. The Buddha has characteristics of an oriental beauty’s face and is honored as the most beautiful Buddha in the world. At 17.14 meters high, the face of the Buddha looks pretty and has a mysterious smile. Wu Zetian funded the statue’s construction and took part in the consecration(神圣)ceremony when it was completed. Ancient people assumed that the statue was a vivid portrait of Empress Wu Zetian.
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．A discussion about what Empress Wu Zetian looked like. |
| B．A brief introduction to Empress Wu Zetian. |
| C．why many stone statues were built. |
| D．The development of people’s ideas about Wu Zetian’s apprearance. |
| A．Because there are too many puzzling possibilities. |
| B．Because even the famous Chinese scholar Guo Moruo researched this. |
| C．Because Wu Zetian is the only female empress in Chinese history. |
| D．Because it is human to be curious. |
| A．How and why ancient people made stone statues resembling Wu Zetian. |
| B．Different stone statues assumed close to the appearance of Wu Zetian. |
| C．The development of Buddha statues resembling Wu Zetian. |
| D．The reason why Buddha statues were built during Wu’s government. |
| A．Wu Zetian admired Buddhism. |
| B．The empress portrayed by Zhang Xuan is Wu Zetian. |
| C．Images of Ancient People in History was created during Wu’s government. |
| D．People now assume Vairocana is an vivid portrait of Wu Zetian. |
1. Why was the Mesa Verde National Park built?
| A．To attract more visitors. |
| B．To earn money. |
| C．To protect the culture of ancient Native Americans. |
| A．English. | B．Spanish. | C．French. |
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. |
| A．The Wetherill family. |
| B．Richard Wetherill. |
| C．Richard’s brother-in-law. |
5 . Imagine an albatross (信天翁) with a hacksaw for a mouth. Set that strange creature about 50 million years in the past and you’ve got the image of a pelagornithid, a group of ancient birds that included some of the largest flying birds of all time.
Now paleontologists (古生物学家) have uncovered in that group what may be the largest known flying birds ever, with wingspans of roughly six meters. By comparing a pair of polar fossils ( 化 石 ) to the remains of related birds, paleontologists have been able to identify the early history of huge fliers that were some of the first birds capable of flying across seas.
During the 1980s, University of California Berkeley paleontologist Peter Kloess says, scientists searching for Antarctic fossils found some delicate bird bones — a jaw and part of a foot from an ancient bird. Those bones made a long journey to California, and Kloess and his colleagues have researched them recently
The bird jaw, which came from a rock formation laid down over 37 million years ago, looks almost like a woodcutting tool rather than a bone. The jaw has a series of large and small spikes (尖刺), outgrowths of the beak (鸟喙) that are similar to teeth. Because of that feature, the paleontologists immediately identified the jaw as belonging to a pelagornithid, also known as bony-toothed birds that have a very long fossil record. The oldest pelagornithids evolved about 56 million years ago, and the most recent flew through the skies about two million years ago.
The foot bone came from another large Antarctic pelagornithid, but its real importance was in its age. The fossil was found in a rock layer in the La Meseta Formation, about 50 million years old. This falls within a time called the Eocene, when life had recovered from the asteroid-induced mass extinction and was thriving again. Together, the foot bone and the jaw indicate that large bony-toothed birds thrived in the Antarctic for millions of years.
Paleontologists have found bony-toothed birds from places all over the world, from New Zealand to South Carolina. The newly-described Antarctic fossils, though, are the oldest known and hint that these birds quickly diversified into a range of sizes within six million years of their origin. Previous studies have calculated that the largest of the bony-toothed birds could be near the limit of how big a bird could get and still fly, meaning these birds are the strongest competitors for the largest flying birds to ever fly.
Matched with the new data on the age of the fossils, Kloess says, “we can say that giant pelagornithids appeared earlier than previously known and that Antarctica saw a range of pelagornithid sizes from the early to late Eocene.” Small to large, bony-toothed birds were an important part of ancient Antarctic ecosystems.
Those impressive wings would have allowed the pelagornithids to range far and wide, flying long distances on outstretched wings. That helps explain why fossils from various species of pelagornithids have been found all over the world during their extended evolutionary period.
1. Why does the author mention the albatross in Paragraph 1?| A．To show its long evolutionary process. |
| B．To help readers imagine an ancient bird. |
| C．To compare it with a strange ancient bird. |
| D．To show its relationship with an ancient bird. |
| A．Its special location. | B．Its unique appearance. |
| C．Its living environment. | D．Its extremely large size. |
| A．They all had a very short lifespan. |
| B．They all faced considerable threats. |
| C．They developed many survival skills. |
| D．They evolved into various bird species. |
| A．A recent research into Antarctic fossils. |
| B．A brief introduction to rare bird species. |
| C．The discovery of the largest flying birds. |
| D．The origin of ancient bony-toothed birds. |
The classical gardens of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, date back to the 6th century
Built in the 11th century on the site of an
The classical gardens of Suzhou
7 . In 1888 an Egyptian farmer digging in the sand near the village of Istabl Antar uncovered a mass grave. The bodies weren't human. They were feline-ancient cats that had been mummified（木乃伊化的）and buried in holes in astonishing numbers. "Not one or two here and there", reported English Illustrated Magazine, "but dozens, hundreds, hundreds of thousands, a layer of them, a layer thicker than most coal joints, ten to twenty cats deep." Some of the linen-wrapped cats still looked presentable, and a few even had golden faces. Village children peddled the best ones to tourists for change; the rest were disposed of as fertilizer. One ship transported about 180,000, weighing some 38, 000 pounds, to Liverpool to be spread on the fields of England.
