1 . 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. |
2 . When archaeologists examined a cave in Grotta dei Moscerini in 1949, they found 171 examples of tools made from clam shells. At that time, however, it wasn’t clear whether the shells had been picked up from a beach or sourced alive from the water.
A team of researchers led by Paola Villa, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, recently revisited the collection of shell tools and found new details. Most of the shell tools had worn surfaces, which one would expect were from dry shells picked off a beach. But nearly a quarter of the clam shells had shiny, smooth surfaces -typical of shells picked alive from the seafloor. Villa and her colleagues concluded that diving for clams might have been a routine part of Neanderthal life in this region. Fishing and using coastal resources were thought to be unique behaviors to modern humans, but Neanderthals could perfectly do that.
Archaeological evidence has changed our image of Neanderthals in the last couple of decades. Later, more researchers came to the place where the shell tools were found. But it was no longer accessible because it was buried under rocks that were blown from the side of the hill during the construction of a coastal highway in the early 1970s. “Re-excavating the site will not be easy at all,” said Villa. And right now the team has no plans to try.
The prejudice against Neanderthal abilities may simply be due to a lack of widespread archaeological evidence. Unfortunately, the coastal sites that might help support the case of Neanderthal beach activities are hardly seen, and many are now underwater. During the time that Neanderthals and humans shared the planet, the climate was much colder and ice sheets stretched over larger parts of the European continent. But at the end of the last ice age, from about 19,000 to about 6,000 years ago, sea levels rose around the world by about 400 feet, swallowing the once campsites of prehistory on the shores of the ocean.
1. What were archaeologists unsure of the shells for making tools?| A．Their value. | B．Their functions. | C．Their origin. | D．Their raw materials. |
| A．They were skilled toolmakers. | B．They built their caves near water. |
| C．They were capable of using sea resources. | D．They lived on collecting clams on the beach. |
| A．Natural disasters. | B．Careless human activities. |
| C．Preservation of the site. | D．Underdeveloped technology. |
| A．To stress the long history of Neanderthals. |
| B．To tell Neanderthals’ close relation with modern humans. |
| C．To show the influence of climate change on Neanderthals. |
| D．To explain the cause of underestimating Neanderthals’ civilization. |
3 . The modern garden has history going back many thousands of years. Early humans were hunters and gatherers, and didn’t usually stay in one place for a long time.
What plants did people grow?
Evidence of early agriculture in Europe includes not only eatable plants such as wheat, but also plants for decorative purposes. Plants for medicine were grown, as were plants for flavouring (调味) or preserving food.
Why did people plant gardens?
Gardens today are places to go and relax, but have had many purposes over the years. In the past they were planted to honour the gods, or used in religious ceremonies such as funerals and weddings. They were also a way to show that their owners were rich or powerful.
What does paradise mean?
Are gardens artistic?
As gardens have developed over the years, design and beauty have become more and more important.
| A．Many cultures believed gardens were sacred. |
| B．Certain plants also had religious or spiritual value. |
| C．Pleasure and happiness are ideas linked with gardens. |
| D．Ancient rulers created huge gardens to show their wealth. |
| E．Instead, they travelled from place to place following the food. |
| F．Humans have learned to control nature and to design gardens carefully. |
| G．Carefully planned or not, gardens are still beautiful and relaxing places to visit. |
4 . It was December 25, 1914, only 5 months into World War Ⅰ. German, British, and French soldiers already sick and tired of the senseless killing, disobeyed their superiors and fraternized (打得火热) with “the enemy” along two-thirds of the Western Front. German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches (战壕) with signs, “Merry Christmas.”
“You no shoot, we no shoot.” Thousands of troops streamed across a no-man’s land filled with dead bodies. They sang Christmas carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back home, shared rations, played football, and even roasted some pigs. Soldiers embraced (拥抱) men they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to warn each other if the Generals (将军) forced them to fire their weapons, and to aim high.
It shocked the high command on either side. Here was disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with each other and refusing to fight. Generals on both sides declared this peacemaking to be wrong. Fifteen million would be killed.
Not many people have heard the story of the Christmas Truce. On Christmas Day, 1988, a story in the Boston Globe mentioned that a local FM radio host played “Christmas in the Trenches” several times and was surprised by the effect. The song became the most requested recording during the holidays in Boston on several FM stations. “Some callers even telephone the host deeply moved, sometimes in tears, asking, ‘What the hell did I just hear?’”
You can probably guess why the callers were in tears. The Christmas Truce story goes against most of what we have been taught about people. It gives us a glimpse of the world as we wish it could be and says, “This really happened once.” It reminds us of those thoughts we keep hidden away, ou of range of the TV and newspaper stories that tell us how trivial (微不足道的) and mean human life is. It is like hearing that our deepest wishes really are true: the world really could be different.
