1 . In 1937, the aggression of the Japanese army brought disaster to China’s three great universities: Peking University and Tsinghua University were occupied by Japanese troops, while Nankai University was completely destroyed by bombing. To save their educational and intellectual heritage, the three universities joined together in Kunming as National Southwest Associated University, otherwise known as Lianda.
Professors and students alike in the three universities made an epic journey over a distance of more than 2,000 kilometres, most of them on foot. Their bed was the dusty road and their roof was the open sky, often lit up by exploding Japanese bombs. Conditions were little better once they reached the remote and mountainous south-west part of China.
However, despite the immense hardships and the daunting challenges, it was right in this place, over period of eight long years, that the nation’s intellectual heritage was not only guarded but fortified by the passion and belief of the worthy academic s of Lianda.
With the country at war, students at Lianda were not going to shirk their duty. Driven by a sense of commitment, a great many joined the army to resist the Japanese invaders and defend the honour of the nation. In fact, Lianda provided the largest number of student-soldiers from any campus in China. Of the thousands of college students from all over China who served as interpreters, one tenth were from Lianda, including the well-known translators Zha Liangzheng and Xu Yuanchong.
A product of the war, Lianda is now physically gone. But it has become the crowning glory of China’s modern universities, not only because of its prominent professors and talented students, but also because of the school’s strong spirit of perseverance and dedication.
More than eighty years on, the priceless contribution of Lianda still needs to be reaffirmed. It has become part of the collective memory of the Chinese nation, with its spirit as the blueprint for all universities in China in the modern era.
1. What caused Lianda to be formed in Kunming?| A．Thinkers’ academic struggles. | B．Immense challenges. |
| C．Japanese aggression. | D．Educational heritage. |
| A．On foot. | B．By air. | C．By bus. | D．By bike. |
| A．A sense of personal loss. | B．A sense of trust. |
| C．A sense of achievement. | D．A sense of commitment. |
| A．Its campus remains a historical site. |
| B．This wartime system should now be re-established. |
| C．It becomes less and less important as time goes on. |
| D．Its spirit and contributions are key to China’s educational history. |
2 . In ancient Maya civilization, cacao — which chocolate is made from — wasn’t just for the elites (精英). Traces of the sacred plant show up in antiques from all types of neighborhoods and in and around a former Maya city, researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The finding suggests that, contrary to previous thinking, cacao was consumed at every social level of Maya society.
“Now we know that the ceremonies with cacao were likely played out by everyone,” says AnabelFord, an archaeologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Cacao was sacred to the ancient Maya, consumed in ceremonies and used as a currency. The cacao tree itself was linked to Hun Hunahpu, a Mayan god. Previous research found cacao in burials (墓地), suggesting that its use was restricted to those at the top.
To explore the extent to which cacao was used in broader Maya society, Ford and colleagues examined 54 antiques dating from A. D. 600 to 900. The antiques come from jars, mixing bowls, serving plates and vases thought to be drinking vessels. All the pieces were found in residential and ceremonial civic areas of varying size and status from city centers, foothills, upland areas and the valley around the former Maya city of El Pilar, on the present-day border of Guatemala and Belize.
To identify cacao, the researchers searched for theophylline, a compound found in trace amounts in the plant. The team found the compound on more than half of the samples, on all types of antiques and distributed throughout social contexts.
Future research will move beyond who consumed cacao and explore the role of farmers in managing the critical resource. “A better question is to understand who grew it,” Ford says, because those people probably had greater access to the valuable commodity.