Those were the days of generously funded explorations-that dragged through acres of desert in their quest for royal tombs, and for splendid gold and painted masks to decorate the estates and museums of Europe and America. The many thousands of mummified animals that turned up at religious sites throughout Egypt were just things to be cleared away to get at the good stuff. Few people studied them, and their importance was generally unrecognized.
In the century since then, archaeology has become less of a treasure hunt and more of a science. Archaeologists now realize that much of their sites' wealth lies in the majority of details about ordinary folks-what they did, what they thought, how they prayed. And animal mummies are a big part of that.
"They're really displays of daily life," says Egyptologist Salima Ikram. After peering beneath bandages with x-rays and cataloguing her findings, she created a gallery for the collection-a bridge between people today and those of long ago. "You look at these mummified animals, and suddenly you say, "Oh, King So-and-So had a pet". I have a pet. And instead of being at a distance of 5,000-plus years, the ancient Egyptians become clearer and closer to us."
1. Which of the following words has the closest meaning to "peddled"（paragraph 1）？| A．Presented | B．sold |
| C．illustrated | D．introduced |
| A．People put great value on the majority of details about ancient people. |
| B．Animal mummies could be made into fertilizer which is very valuable. |
| C．It was hard to find animal mummies since they were buried under dirt. |
| D．People sought the remains of ancient Egypt merely for their material value. |
| A．She wishes to establish the continuity of pets over history. |
| B．She believes that studying the remains can help modern society relate to the past. |
| C．She wants to identify the King's personal belongings and catalogue them. |
| D．She doubts if current society will understand the significance of Egyptian remains |
| A．value the past by studying the remains left behind by our ancestors |
| B．make full use of the remains our ancestors have left behind |
| C．understand that animal mummies are more important than gold and masks |
| D．become more sensitive to the ancient lifestyle of our ancestors |
Terra-cotta Warriors in Xi’an,
In 221 B.C., Emperor Qin Shi Huang of Qin Dynasty established the first centralized feudal dynasty in China. After his death, he
Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum is the
Terra-cotta Warriors is
Jingdezhen porcelain(瓷器)is Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in southern China. Jingdezhen has produced porcelain
Although being a remote town in a hilly area, Jingdezhen is near the quality porcelain stone and forests which can provide plenty of wood for the kilns. It also has
Jingdezhen has produced a great variety of
10 . America’s first transcontinental railroad, completed 150 years ago today at Promontory Summit in Utah, connected the vast United States and brought America into the modern age. Chinese immigrants contributed greatly to this notable achievement, but the historical accounts that followed often ignored their role.
Between 1863 and 1869, as many as 20,000 Chinese workers helped build the dangerous western part of the railroad, a winding ribbon of track known as the Central Pacific. At first, the Central Pacific Railroad’s directors wanted a whites-only workforce. When not enough white men signed up, the railroad began hiring Chinese men for the backbreaking labor. Company leaders were skeptical of the new recruits’ ability to do the work, but they proved themselves not only capable but even superior to the other workers.
Chinese workers cut through dense forests, filled deep narrow steep-sided valley, constructed long trestles(高架桥) and built enormous retaining walls(防护墙) -- some of which remain complete and undamaged today. All work was done by hand using carts, shovels and picks but no machinery. However, progress came at great cost: an estimated 1,200 Chinese laborers died along the Central Pacific route.
Despite these facts, Chinese workers were often left out of the official story because of their identity of foreigners. On the transcontinental railroad's 100th birthday, the Chinese workers were still not honored. It was another fifty years later that their role was gradually highlighted. To celebrate the railroad’s 150th anniversary in 2019, the California assembly passed a resolution in 2017 to recognize and honor the Chinese railroad workers by designating May 10, 2017, and every May 10 thereafter, as California Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial Day.
1. What might be the best title for the text?| A．The Birth of the Central Pacific Cost Dearly |
| B．May 10--A Special Day for Chinese Immigrants |
| C．Chinese Workers’ Contributions Gained Recognition |
| D．The 150th anniversary of the Central Pacific Railroad |
| A．Chinese laborers. | B．White workers. |
| C．Company leaders. | D．Railroad directors. |
| A．To prove Chinese workers’ superior skills. |
| B．To stress the danger and difficulty of the work. |
| C．To describe the grand scenery along the railroad. |
| D．To show notable achievements made by Chinese workers. |
| A．None so blind as those who won’t see. | B．No pains, no gains. |
| C．Truth will come to light sooner or later. | D．Doing is better than saying. |
