2 . Color is a daily mystery．ROY G B.IV deals with lots of big﹣picture color questions explaining why hams are often red and why NYC taxis are yellow．Today's question：why are Jeans blue？

First，why"jeans"？Jeans twin names﹣denim and jeans﹣come from the two European ports that supplied two similar fabrics（织物）during the Middle A.ges． Gene fustian was a cotton﹣linen﹣wool blend shipped from genoa．a silk ﹣wool blend called serge de nimes shortened to de nimes or denim， was shipped out of France．B.oth fabrics gradually changed into similar cotton only blends by the 19th century． according to an article titled a short history of denim y historian Lynn Downey． B.oth were used to make men's clothing，valued especially for [their] properly of durability（耐久性） even after many washings"．

In 1873 Levi Strauss teamed up with Jacob Davis to produce jeans，they sold like hotcakes to Gold Rush miners secking a durable uniform for fortune﹣seeking Jeans rapidly came to stand for the character of the A.merican West﹣﹣rank， energetic， rebellions，and capitalistic．

While gold rush miners probably didnt care about how denim looked， they cared a lot about durability，comfort and fit，at the beginning，Straus offered his waist overalls"in two varieties brown cotton"duck"or canvas，and blue denim﹣﹣but by 1911 they'd stopped using cotton duck entirely．As historian Downey explains "once someone had worn a pair of denim pants experiencing its strength． and how the denim became more comfortable with every washing he never wanted to wear duck again； because with cotton duck，you always feel like you re wearing a tent．"

So why are jeans blue？The answer has to do with dye．Unlike most natural dyes that， when heated，penetrate cloth fibers directly indigo（靛蓝）sticks to the cloth's threads．With each washing some of these dye molecules are stripped away，taking bits of the threads with them．The process softens rough fabrics and individualizes the color．This extreme customization made every pair a second skin．

1. How does the author start talking about jeans？

A．From the quality of the fabrics．

B．From a famous historian．

C．From their hometowns．

D．From their names．

2. Which of the following helped establish the popularity of jeans in 1873？

A．Hot cakes．

B．A. durable uniform．

C．A.merican character．

D．Gold rush．

3. What can we infer about indigo？

A．It cannot be heated．

B．It can be machine washed．

C．It doesn't stay for a long time．

D．It goes into the cloths fibers directly．

4. By saying"made every pair a second skin" in the last paragraph, the author most probably means____________．

A．the pants were made of skin．

B．the pants fitted people well．

C．the dyes were quite natural．

D．the threads became softer and softer．

3 . Sometimes it’s hard to let go. For many British people, that can apply to institutions and objects that represent their country’s past-age-old castles, splendid homes… and red phone boxes.

Beaten first by the march of technology and lately by the terrible weather in junkyards (废品场), the phone boxes representative of an age are now making something of a comeback. Adapted in imaginative ways, many have reappeared on city streets and village greens housing tiny cafes, cellphone repair shops or even defibrillator machines (除颤器).

The original iron boxes with the round roofs first appeared in 1926. They were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Battersea Power Station in London. After becoming an important part of many British streets, the phone boxes began disappearing in the 1980s, with the rise of the mobile phone sending most of them away to the junkyards.

About that time, Tony Inglis’ engineering and transport company got the job to remove phone boxes from the streets and sell them out. But Inglis ended up buying hundreds of them himself, with the idea of repairing and selling them. He said that he had heard the calls to preserve the boxes and had seen how some of them were listed as historic buildings.

As Inglis and, later other businessmen, got to work, repurposed phone boxes began reappearing in cities and villages as people found new uses for them. Today, they are once again a familiar sight, playing roles that are often just as important for the community as their original purpose.

In rural areas, where ambulances can take a relatively long time to arrive, the phone boxes have taken on a lifesaving role. Local organizations can adopt them for l pound, and install defibrillators to help in emergencies.

Others also looked at the phone boxes and saw business opportunities. LoveFone, a company that advocates repairing cellphones rather than abandoning them, opened a mini workshop in a London phone box in 2016.

The tiny shops made economic sense, according to Robert Kerr, a founder of LoveFone. He said that one of the boxes generated around $13,500 in revenue a month and cost only about $400 to rent.

Inglis said phone boxes called to mind an age when things were built to last. “I like what they are to people, and I enjoy bringing things back,” he said.

