1 . Canada is one of the few nations in the world to have two official languages: English and French. There are 10 provinces in the country, but only one of these—Quebec is known as “French Canada”. This is because it was founded by French explorers while British adventurers discovered the rest.
Canada left the British Empire(帝国) in 1867 to become an independent country, and English and French have been recognized as the official languages ever since.
Most people speak English as their first language and the two national television networks broadcast in English throughout the country. Apart from in Quebec and a few places on the east coast, French television is rare.
The same goes for traffic signs and menus, for example, outside of Quebec, there are only a few places where you’ll see traffic signs in French. In restaurants, it’s almost impossible to find French on the menu unless you are in the heartland(中心地带) of French Canada. However, all products sold in Canada must, by law, have labels(标签) and instructions in both languages.
In Canada’s English-speaking provinces, official bilingualism means that students can choose to complete a special French language course. Under this program, they are taught most of their subjects in French. If a student begins the course in kindergarten(幼儿园) or Grade One, it is likely that all his lessons will be in French. But if he starts at junior high school, 25 percent of the teaching will continue to be in English.
1. Which country controlled Canada before its independence?A.France. | B.America. | C.The British Empire. | D.Germany. |
A.In Quebec and a few other places. | B.Only in Quebec. |
C.From the two national television networks. | D.All over Canada. |
A.外语教育 | B.双语教育 | C.母语教育 | D.语言教育 |
A.Only English courses are offered. |
B.Most of the courses in junior high schools are taught in English. |
C.The courses in primary schools are all taught in English. |
D.If you choose a special French language course in kindergarten, all of the lessons will be taught in French. |
The most important rule of the road concerns which side to drive on. A large number of accidents in the world happen for this reason, with more and more people
Most areas of the world which
Generally speaking, about two thirds of the countries in the world drive on the right such as, the USA, China and Russia. Canada used to drive on the left but changed to the right to make border crossings with the USA more
The
3 . There are hundreds of types of birthday cake in the world. You are likely to enjoy one during at least one of your birthday parties. But have you ever stopped and wondered, “Why am I eating this? What makes this dessert fit to celebrate the day of my birth?”
It’s because you are as important and beloved as the gods.
The ancient Egyptians are thought to have “invented” the celebration of birthdays. They believed when pharaohs (法老) were crowned, they became gods, so their coronation (加冕) day was their “birth” as a god.
Ancient Greeks borrowed the tradition, but realized that a dessert would make the celebration more meaningful. So they baked moon-shaped cakes to offer up to the goddess of the moon. They decorated them with lighted candles to make the cakes shine like the moon. It is the reason why we light our birthday cakes on fire.
Modern birthday parties are said to get their roots from an 18th century German celebration. On the morning of a child’s birthday, he or she would receive a cake with lighted candles that added up to the kid’s age, plus one. This extra candle was called the “light of life,” representing the hope of another full year lived.
And then, torture — because no one could eat the cake until after dinner. The family replaced the candles as they burned out throughout the day. Finally, when the moment came, the birthday child would make a wish, try to blow out all the candles in one breath, and dig in.
Since the ingredients (原料) to make cakes were pretty expensive, this birthday custom didn’t become popular until the Industrial Revolution. More ingredients were available, which made them cheaper, and bakeries even started selling pre-baked cakes.
1. What is the passage mainly about?A.The origin of birthday cakes. | B.The significance of birthday cakes. |
C.The history of birthday parties. | D.The introduction of cake production. |
A.Germans. | B.Pharaohs. |
C.Ancient Greeks. | D.Ancient Egyptians. |
A.pleasure | B.replacement |
C.sharing | D.suffering |
A.The transport was inconvenient. |
B.The ingredients of cakes were expensive. |
C.The cake could not be eaten before dinner. |
D.The bakeries would not sell pre-baked cakes. |
When foreigners negotiate, or register in certain areas of China, they may be
It is believed that seals came out as early
Then the local governments also needed seals for
5 . What happens when you want to go from one place to another, but there's water in the way?That's the problem people faced for hundreds of years in the area that is now New York City. In the city, there is a natural canal called the Narrows, separating Brooklyn on one side from Staten Island on the other.
But the Narrows isn't really so narrow. The water is almost a mile wide, and it's more than 100 feet deep.
By the late 1800s, circumstances had changed dramatically. Population growth meant there were now many people needing to travel between Staten Island and Brooklyn for work.
Between 1888 and 1920 there were two major efforts to build a train tunnel to connect the areas.
Finally, after World War II, there were so many people living in New York City that leaders decided Brooklyn and Staten Island needed a direct connection. Since tunnels were too expensive, they decided to build a bridge. The design selected had two separate roadways stacked on top of each other.