1. What do traces of cacao found in Mayan antiques indicate?| A．Cacao was once unique to Maya society. |
| B．Cacao was only available to wealthy Mayan people. |
| C．Cacao was accessible to Mayan ordinary people. |
| D．Cacao left more traces in the Mayan city center. |
| A．There is no need to do further research on cacao. |
| B．Mayan people liked eating chocolate very much. |
| C．Mayan festivals were the same as those of the modern times. |
| D．There were some limitations in previous research about cacao. |
| A．To make copies of Mayan antiques. |
| B．To learn about the Mayan eating habits. |
| C．To find out cacao’s relationship with the religion. |
| D．To know about Mayan social groups of cacao use. |
| A．The varieties of cacao. | B．Ways cacao was spread out. |
| C．Cacao tree growers. | D．The cacao’s value. |
3 . The term “graffiti” is an Italian word meaning scratching or scribbling (乱涂). It entered the English language in the 1850s, specifically to describe the casual wall writing that experts found in Pompeii and the Roman tombs. Originally a term used only in ancient scribbling, the word has undergone considerable expansion of meaning in the past 75 years so that it now refers to any written message on a wall. Graffiti are characterized by their casualness；if they were more formal, they would be known as inscriptions (铭文).
The first piece of graffiti was found on one of the walls of the city Pompeii, which was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It was one of 1,600 pieces of graffiti uncovered in Pompeii during a dig in the 19th century. Not surprisingly, there is much evidence of graffiti writing on the pyramid and temples of ancient Egypt. It is likely that ever since people have had walls and materials to scratch or paint with, they have been engaged in this simplest form of communication.
The writing of graffiti gives people a unique opportunity to achieve some kind of public audience. Thus short poems, declarations of love, pieces of political and revolutionary polemic (论战), and criticisms of institutions and people form a significant part of graffiti.
Apart from its usefulness in terms of self-expression, graffiti is also a valuable source for historians. There is always the possibility that historical events may be recorded by the presence of graffiti. Perhaps the most interesting example of this is the graffiti relating to the gladiatorial (角斗士) contests held in Pompeii. Graffiti can also give us a unique view into the daily life and customs of a people, for its casual expression encourages the recording of details that more formal writing would tend to ignore.
In the late 1970s, graffiti became popular. A thought written on a toilet wall in Wolverhampton can now be read in Chicago or Adelaide. In its own way, this is probably the most fascinating example of McLuhan’s concept of “the global village”. We now have a worldwide toilet wall.
1. According to the first paragraph, graffiti .| A．is another name for “inscription” |
| B．got its name from the English language |
| C．was born in the 1850s |
| D．mainly refers to casual writing or pictures on walls |
| A．Graffiti has a long history. |
| B．Graffiti is an attractive form of art. |
| C．Graffiti made the ancient city Pompeii famous. |
| D．Graffiti was ancient Egyptian’s main way of communication. |
| A．Graffiti’s great value. |
| B．Graffiti’s features. |
| C．Graffiti’s way of expression. |
| D．Graffiti’s connection with people’s daily life. |
| A．the presence of graffiti makes the world closely connected |
| B．the concept of “the global village” is famous worldwide |
| C．graffiti has become very popular all over the world |
| D．people like using toilet walls to share their graffiti |
4 . Experts have found a group of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest. The cities were home to at least 10,000 farmers around 2,000 years ago.
Recent mapping using laser (激光) technology revealed those places to be part of a group of settlements and connecting roads. The settlements are in the forested areas near the Andes mountains.
“It was a lost valley of cities,” said Rostain, who directs research at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. “It’s unbelievable,” he added. The Upano people lived in the settlements between around 500 BC and 300 to 600 AD. That was around the same time period as the Roman Empire in Europe, the researchers found.
Ancient people built on over 6,000 earthen mounds (堆) in an area surrounded by agricultural fields with drainage (排水) canals. The largest roads were 10 meters wide and went for 10 to 20 kilometers.
While it is difficult to determine populations, the area was home to at least 10,000 people, and possibly about 15,000 or 30,000 at its highest point. That is comparable to the possible population of London, then Britain’s largest city.
It would have required a complex system of organized labor to build the roads and thousands of earthen mounds. The Incas and Mayans built with stone, but people in Amazonia didn’t usually have stone available to build — they built with mud.
