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
2 . 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
4 . 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. |
5 . 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
7 . 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. |