1. The phone boxes are making a comeback ______.

A．to form a beautiful sight of the city

B．to improve telecommunications services

C．to remind people of a historical period

D．to meet the requirement of green economy

2. Why did the phone boxes begin to go out of service in the 1980s?

A．They were not well-designed.	B．They provided bad services.
C．They had too short a history.	D．They lost to new technologies.

3. The phone boxes are becoming popular mainly because of ______.

A．their new appearance and lower prices	B．the push of the local organizations
C．their changed roles and functions	D．the big funding of the businessmen

4 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容(1个单词)或括号内单词的正确形式。

Some time after 10,000 BC, people made the first real attempt to control the world they lived     1     , through agriculture. Over thousands of years, they began to depend less on     2     could be hunted or gathered from the wild, and more on animals they had raised and crops they had sown.

Farming produced more food per person     3     hunting and gathering, so people were able to raise more children. And，as more children were born, more food     4    (need). Agriculture gave people their first experience of the power of technology     5    (change) lives.

By about 6000 BC，people     6     (discover)the best crops to grow and animals to raise. Later，they learned to work with the     7     (season)，planting at the right time and, in dry areas,     8     (make) use of annual floods to irrigate (灌溉) their fields.

This style of farming lasted for quite a long time. Then，with     9     rise of science, changes began. New methods     10     (mean) that fewer people worked in farming. In the last century or so, these changes have accelerated. New power machinery and artificial fertilizers (化肥) have now totally transformed a way of life that started in the Stone Age.

5 . Before the 1830s, most newspapers were sold through annual subscriptions in America, usually $8 to $10 a year. Today $8 or $10 seems a small amount of money, but at that time these amounts were forbidding to most citizens. Accordingly, newspapers were read almost only by rich people in politics or the trades. In addition, most newspapers had little in them that would appeal to a mass audience. They were dull and visually forbidding. But the revolution that was taking place in the 1830s would change all that.

The trend, then, was toward the “penny paper”—a term referring to papers made widely available to the public. It meant any inexpensive newspaper; perhaps more importantly it meant newspapers that could be bought in single copies on the street.

This development did not take place overnight. It had been possible(but not easy) to buy single copies of newspapers before 1830, but this usually meant the reader had to go down to the printer’s office to purchase a copy. Street sales were almost unknown. However, within a few years, street sales of newspapers would be commonplace in eastern cities. At first the price of single copies was seldom a penny—usually two or three cents was charged—and some of the older well-known papers charged five or six cents. But the phrase “penny paper” caught the public’s fancy, and soon there would be papers that did indeed sell for only a penny.

This new trend of newspapers for “the man on the street” did not begin well. Some of the early ventures(企业) were immediate failures. Publishers already in business, people who were owners of successful papers, had little desire to change the tradition. It took a few youthful and daring businessmen to get the ball rolling.

1. Which of the following best describes newspapers in America before the 1830s?

A．Academic.

B．Unattractive.

C．Inexpensive.

D．Confidential.

2. What did street sales mean to newspapers?

A．They would be priced higher.	B．They would disappear from cities.
C．They could have more readers.	D．They could regain public trust.

3. Who were the newspapers of the new trend targeted at?

A．Local politicians.	B．Common people.
C．Young publishers.	D．Rich businessmen.

4. What can we say about the birth of the penny paper?

A．It was a difficult process.	B．It was a temporary success.
C．It was a robbery of the poor.	D．It was a disaster for printers.

6 . Argentina in the late nineteenth century was an exciting place.Around 1870,it was experiencing an economic(经济的)boom,and the capital,Buenos Aires,attracted many people.Farmers,as well as a flood of foreigners from Spain and Italy,came to Buenos Aires seeking jobs.These jobs didn’t pay well,and the people felt lonely and disappointed with their new life in the city.As the unhappy newcomers mixed together in the poor parts of the city,the dance known as the tango(探戈舞) came into being.

At the beginning the tango was a dance of the lower classes.It was danced in the bars and streets.At that time there were many fewer women than men,so if a man didn’t want to be left out,his only choice was to dance with another man so that he could attract the attention of the few available women.Gradually,the dance spread into the upper classes of Argentinean society and became more respectable.

In Europe at this time,strong interest in dance from around the world was beginning.This interest in international dance was especially evident in Paris.Every kind of dance from ballet(芭蕾舞) to belly dancing could be found on the stages of the Paris theaters.After tango dancers from Argentina arrived in Europe,they began to draw the interest of the public as they performed their exciting dance in cafes.Though not everyone approved of the new dance,saying it was a little too shocking,the dance did find enough supporters to make it popular.

