1 . 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 |
2 . Great Smoky Mountains National Park lies on both sides of the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. Its highest peak is called “Clingmans Dome”. But before it got that name, the Cherokee people called the mountain “Kuwahi”. It sits on ancestral Cherokee homelands. Since the ancient times, the landscape, including mountains and streams, has shaped the history of Cherokee people. They used that name for hundreds of years. Now, tribal members are hoping to return to the Kuwahi name.
The Cherokee Nation once spread across what is now Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama. In 1838, the tribe was forcibly relocated to present-day Oklahoma—in what was later known as the “Trail of Tears”. Through sickness and terrible travel conditions, nearly 4,000 Cherokee people died during the forced removal from their homeland. Some Cherokee managed to avoid relocation to Oklahoma by going into hiding, including on Kuwahi. “We’re here today because our ancestors hid in those mountains, specifically in Kuwahi,” Hill said.
The name change of the Cherokee’s mountain came in 1859, when geographer and professor Arnold Henry Guyot labeled Kuwahi “Clingmans Dome”. The peak was named after Thomas Lanier Clingman, who was a strong supporter of slavery. Clingman was not connected to the Cherokee people in any way. “Naming the mountain after Clingman erases everything that the Cherokee people are in order to rename it after someone with zero ties to our community. He didn’t even live here,” said Hill.
In June 2022, Yellowstone National Park’s Mount Doane was renamed to First Peoples Mountain. “That was a huge victory for our brothers and sisters,” Hill said. “I hope it’s just the beginning of accurately recognizing and honoring numerous historically significant sites for tribes and native people nationwide. There were so many places that were special and important to native people prior to colonization. I want to be the voice for my people, for my ancestors.”
1. What do the Cherokee people intend to do according to Paragraph 1?| A．Save their language. | B．Go back to their homeland Kuwahi. |
| C．Reshape their history. | D．Change the name back to “Kuwahi”. |
| A．The sad history of the Cherokee people. |
| B．The sheltering place for the Cherokee people. |
| C．The causes of the decrease of the Cherokee people. |
| D．The traveling route of the ancient Cherokee Nation. |
| A．It is related to the culture of the Cherokee people. |
| B．It reminds the Cherokee people of their ancestors. |
| C．It removes everything about the Cherokee history. |
| D．It reflects the slave position of the Cherokee people. |
| A．To add great honor to her ancestors. | B．To make his homeland well-known. |
| C．To express the opinions of her people. | D．To name more historically significant sites. |
3 . When people think of Beijing, the hutong style always comes to mind. It is no exaggeration (夸张) to say within hutong lives the city’s history.
The word “hutong” referred to a place where people live, which was borrowed from the Mongolian word to mean “water well” about 700 years ago. Hutong we see today are made up of small paths formed by walls of siheyuan. They were built during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, there were more than 3,000 hutong. Most of the city’s population lived in this traditional housing. But with the modernization of the city in the 1980s and early 1990s, many hutong were pulled down to build roads, skyscrapers and modern houses.
The government has recognized the importance of hutong to Chinese cultural heritage. In 2002, Beijing listed 40 protected historical zones and increased its efforts to rebuild some key relics and older streets in the city. Nearly 500 hutong have survived.
Hutong that still exist are like oases (绿洲) of calm in the noisy city. Walking through them, it’s common to see groups of elderly people sitting together playing cards, mahjong (麻将) or Chinese chess. In the early mornings and evenings, they gather to practice traditional forms of exercise such as Taijiquan as well as dancing and singing folk songs or Peking Opera. Hutong have become a museum of Beijing’s folk customs and history.
1. What is the purpose of paragraph 2?| A．To add background information of hutong. | B．To bring in the topic of the context. |
| C．To stress the importance of hutong. | D．To introduce the benefits of hutong. |
| A．More hutong were built. |
| B．Lots of hutong disappeared. |
| C．Most hutong became historical zones. |
| D．Some hutong were placed under protection. |
| A．The future of hutong. | B．The change of hutong. |
| C．The beauty of hutong life. | D．The history of hutong life. |
| A．Negative. | B．Unclear. | C．Supportive. | D．Doubtful. |
4 . If you ask people to name the one person who had the greatest effect on the English language, you will get answers like “Shakespeare” “Samuel Johnson” and “Webster”, but none of these men had any effect at all compared to a man who didn’t even speak English-William the Conqueror.
Before 1066, in the land we now call Great Britain lived peoples belonging to two major language groups. In the west-central region lived the Welsh, who spoke a Celtic language, and in the north lived the Scots, whose language, though not the same as Welsh, was also Celtic. In the rest of the country lived the Saxons, actually a mixture of Anglos, Saxons, and other Germanic and Nordic peoples, who spoke what we now call Anglo-Saxon or Old English, a Germanic language. If this state of affairs had lasted, English today would be close to German.
But this state of affairs did not last. In 1066 the Normans led by William defeated the Saxons and began their rule over England. For about a century, French became the official language of England while Old English became the language of peasants. As a result, English words of politics and the law come from French rather than German. In some cases, modern English even shows a distinction (区别) between upper-class French and lower-class Anglo-Saxon in its words. We even have different words for some foods, meat in particular, depending on whether it is still out in the fields or at home ready to be cooked, which shows the fact that the Saxon peasants were doing the farming, while the upper-class Normans were doing most of the eating. When Americans visit Europe for the first time, they usually find Germany more “foreign” than France because the German they see on signs and advertisements seems much more different from English than French does. Few realize that the English language is actually Germanic in its beginning and that the French influences are all the result of one man’s ambition.
1. What language did people in Britain mainly speak before 1066?| A．Celtic and Old English. | B．Nordic and Germanic. |
| C．Welsh and Scottish. | D．Anglo-Saxon and Germanic. |
| A．By teaching people in Britain to speak English. |
| B．By defeating the Saxons and ruling the whole England. |
| C．By bringing French to Britain to greatly influence English. |
| D．By speaking good English to show that they were upper-class. |
| A．They know French better than German. |
| B．They know little history of the English people. |
| C．In France most of the advertisements appear in English. |
| D．There are more similarities between English and French. |
| A．The history of Great Britain. |
| B．The French effects on the English language. |
| C．The differences between English and French. |
| D．The great people who had effects on English. |
5 . Have you ever wondered why people drive on a different side of the road? It might seem strange that U. K. drivers stay on the left, but they’re not the only ones.
Originally, almost everybody traveled on the left side of the road. However their way of transport was quite different from today:
The British Government refused to give up their left-hand driving ways, and in 1773 introduced the General Highways Act, which encouraged driving on the left.
When Henry Ford unveiled his Model T in 1908，the driver’s seat was on the left, meaning that cars would have to drive on the right hand side of the road to allow front and back passengers to exit the car onto the roadside.
| A．Think four legs instead of four wheels. |
| B．Do people get used to driving on the right? |
| C．However, British drivers remain on the left. |
| D．So why did people stop traveling on the left? |
| E．Therefore, he kept to the right side of the road. |
| F．Around 35 percent of the world population does the same. |
| G．This was later made law thanks to The Highway Act of 1835. |