A.Sometimes getting from one place to another is easy. |
B.Both were quickly abandoned however due to the high costs involved. |
C.Neither road was large enough to satisfy the existing transport demands. |
D.It was anticipated that the new train system would help the areas grow even faster. |
E.Taking a boat every time was very slow, expensive and, in bad weather, unreliable. |
F.Both would hang in the air from thick steel cables, supported by two giant steel towers. |
G.For a long time that wasn't a problem, because only a few people lived in Brooklyn and Staten Island. |
6 . I visited Elba last June, joining Mary and John on a bicycling vacation. They made the arrangements for the car, hotel and bicycles. I studied the history of the island, which of course particularly features Napoleon.
Napoleon (now I know) picked Elba as a place for peace when he was forced to give up the throne (王权) as Emperor of France in 1814. Far from being a prison island, Elba is beautiful with towering mountains, thick forests and sweeping bays and beaches.
It is also an island filled with treasure. Very early on this island, locals discovered rich deposits of iron. Soon outsiders, too, discovered the iron and 150 other valuable minerals on this little piece of land. Long before Etruscans and other Greeks set foot on it, Dorians had moved in by the tenth century B. C. and were mining the island. The Romans ruled next, obtaining the minerals and building grand houses overlooking the sea. From the twelfth century until the nineteenth, the island was traded back and forth and was passed to France in 1802. Then came Napoleon, the new ruler of Elba.
I was eager to visit his house in Portoferraio. The Emperor lived with his court and his mother, but his wife, Marie Louise had ensconced herself in the splendid Viennese palace of her father, Emperor of Austria. She lived safely there and showed little interest in visiting her husband in his mini-kingdom. Apparently, Napoleon wasn’t troubled much by this. He was too busy riding everywhere on horseback, building roads, modernizing agriculture and, above all, sharpening his tiny army and navy into readiness for his escape.
In the formal gardens behind the house it seemed to me that I could imagine the exiled (流放的) conqueror’s anxious thoughts. He might gaze over where I stood now, toward the lighthouse of the Stella fort, the sandy bay, and across it, the green mountains of the Tuscan coast. Napoleon spent only ten months here before making his victorious return to France and the throne.
1. What did the author do for the visit to Elba?A.He did research on its past. |
B.He arranged transportation. |
C.He planned bicycling routes. |
D.He booked accommodation. |
A.Napoleon and his army. | B.Etruscans and other Greeks. |
C.Dorians. | D.Romans. |
A.Settled. | B.Locked. |
C.Cured. | D.Controlled. |
A.Beautiful views on Elba. |
B.Terrible living conditions on Elba. |
C.Napoleon’s ambition to regain power. |
D.Hardship of Napoleon’s return to France. |
Cholera was a deadly disease of its day. Neither its cause nor its cure
He became interested in two theories
John Snow suspected that the second theory was correct but he needed evidence. So when another outbreak hit London in 1854, he was ready
8 . Lost cities that have been found
The White City
In 2015, a team of explorers to Honduras in search of"the Lost City of the Monke God"led to the discovery of the White City. They found the ruins in the Mosquitia region of the Central American country which is known for poisonous snakes, vicious jaguars and deadly insects. It is believed that local people hid here when the Spanish conquerors(征服者) occupied their homeland in the16th century.
Canopus and Heracleion
Modern researchers were teased by the ancient writings about the Egyptian cities Canopus and Heracleion- where Queen Cleopatra often visited. But the cities weren’t found until 1992, when a search in Alexandria waters found that the two cities had been flooded for centuries. Artifacts(史前器物) showed that the cities once highly developed as a trade network, which helped researchers piece together more about the last queen of Egypt.
Machu Picchu
A Yale professor discovered "the Lost City in the Clouds"in 1911. A combination of palaces, plazas, temples and homes, Machu Picchu displays the Inca Empire at the height of its rule. The city, which was abandoned in the 16th century for unknown reasons,was hidden by the local people from the Spanish conquerors for centuries keeping it so well preserved.
Troy
The ancient city of Troy in homer's The Iliad was considered a fictional setting for his characters to run wild. But in 1871, explorations in northwestern Turkey exposed nine ancient cities layered (层叠) on top of each other, the earliest dating back to about 5,000 years before. It was later determined that the sixth or seventh layer contained the lost city of Troy and that it was actually destroyed by an earthquake, not a wooden horse.
1. Why did people hide in the White City in the 16th century?A.To survive the war |
B.To search for a lost city. |
C.To protect their country. |
D.To avoid dangerous animals |
A.The White City |
B.Canopus and Heracleion |
C.Machu Picchu |
D.Troy |
A.It was built by Homer. |
B.It consisted of nine cities |
C.It had a history of 5,000 years |
D.It was ruined by a natural disaster. |
Napoleon, as a character in Tolstoy’sWar and Peace, is more than once described as having “fat little hands.’’ Nor does he “sit well or firmly on the horse.’’ He is said to be “undersized.’’ with“short legs’’ and a “round stomach”. The issue here is not the accuracy of Tolstoy’s description--it seems not that far off from historical accounts but his choice of facts:other things that could be said of the man are not said. We are meant to understand the difference of a warring commander in the body of a fat little Frenchman. Tolstoy’s Napoleon could be any man wandering in the streets and putting a little of powdered tobacco up his nose—and that is the point.