The Amazon is often thought of as a wild area with only small groups of people. But recent discoveries have verified that the past was really more complex.
Scientists have recently also found evidence of complex rainforest societies that came before European contact elsewhere in the Amazon, including in Bolivia and Brazil.
“There’s always been an unbelievable diversity of people and settlements in the Amazon, not only one way to live,” said experts. “We’re just learning more about them.”
1. Which statement best describes the lost cities?| A．They are the oldest ever found in the area. | B．They were discovered by laser technology. |
| C．They were recognized in the map. | D．They are covered by a thick layer of dust. |
| A．They were engaged in agriculture. | B．They mainly made a living by hunting. |
| C．They devoted themselves to business. | D．They made use of rivers to develop fishing. |
| A．The cities’ large size. | B．The cities’ ancient history. |
| C．The cities’ large population. | D．The cities’ advanced agriculture. |
| A．Confirmed. | B．Ignored. | C．Replied. | D．Hoped. |
5 . When Howard Carter opened King Tut’s tomb (墓穴), it was full of gold and other valuables. When he and his team then attempted to remove King Tut’s mummy (木乃伊), they did a great deal of damage to the mummy while removing it.
Decades later, in 1968, experts conducted an examination of King Tut’s mummy using simple X-ray technology. Three important discoveries led to various theories about his death. First, the X-rays showed that bones in Tut’s chest were missing. Some guessed the damage was caused by a war injury or an accident. Plus, there was a small hole in the back of the skull (头骨), and pieces of bone inside it, causing many to believe that Tut was killed by a blow to the back of the head. Was he murdered by people wanting to take control of Egypt? Finally, a serious broken bone was discovered on Tut’s left leg. Tut was hurt a few hours before his death. This could have been the result of an accident. Could an infection from the injury have killed Tut?
In 2005, scientists under the direction of Zahi Hawass used new X-ray technology to study the mummy. They discovered that the damage to Tut’s chest was caused by Howard Carter, and the hole in Tut’s skull was made when the body was gotten ready for burial. While this ruled out the theory of murder, it still doesn’t tell us exactly how he died.
Then, in 2008, when Hawass and his team analyzed the DNA of the mummies and other tombs nearby, they made some shocking discoveries. They found Tut’s father and mother, who had similar DNA, were actually brother and sister. The DNA they passed on to Tut may have made it easy for him to catch a disease. Did an infection that started in his broken leg cause his death? No one knows for sure. But Hawass and his team hope they will someday have an answer to this age-old mystery.
1. Why was the examination of King Tut’s mummy conducted in 1968?| A．To determine the cause of Tut’s death. | B．To assess the condition of Tut’s coffin. |
| C．To discover the identity of Tut’s parents. | D．To study the treasures found in Tut’s tomb. |
| A．It was caused by an accident. | B．It was caused by a blow to kill. |
| C．It was caused by Howard Carter’s team. | D．It was caused during burial preparation. |
| A．Tut’s broken leg had little to do with his DNA. |
| B．Tut’s DNA features might have been common. |
| C．Tut’s death was closely connected to their DNA. |
| D．Tut’s health was probably affected by their shared DNA. |
| A．To analyze the cultural significance of King Tut’s tomb. |
| B．To entertain readers with tales of ancient Egyptian royalty. |
| C．To inform readers about the discoveries surrounding King Tut’s death. |
| D．To persuade readers to follow further research into King Tut’s life and death. |
6 . These days, Fred’s huge skeleton (骨架) is exhibited in the Indiana State Museum. His tusks (长牙) were recently the subject of a research study tracing the life 13,000 years ago of mastodons, distant relatives of modern elephants.
By analyzing the chemical compounds (化合物) in Fred’s tusks, a team of researchers could construct a detailed account of his seasonal migration patterns. Josh Miller, a paleoecologist (古生态学家) at the University of Cincinnati, is one of the researchers studying Fred. “He has beautifully preserved bones and tusks, which provides a great opportunity for our research on his seasonal migration patterns,” Miller said.