1. What is the main idea of the second paragraph?| A．Troops celebrated their victories. | B．Generals forced their army to fight back. |
| C．Soldiers made peace with their enemies. | D．Soldiers decided to give in to their enemies. |
| A．A fierce war. | B．Many deaths. | C．A peaceful world. | D．Many heroes. |
| A．They experienced the war. | B．They lost loved ones in the war. |
| C．They valued the life in peace. | D．They desired to protect their motherland. |
| A．Being against wars. | B．Cherishing today’s happiness. |
| C．Remembering heroes. | D．Showing no respect for life. |
5 . The human societies that have the fewest social divisions are known as hunting and gathering societies. As the name implies, these groups depend on hunting and gathering for their survival. In some, the men hunt animals and the women gather plants. In others, both men and women (and children) gather plants, the men hunt large animals, and both men and women hunt small animals. Beyond this basic division of labor by sex, there are few social divisions. The groups usually have a shaman, an individual thought to be able to influence spiritual forces, but shamans, too, must help obtain food.
In addition to sex, the major unit of organization within the group is the family. Most members of the group are related by shared ancestors or marriage. Because the family is the only social structure in these societies, it performs many functions that in modern societies are divided among different institutions. Thus, the family distributes food to its members, educates its children (especially in food skills), gives medicine to the sick, and so on.
Hunters and gatherers are the most equal of all societies. Because the food that they hunt and gather cannot be preserved or stored, the people cannot accumulate possessions. Thus, no one becomes wealthier than anyone else. There are no rulers, and most decisions are arrived at through discussion. Because their needs are basic and they do not accumulate possessions, hunters and gatherers have the most leisure time of all human groups.
All human groups were once hunters and gatherers, and until several hundred years ago, such societies were common. Their way of life ended when other groups took over the areas on which they depended for their food. Today only a few remain, such as the Pygmies of central Africa, the San of the Namibian desert, and the Aborigines of Australia.
1. According to paragraph 1, in hunting and gathering societies, social divisions are mainly based on ________.| A．different responsibilities for finding food |
| B．how many possessions a person has |
| C．the size of a person’s family |
| D．the ability to influence spiritual forces |
| A．education |
| B．government |
| C．family |
| D．religion |
| A．store food for future use |
| B．make decisions as a group |
| C．meet their basic needs |
| D．enjoy very much leisure time |
| A．knowledge |
| B．property |
| C．sickness |
| D．relationships |
| A．were limited in the past to Africa and Australia |
| B．no longer exist |
| C．are the oldest form of human society |
| D．easily coexist with farming societies |
6 . On July 31, 1697, a French lawyer named Jacques Sennacques wrote a message to remind a cousin in the Netherlands to send him a relative’s death certificate. To prevent others from reading the message, the note was carefully folded, or “letter locked.” The technique was used before the invention of envelopes. However, for reasons unknown, the note never reached the recipient and was instead stored in a postmaster’s trunk, where it remained undetected for centuries. Now, a team of international researchers has deciphered (破译) the contents of the over 300-year-old sealed letter — without opening it!
The chain of events leading to this technology began in 2015 when MIT expert Jana Dambrogio got a call from Daniel Starza Smith, a researcher at King’s College London. “He asked me, ‘What would you do if I told you there was a trunk with 600 unopened letters?’”
The trunk had once belonged to 17th-century postmaster Simon de Brienne. Historians believe the post office stored the undelivered letters. That’s because, in the 17th century, it was the recipient, not the sender, who bore the postage cost. When Brienne died in 1707, he donated the trunk of letters to an orphanage. Somehow, the trunk eventually made its way to the postal museum, where it lay until recently.
Since opening the letters would destroy them, Dambrogio and her team decided to develop technology to unseal them virtually. They began by using a high-resolution X-ray scanner to create a detailed three-dimensional image of a sealed letter. While the writing inside showed up very clearly, the numerous layers of folded paper pressed close together caused the words to overlap (重叠).
To solve the issue, the researchers created sophisticated algorithm (算法) capable of deciphering the writing in the cleverly folded letter, crease by crease. The virtual opening allowed the team to read the contents “while preserving letter locking evidence.” The algorithm took almost five years to perfect. Once perfected, they used it to open four locked letters and fully decode(解码) the one from Sennacques.
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Quite a few people could write letters. | B．Envelopes were not invented in 1697. |
| C．Jacques Sennacques was a postmaster. | D．Researchers couldn’t figure out the letter. |
| A．To get paid. | B．To find the senders. |
| C．To save the cost. | D．To scan the letters. |
| A．were badly damaged | B．were all decoded |
| C．remained very fresh | D．were very fragile |
| A．Physically. | B．Chemically. | C．Occasionally. | D．Digitally. |
7 . Daban town is famous for girls and windmills, while Loulan is a myth (神话) in the desert. Two thousand years ago, beside the beautiful Luobu Lake, there lay Loulan ancient city of the Silk Road. Businessmen from every country gathered here and there were lots of dancing parties. Everything shows that people in Loulan lived a rich life then.