The popularity(流行) of the tango continued to grow in many other parts of the world.Soldiers who returned to the United States from World War Ⅰ brought the tango to North America.It reached Japan in 1926,and in 2003 the Argentinean embassy in Seoul hired a local tango dancer to act as a kind of dance ambassador,and promote tango dancing throughout South Korea.

1. The origin of the tango is associated with 　　　.

A．belly dancers

B．American soldiers

C．a Spanish city

D．the capital of Argentina

2. Which of the following is TRUE about the tango?

A．It was created by foreigners from Spain and Italy.

B．People of the upper classes loved the tango most.

C．It was often danced by two males in the beginning.

D．A dancer in Seoul became the Argentinean ambassador.

3. Before World War Ⅰ,the tango spread to 　　　.

A．America	B．Japan
C．France	D．South Korea

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．How to Dance the Tango

B．The History of the Tango

C．How to Promote the Tango

D．The Modern Tango Boom

7 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

In much of Asia, especially the so-called “rice bowl” cultures of China, Japan, Korea,     1     Vietnam, food is usually eaten with chopsticks.

Chopsticks are usually two long, thin pieces of wood or bamboo. They can also be made of plastic, animal bone or metal. Sometimes chopsticks are quite artistic. Truly elegant chopsticks might     2     (make) of gold and silver with Chinese characters. Skilled workers also combine various hardwoods and metal     3     (create) special designs.

The Chinese have used chopsticks for five thousand years. People probably cooked their food in large pots,     4     (use) twigs (树枝) to remove it. Over time,     5     the population grew, people began cutting food into small pieces so it would cook more quickly.

Food in small pieces could be eaten easily with twigs which     6    (gradual) turned into chopsticks.

Some people think that the great Chinese scholar Confucius,     7     lived from roughly 551 to 479 B.C., influenced the     8     (develop) of chopsticks. Confucius believed knives would remind people of killings and     9     (be) too violent for use at the table.

Chopsticks are not used everywhere in Asia. In India, for example, most people traditionally eat     10     their hands.

8 .        New archaeological discovers suggest that trade between Europe and Asia along the Silk Road probably began in some form many countries earlier than once thought. The findings, coupled with a widening range of scientific and historical research, could add a fascinating new page to the epic of the Silk Road.
       The latest and most surprising discovery is pieces of silk found in the hair of an Egyptian mummy from about 1000 BC, long before regular traffic on the Silk Road and at least one thousand years before silk was previously thought to be used in Egypt. Other research may extend human activity along this route back even further, perhaps a million years to the migration of human ancestors into eastern Asia.
       The official origin of East-West commerce along the road is usually placed in the late 2nd century BC when an agent of the Chinese Emperor Wu-di returned from a dangerous secret mission (使命) across the desert into the remote high country of Central Asia. The agent, Zhang Qian, travelled as far as Afghanistan and brought back knowledge of even more distant lands such as Persia, Syria and a place known as Lijien, perhaps Rome. Historians have called this one of the most important journeys in ancient times. His journey opened the way for what have been thought to be the first indirect contacts between the ancient world’s two superpowers, China and Rome. Chinese silk, first traded to central Asian tribes for war horses and to the Parthians of old Persia in exchange for acrobats and ostrich eggs, was soon finding its way through a network of merchants to the luxury markets of Rome.
       But the new discoveries show that Chinese silk was apparently present in the West long before the Han emperor started organized trade over the Silk Road. The research could change thinking about the early history of world trade and provide insights into the mystery of just how and when Europe and the Mediterranean lands first became aware of the glorious culture at the other end of Eurasia.
1. The word “coupled” in the first paragraph could best be replaced by ______.

A．produced

B．contributed

C．doubled

D．combined

2. The silk thread found in the hair of an Egyptian mummy suggests that ______.

A．Egyptians had probably travelled to China to buy silk

B．trade along the Silk Road began earlier than once thought

C．historical research often achieves fascinating results

D．new light can now be thrown on ancient trading practices

3. Until recently most historians believed that trade along the Silk Road _______.

A．originated in the 2nd century BC

B．extended human migration into eastern Asia

C．began a million years ago

D．primarily benefited the Egyptians

4. Historians have always considered Zhang Qian’s mission important because they believe ______.

A．he brought back knowledge of Rome to the emperor	B．he discovered the Silk Road
C．he helped establish East-West trade	D．he travelled as far as Afghanistan