Mastodons’ tusks generally grow in distinct layers, similar to the tree rings. As a result, the nutrients that build the layers of their tusks can tell us a lot about what they experienced. The team particularly focused their analysis on the variations in two elements in the layers: strontium (锶) and oxygen. The former is the key to understanding where Fred spent his life, while the latter tells us the season he was in any particular region. Then, with some statistical modeling, Miller and his team gained insight into the daily record of Fred’s behavior over ten thousand years ago.
The result indicated that Fred would have grown a lot when he was young. But there’s a year when his growth is reduced. “Probably like the modern male elephant, a male mastodon is just really obnoxious when growing up to be a bother and often arouses family members’ anger. At that point, the mom and aunts will essentially kick him out of the family.” Miller predicted.
After Fred set off to attend to himself, his tusks reflected where he travelled around. Based on the analysis, Fred would return to mate every summer in Northeastern Indiana, because his tusks started to show signs of injuries around this time. When competing for mates, mastodons get into huge battles with their own natural weapons sharp tusks. And that was exactly what brought Fred’s story to an untimely end.
1. What did Miller’s study mainly focus on?| A．Effective ways of tusk preservation. | B．Inner structure of Fred’s skeleton. |
| C．Possible tracks of Fred’s migration. | D．Special functions of mastodon tusks. |
| A．By analyzing nutrients in Fred’s bones. |
| B．By reviewing statistical records of previous studies. |
| C．By modeling data of chemical elements in Fred’s tusks. |
| D．By referring to the growth of tree rings to study Fred’s tusk layers. |
| A．He was killed by his opponents. | B．He reunited with his family later. |
| C．He was drawn to cross-species fights. | D．He was weak in living independently. |
| A．Geology. | B．Culture. | C．Education. | D．Science. |
7 . A Michigan farmer Bristle was digging with a backhoe (反铲挖土机) in one of his wheat fields when — bang — it struck a large bone.
Bristle contacted Fisher, a paleontology (古生物学家) professor at the University of Michigan. Fisher rushed to the farm and identified the bone as a fossil of an Ice Age mammoth (猛犸象). Since it was harvest season, Bristle gave Fisher and his students only one day to remove the rest of the fossils from the ground. The team found 20 percent of the animal’s bones, including its skull, tusks, pelvis, and shoulder blades as well as some teeth, ribs, and other bones.
The age of a mammoth can be determined by counting the rings in one of its tusks. Like the rings in a tree trunk, each ring stands for one year of a mammoth’s life. Fisher thinks that the bones are supposed to belong to male mammoth around forty years old. It was probably a rare hybrid of a woolly mammoth and a Colombian mammoth that lived between 11,700 and 15,000 years ago during the Pleistocene lee Age, when ice sheets covered much of Earth’s land.
The bones appeared to have been cut up and some of them were missing, leading Fisher to conclude that early humans must have killed the animal and stored its meat so they could return to it at a later time. Some other indications of human activity include a stone flake (薄片) that might have been from a cutting tool and the arrangement of the neck bones in order. If the mammoth had died naturally, its bones would have scattered randomly.
In the US, fossils found on private property belong to the owner of the land. However, Bristle donated the fossils to the University of Michigan for further study. Fisher hopes to display the bones at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History, possibly combined with fiberglass models of bones from other Michigan mammoths to form a complete Mammoth skeleton (骨架).
1. Why was Fisher’s time limited to one day?| A．Because the mammoth was a small one. | B．Because it was easy to remove the bones. |
| C．Because it was the time of gathering crops. | D．Because Bristle was busy planting in the field. |
| A．By counting the bones. | B．By judging the living age. |
| C．By measuring the ice sheets. | D．By numbering the tusk rings. |
| A．How the mammoth died. | B．Where the missing meat was. |
| C．How the stone flake was made. | D．Whether the neck bones scattered. |
| A．To own the fossils. | B．To study the mammoth. |
| C．To complete the skeleton. | D．To promote the university. |
8 . 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 at Germany’s University of Tuebingen. The fragments also included receipts, school texts, trade information and lists of names.