However, two thousand years later, this rich land suddenly disappeared from the map of China. It became an area covered with sand and dead tree trunks.
Loulan was first “discovered” by a Swedish man named Sven Hedin in 1900, and people from America, Britain, Japan and Sweden all set foot here. Then in the 1930s, a Chinese named Huang Wenbi came to Loulan for the first time. He visited and studied this area and found many relics that were beautifully and carefully made. It is recorded that the ancient city of Loulan was the capital of the Loulan Kingdom during the Han and Jin Dynasties, and covered an area of some 10,000 square kilometres. Inside the city, there are the ruins of government offices, temples and other old buildings. Outside the city there are some driedup rivers and much farmland. In the past century many things have been dug up there including Han Dynasty coins, mirrors and many others of Greek and Roman times. All these things show that a lot of business between the East and the West once took place there.
Lying on the northwest of the Lop Nur area, the Loulan Kingdom is now a lifeless area with endless “forests” of mounds (小丘) which aren't easily seen in other parts of the world. Its mystery has been attracting many people from many countries.
1. The first person setting foot in Loulan in the 20th century was ________.| A．a European | B．an American |
| C．a Chinese | D．a Japanese |
| A．there was no government in that area |
| B．people from America and Japan had been there |
| C．a lifeless area with lots of mounds could be easily seen there |
| D．much business between the East and the West had taken place there |
| A．Loulan was destroyed by the terrible weather there. |
| B．Wars between the countries made Loulan disappear. |
| C．Too many people gathered in Loulan and destroyed it. |
| D．How Loulan ancient city disappeared is still unknown to us. |
| A．Its pretty girls. |
| B．Its developing business. |
| C．Its mystery. |
| D．Its beautiful scenery. |
8 . Mr.Selfridge, the Wisconsin-born retailer (零售商) who left school at 14, rose to become a partner in Marshall Field’s, Chicago. Founded in 1852, it was one of the first and most ambitious US department stores. Mr.Selfridge had done well with Marshall Field’s. He liked to say, “The customer is always right,” which made the Chicago store popular. And he is believed to have invented the phrase “Only (so many) Shopping Days until Christmas”.
When he visited London on holiday in 1906 he was surprised to find most of the city’s department stores were no match of their American and Parisian competitors. This led Selfridge to leave the US and establish Selfridges, a department store named after him, at the west end of London’s Oxford Street. In Oxford Street, Selfridge’s design team shaped an ambitious classical palace building with a wall of plate glass windows.
Opened in 1909, Selfridges offered customers a hundred departments along with restaurants, a roof garden,reading and writing rooms, reception areas for foreign visitors, a first aid room and most importantly, a small army of knowledgeable floor-walking assistants who served as guides as well as being thoroughly instructed in the art of making a sale.
Mr.Selfridge did much to make the department store a destination rather than just a big and comprehensively stocked city shop. It became a place to meet and for ladies to lunch. Mr.Selfridge later introduced the department store as a key element of the 20th Century culture, and Chaplin acknowledged the growing trend for shopping in the department store in his film The Floorwalker.
1. What can be learned about Mr.Selfridge from Paragraph 1?| A．He was well-educated. | B．He was a modest man. |
| C．He was a gifted businessman. | D．He was dishonest. |
| A．The broad choice of goods. | B．The large number of departments. |
| C．The small group of guards. | D．The well-trained sales guides. |
| A．To encourage shoppers to spend more. | B．To introduce the history of Selfridges. |
| C．To compare different department stores. | D．To explain how to start a department store. |
9 . The first men and women came to Britain over two and a half million years ago.
3,000 years after Britain became an island, new tribes who came by boat from the mainland introduced farming.
Later on, people learned to build stone monuments. The most amazing is Stonehenge, a circle of huge stones begun about 4,500 years ago. Stonehenge is the world's most famous prehistoric monument.
3,000 years ago the climate in Britain became colder and wetter than before.
What we know about the first people in Britain has been worked out by archaeologists from the remains they left behind them. Pytheas, a Greek, was the first person who could read and write to come to Britain. His visit was in about 330 BC, over 2, 000 years after Stonehenge was begun. Unfortunately, what Pytheas wrote has been lost, so we don't have any written record of Britain until the Romans came.
| A．That was almost 300 years after he did! |
| B．As a result, people had to move down from high ground. |
| C．Because of the climate change, much of the ice has melted. |
| D．Many archaeologists believe that Britain was once covered by ice. |
| E．These tribes built earthworks for protection and as tombs for their dead bodies. |
| F．They were hunters and gatherers of food, who used stone tools and weapons. |
| G．We don't know what it was used for, though many different suggestions have been made. |
