1 . On 2 September, 1666, the citizens of London woke to see the city's crowded wooden houses on fire. The fire started in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane in the early hours of the morning. By the time it burned Alit Otis 5 September around 13, 000 buildings had been destroyed, including the original St Paul's Cathedral, 87 churches and 52 company halls. Between 65, 000 and 80, 000 people lost their homes, although thankfully only a handful were recorded as having been killed. The estimated cost of the fire was around 10 million pounds.

Soon after the fire, several designs work put forward for the redevelopment of London,   among them once from Wren, a favorite or King Charles TI. A common theme was streets spreading out from the river and crossing with others running parallel to it. However, a lack of money to buy the land and the need to rebuild the city quickly ruined all his grand ideas.

Instead, nearly 3,000 houses were built within the first three years, mostly back on the original layout.

The task of getting London rebuilt was given to a commits of six men, including Wren. Their role was to manage surveys of ruined properties and consider the fun and scald of new buildings, and any adjustments to the streets.

The major roads were widened to reduce the risk of fires spreading in futile. For the same reason, buildings were constructed largely from brick and stone instead of wood. Guidelines were also made for the height of houses and about how much wood could be used on the outside. There was even a new rule insisting on the use of downpipes, to stop problems with rainwater flowing down from gutters（排水沟）.

Although others designed and rebuilt many properties in Lincoln after the Great Fire, Wren was the most productive architect. In total, he designed and supervised the construction of 52 churches, 36 company halls, two great hospitals and St Paul's Cathedral, all of which took 35 years to complete. Many of' these still stand today. Wren was also one of the architects of the 62 meter﹣tall Monument, a memorial to the Great Fir which stands close to the sit where it started.

1. According to the passage, the fire in London

A．lasted four days before it was out

B．started in the wealthy neighborhood

C．broke out in the afternoon

D．caused thousands deaths

2. Wren's grand ideas to rebuild the city were ruined partly because .

A．King Charles II didn't approve obit

B．they were short of money to pay workers

C．houses should be rebuilt in their fencer place

D．his design required more time than needed

3. Which of the following measures helped prevent fires？

A．All newly﹣built roads were widened.

B．All new buildings were of the same height.

C．A limited amount of wood was used.

D．A large number of downpipes were used.

4. What can be learned from the last paragraph？

A．Wren designed most of the new buildings.

B．It took 35 years to build St Paul's Cathedral.

C．Today we can see some buildings designed by Wren.

D．Two architects designed the 62﹣meter monument.

5. Which is the best title for the passage？

A．Works oaf Great Architect

B．Reconstruction of London

C．The Great Fire of London

D．Measures against Great Fir.

2 . At some point in elementary school, your science teacher may explained to you that there are 365 days in a year because that's how long it takes for Earth to complete one full journey around the sun. What they might not have explained, however, is that it's not exactly 365 days—it’s actually closer to 365. 2421 days.

So, if we want our calendar year to begin right when Earth begins a new turn around the sun, we have to account for roughly an extra quarter of a day each year, or one day every four years. History.com reports that the Egyptians had already been doing this for a while before Europe finally caught on in 46 BC, when Roman Emperor Julius Caesar and astronomer Sosigenes put their heads together to come up with what we now call the Julian calendar, which includes 12 months, 365 days, and an additional ''leap day'' every four years on February 29.

But rounding 0.2421 up to 0.25 each year created an issue, because it didn't quite add up to a full day every four years—and that tiny difference meant that after 128 years, the calendar year ended up starting a day before Earth had completed its journey around the sun. By the 14^th century, the calendar year was starting 10 days before Earth finished its orbit.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII sought to correct the error by suggesting that we simply skip a leap day every so often. His Gregorian calendar, which we still use today, rules that we skip the leap day during years which can be evenly divided (被整除) by 100 but not by 400. For instance, the year 2000 included a leap day because it can be divided by 100 and 400; the year 2100, on the other hand, will not include a leap day, since it's evenly divided by 100, but not by 400.

Gregory XIII’s correction to Caesar's overcorrection is itself a bit of an under-correction, so we'll probably need to reevaluate our leap day design again in about 10,000 years.

1. What do the underlined words ''put their heads together'' in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Come across each other.	B．Bump their heads together.
C．Compete against each other.	D．Combine their efforts.

2. According to Gregorian calendar, which year may include a leap day?

A．2100.	B．1600.
C．1800.	D．2020.

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Emperor Julius Caesar was also an astronomer.

B．Today's calendar exactly agrees with the sun's turning.

C．The 10-day early start in calendar will always exist.

D．The Gregorian calendar is not yet the most accurate.

4. What's the purpose of this passage?

A．To point out a mistake made by your science teacher.

B．To explain how long Earth makes a trip around the sun.

C．To explain in detail why the leap day is needed.

D．To explain the reason why we need a calendar.

3 . Up in the air—a history of ballooning

The first kind of air transportation was the balloon. People traveled by balloon one hundred years before there were planes or jet aircraft. Those early days of ballooning were exciting, but they were also risky.     1     However, the danger did not stop the balloonists.

The first real balloon flight was in France in 1783. Two French brothers made a balloon.     2    Hot air is lighter than cold air, so it goes up. The hot air balloon went up 1,000 feet in the sky.

    3    They built a fire under the balloon to make the air hot. This made the balloon stay up in the air for a few hours. But their balloon was tied to the ground. So it could not go anywhere.