Van Gogh peers out in hidden portraits
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 canvases (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 made the researchers link the discovery with an ancient punishment?| A．Hundreds of fragment. | B．The repeated symbol. |
| C．The mark of ink. | D．Lists of names. |
| A．It was hidden behind a peasant woman. |
| B．The X-ray discovered the composition of the cardboard. |
| C．Van Gogh hid his self-portrait in this way to save money. |
| D．Van Gogh in the self-portrait looks outside. |
| A．An artificial altar. | B．A jade knife. |
| C．Human remains. | D．A turtle shell-shaped box. |
9 . On US TV shows, you may sometimes see rubber balls on people’s desks. These balls are known as “stress relief balls”. People can squeeze them when they feel stressed out. It’s believed that by concentrating on the act of squeezing, they can let go of the negative energy in their bodies.
“We don’t all get the big, sunny corner office, the super ergonomic (人体工程学的) chair, or four weeks of vacation at work. A focused activity helps take your mind off the problems of your day,” wrote Joseph Shrand, a professor at Harvard University, in his book Manage Your Stress.
Indeed, stress is a big problem for many people. Fortunately, we have many ways to deal with it. In fact, the rubber stress relief balls that are so popular today in the US are believed to date back to ancient China. Back in the Han Dynasty (BC 202-AD 220), soldiers used walnuts (核桃)to get rid of stress. By squeezing them during moments of anxiety, soldiers were able to calm themselves down before going into battle. And in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368-1644), people started rotating (转动) the walnuts in their hands. Ordinary citizens — not just soldiers — developed the habit of rolling two walnuts, or balls made from iron or stone, around in their hands. This helped them relax as well.
And today, we have many gadgets (器具) and toys that are designed to reduce stress in addition to stress relief balls. One example is the popular fidget spinner (指尖陀螺), which keeps your hand busy with an easy task — spinning the gadget around. There’s also the fidget cube, which features different “gimmicks” (机关) on each side of the cube. You can click, spin, pull, push and rotate different parts of the cube.
These gadgets may look like simple toys, but perhaps we should take them more seriously than they are given credit for. “After all, the history of stress balls is a history of modern-day coping (应对),” reporter Nadia Berenstein wrote for Woolly magazine.
1. What did Shrand suggest people do to relieve stress?| A．Move to a big, sunny office. | B．Get a comfortable chair. |
| C．Take a long vacation. | D．Concentrate on a simple activity. |
| A．Toys designed for American TV shows. | B．Walnuts used by Chinese soldiers before battle. |
| C．Stone balls from ancient China. | D．Gadgets invented in the Ming Dynasty. |
| A．Rotating walnuts | B．Playing with fidget spinners |
| C．Playing with fidget cubes | D．Wearing wristbands with small balls |
| A．introduce stress relief toys | B．prove that stress is a big problem |
| C．tell the history of stress relief balls | D．offer advice on dealing with stress |
10 . The history of the school bus can date back to 1886 when the Wayne Works company made horse-drawn carriages (四轮马车) known as “ school wagons” or “kid hacks” in Indiana.
In the early 1900s, the car industry was beginning to develop fast.
In 1927, a man built the first bus that primarily used steel. Before long, Wayne Works introduced the first all-steel school bus body with safety glass windows.
Many new national standards were created, determining everything from seating designs to the famous yellow color that school buses still sport today. The reason why the color was chosen was simple.
| A．Horses were easy to control. |
| B．Not all chose to paint their buses yellow. |
| C．Yellow is quite eye-catching to human beings. |
| D．Before then, many children simply walked to school. |
| E．Now, school buses have had many more improvements. |
| F．Still, parents were increasingly concerned for children’s safety. |
| G．This gave Wayne Works a great opportunity to improve its carriages. |