It is a way the novelist uses to show the moral nature of a character. And it turns out that, as Tolstoy has it, Napoleon is a crazy man. In a scene in Book Three ofWar and Peace, the wars having reached the critical year of 1812,Napoleon receives a representative from the Tsar(沙皇), who has come with peace terms. Napoleon is very angry:doesn’t he have more army? He, not the Tsar, is the one to make the terms. He will destroy all of Europe if his army is stopped. “That is what you will have gained by engaging me in the war!” he shouts. And then, Tolstoy writes, Napoleon “walked silently several times up and down the room, his fat shoulders moving quickly.’’
Still later, after reviewing his army amid cheering crowds, Napoleon invites the shaken Russian to dinner. “He raised his hand to the Russian’s…face,” Tolstoy writes, and “taking him by the ear pulled it gently….” To have one’s ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest honor and mark of favor at the French court. “Well, well, why don’t you say anything?’’ said he, as if it was ridiculous in his presence to respect any one but himself, Napoleon.
Tolstoy did his research, but the composition is his own.
1. Tolstoy’s description of Napoleon in War and Peaceis _________.
A.far from the historical facts | B.based on the Russian history |
C.based on his selection of facts | D.not related to historical details |
A.he thought he should be the one to make the peace terms |
B.the Tsar's peace terms were hard to accept |
C.the Russians stopped his military movement |
D.he didn’t have any more army to fight with |
A.To walk out of the room in anger. | B.To show agreement with him. |
C.To say something about the Tsar. | D.To express his admiration. |
A.ill-mannered in dealing with foreign guests | B.fond of showing off his iron will |
C.determined in destroying all of Europe | D.crazy for power and respect |
A.A writer doesn’t have to be faithful to his findings. |
B.A writer may write about a hero in his own way. |
C.A writer may not be responsible for what he writes. |
D.A writer has hardly any freedom to show his feelings. |
10 . Mathematical ability and musical ability may not seem on the surface to be connected, but people who have researched the subject -- and studied the brain—say that they are. Three quarters of the bright but speech-delayed children in the group I studied had a close relative who was an engineer, mathematician or scientist, and four fifths had a close relative who played a musical instrument. The children themselves usually took readily to math and other analytical subjects and to music.
Black, white and Asian children in this group show the same patterns. However, it is clear that blacks have been greatly overrepresented in the development of American popular music and greatly underrepresented in such fields as mathematics, science and engineering.
If the abilities required in analytical fields and in music are so closely related, how can there be this great discrepancy? One reason is that the development of mathematical and other such abilities requires years of formal schooling, while certain musical talents can be developed with little or no formal training, as has happened with a number of well-known black musicians.
It is precisely in those kinds of music where one can acquire great skill without formal training that blacks have excelled popular music rather than classical music, piano rather than violin, blues rather than opera. This is readily understandable, given that most blacks, for most of American history, have not had either the money or the leisure for long years of formal study in music.
Blacks have not merely held their own in American popular music. They have played a large role in the development of jazz, both traditional and modern. A long string of names comes to mind—W.C. Handy, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker…and so on.
None of this presupposes(假设,意味着) any special innate(先天的)ability of blacks in music. On the contrary, it is perfectly consistent with blacks having no more such inborn ability than anyone else, but being limited to being able to express such ability in narrower channels than others who have had the money, the time and the formal education to spread out over a wider range of music, as well as into mathematics, science and engineering.
1. what is the main idea of the first paragraph?A.Mathematical ability and musical ability are connected. |
B.Mathematical ability has more to do with the brain than musical ability. |
C.More people are good at music than math. |
D.More research should be done into the relationship between mathematical ability and math ability. |
A.difference | B.excellence | C.inborn ability | D.inability |
A.It requires formal training. |
B.It is often enjoyed by those with strong analytical ability. |
C.It is disliked by blacks. |
D.It is more difficult to learn than classical music. |
A.Blacks have special innate ability in music. |
B.Unlike others, blacks do not have innate ability in music. |
C.Jazz is one of the narrow channels through which blacks express their ability in music. |
D.Those who have money and time choose mathematics over music. |
A.Are musical ability and mathematical ability connected? |
B.Why have blacks been greatly over represented in the development of American popular misic? |
C.What kinds of music require formal training? |
D.What are the contributions made by black musicians? |