9 . Look to many of history’s cultural symbols, and there you’ll find an ancestor of Frosty, the snowman in the movie Frozen. It appeared on some of the first postcards, starred in some of the earliest silent movies, and was the subject of a couple of the earliest photos, dating all the way back to the 1800s. I discovered even more about one of humanity’s earliest forms of life art during several years of research around the world.
For example, snowmen were a phenomenon in the Middle Ages, built with great skill and thought. At a time of limited means of expression, snow was like free art supplies dropped from the sky. It was a popular activity for couples to leisurely walk through town to view the temporary works of chilly art. Some were created by famous artists, including a 19-year-old Michelangelo, who in 1494 was appointed by the ruler of Florence, Italy, to build a snowman in his mansion’s courtyard.
The Miracle of 1511 took place during six freezing works called the Winter of Death. The city of Brussels was covered in snowmen—an impressive scene that told stories on every street corner. Some were political in nature, criticizing the church and government. Some were a reflection of people’s imagination. For the people of Brussels, this was a defining moment of defining freedom. At least until spring arrived, by which time they were dealing with damaging floods.
If you fear the heyday of the snowman has passed, don’t worry: I’ve learned that some explosive snowman history is still being made today. Every year since 1818, the people of Zurich, Switzerland, celebrate the beginning of spring by blowing up a snowman. On the third Monday of April, the holiday Sechselauten is kicked off when a cotton snowman called the Boogg is stuffed with explosive and paraded through town by bakers and other tradesmen who throw bread to the crowds. The parade ends with the Boogg being placed on a 40-foot pile of firewood. After the bells of the Church of St. Peter have rung six times, representing the passing of winter, the pile is lit. When the snowman explodes, winter is considered officially over—the quicker it is burnt down, the longer summer is said to be.
1. According to the passage, why did snowmen become a phenomenon in the Middle Ages?

A．People thought of snow as holy art supplies.

B．People longed to see masterpieces of snow.

C．Building snowmen was a way for people to express themselves.

D．Building snowmen helped people develop their skill and thought.

2. “The heyday of the snowman” （paragraph 4） means the time when___________.

A．snowmen were made mainly by artists

B．snowmen enjoyed great popularity

C．snowmen were politically criticized

D．snowmen caused damaging floods

3. In Zurich, the blowing up of the Boogg symbolizes__________________.

A．the start of the parade

B．the coming of a longer summer

C．the passing of the winter

D．the success of tradesmen

4. What can be concluded about snowmen from the passage?

A．They were appreciated in history

B．They have lost their value

C．They were related to movies

D．They vary in shape and size

10 . Almost every machine with moving parts has wheels, yet no one knows exactly when the first wheel was invented or what it was used for. We do know, however, that they existed over 5,500 years ago in ancient Asia.

The oldest known transport wheel was discovered in 2002 in Slovenia. It is over 5,100 years old. Evidence suggests that wheels for transport didn’t become popular for a while, though. This could be because animals did a perfectly good job of carrying farming tools and humans around.   

But it could also be because of a difficult situation. While wheels need to roll on smooth surfaces, roads with smooth surfaces weren’t going to be constructed until there was plenty of demand of them. Eventually, road surfaces did become smoother, but this difficult situation appeared again a few centuries later. There had been no important changes in wheel and vehicle design before the arrival of modern road design.

In the mid-1700s, a Frenchman came up with a new design of road—a base layer of large stones covered with a thin layer of smaller stones. A Scotsman improved on this design in the 1820s and a strong, lasting road surface became a reality. At round the same time, metal hubs (the central part of a wheel) came into being, followed by the pneumatic tyre (充气轮胎) in 1846. Alloy wheels were invented in 1967, sixty years after the appearance of tarmacked roads (柏油路). As wheel design took off, vehicles got faster and faster.

1. What might explain why transport wheel didn’t become popular for some time?

A．Few knew how to use transport wheels.

B．Humans carried farming tools just as well.

C．Animals were a good means of transport.

D．The existence of transport wheels was not known.

2. What do we know about road design from the passage?

A．It was easier than wheel design.

B．It imported after big changes in vehicle design.

C．It was promoted by fast-moving vehicles.

D．It provided conditions for wheel design to develop.

3. How is the last paragraph mainly developed?

A．By giving examples.	B．By making comparisons.
C．By following time order.	D．By making classifications.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The beginning of road design.	B．The development of transport wheels.
C．The history of public transport.	D．The invention of fast-moving vehicles.