Soon balloonists tried longer flights. In 1785, an American and a Frenchman flew over the English Channel. They left England on a cold, clear January day. Halfway across, their balloon began to drop toward the water. They threw out some equipment and food to make the balloon lighter. The balloon continued to fall, so they threw out almost everything in the basket -even some of their clothes.     4    

During the nineteenth century, ballooning became a popular sport and balloons were also used by scientists to study the air and by armies in war time. After the airplane was invented, however, interest in balloons decreased dramatically. But some people today still like to go up in balloons.     5    What’s more, they have a wonderful view of the world below.

A．They filled a very large paper bag with hot air.

B．High up in the balloon basket, they find quiet.

C．Sometimes the balloons fell suddenly and sometimes they burned.

D．Back then, few people understood how they were able to fly so far.

E．Finally, after about three hours, they landed in France, cold but safe.

F．Balloon races and displays remain popular all over the world to this very day.

G．Later that same year, two other Frenchmen ascended in a basket under a balloon.

4 . The word “boycott” comes to English through Irish, which can be used as both a verb and a noun. As a verb, boycott means to refuse to do something as a form of protest （抗 议）.People who boycott something are often looking for social, economic （经济的）or political change.    1    People stop using goods or services during a boycott until changes are made.     2     In the mid-1800s, a young man, Charles Boycott, worked as a land agent for the owner of a large country farm in Ireland.     3    Later, the farmers demanded lower rents. Boycott refused, and even kicked some of them out of the farm. As a result, another man named Davitt came into conflict with Boycott.

In 1879，Davitt founded a group called the Land League，which sought to help poor farmers. He suggested to the farmers that they refuse to do business with Boycott.    4     Since Boycott’s workers and servants refused to carry out his orders, the crops in his fields   went bad. The community turned their back on the Boycott's family and they were forced to move.

At the end of 1880，some British newspapers began using Boycott’s name when reporting on a protest of unfair methods or actions.    5    By the late 1880s,   The New York Times was reporting on boycotts. The word was generally used to describe labor protests against businesses. These days, consumers are able to use their buying power to boycott businesses they consider unfair.

A．The usage quickly spread.

B．In fact, it began with a man’s name.

C．This form of protest proved effective.

D．However, its original meaning is still unknown.

E．As a noun，the word boycott has a somewhat different meaning.

F．Otherwise，his last name may become a word people use when they protest.

G．Boycott’s job was to collect rents from the farmers who rented fields of the farm.

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.     1     When they wanted to talk to each other, they climbed into their boats and sailed across.

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.     2    

Between 1888 and 1920 there were two major efforts to build a train tunnel to connect the areas.     3     Proposals to build a connecting bridge made during the 1910s also ended in failure due to opposition from the US Navy.

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.     4     Construction, which took five years, was completed in 1964 and cost $320 million. Today about 190,000 cars and trucks cross the bridge every day.

    5     But in the case of the Narrows, figuring out a good solution took hundreds of years.

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 .
1. What caused musicals to move in a new direction during the 1930's?

A．The development of new musical instruments.

B．The audience s demand for more realistic art forms.

C．The rising popularity of other types of entertainment.

D．The greater acceptance of black performers by white audiences.

2. In which period did musical theatre become more complex and dramatic?

A．Pre - 1900.	B．1900- 1929.
C．1940- 1949.	D．1950- 1959.

3. What can be reasonably inferred about the musical West Side Story?

A．It told its story in a new way.

B．It was based on a true story.

C．It was a non-Broadway show.

D．It was not very successful at first.

7 . Just as John Lubbock said, we may sit in a library and yet be in all quarters of the earth. Here are some of the coolest libraries of the world.

Stuttgart City Library

Despite a classic white-on-white color, Stuttgart City Library is one of the most visually appealing modern libraries. The amazing modern and simple look is the product of the Korean architect Yi Eun-young. The German library opened in 2011, and cost nearly 80 million euros to construct.

Kanazawa Umimirai Library

Architects from the Coelacanth K&H Architects studio designed the Kanazawa Umimirai Library lo create the best reading environment. Healed floors, an outpouring of natural light, and other features were specifically included lo achieve this goal. The wall, which consists of thousands of tiny openings, allows natural lighting into the building, improving the overall feel of the space. This Japanese library was opened in 2011, and reflects the appearance of many modern and simple spaces.

Library of Congress

In 1800, Congress set up the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.. Fifteen years later, Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library to replace books that were lost when the British set the building on fire in 1814. His books, which took nearly 50 years to collect, varied from texts on science, literature and philosophy, to books in a variety of foreign languages. These days, the Library of Congress offers more than 155 million items and the largest rare book collection in North America.

State Library of Victoria

The Slate Library of Victoria, located in Melbourne, Australia, is one of the largest exhibiting libraries in the world. Though it opened in 1856, major repairs took place between 1990 and 2004. The La Trobe Reading Room is one of the library’s main attractions due to its visually amazing architecture. The lawn at the library’s front attracts hundreds of city folk each day, who gather for lunch or to enjoy the statues there. The library currently contains over two million books, as well as armor (盔甲) of Ned Kelly, a folk hero against the ruling class.

1. Which library has the longest history?

A．Stuttgart City Library.	B．Kanazawa Umimirai Library.
C．Library of Congress.	D．State Library of Victoria.

2. What’s special about Stale Library of Victoria?

A．It has great architecture.

B．It has a folk hero’s statue in it.

C．It is the world’s largest exhibiting library.

D．It serves as a meeting place for the citizens.

3. What does the first two libraries have in common?

A．They are constructed in the modern style.

B．They cost a large amount of money.

C．They are designed by Korean architects.

D．They feature providing readers with natural light.

8 . 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.

2. Who might be the earliest outsiders to Elba according to the text?

A．Napoleon and his army.	B．Etruscans and other Greeks.
C．Dorians.	D．Romans.

3. What does the underlined word “ensconced” probably mean?

A．Settled.	B．Locked.
C．Cured.	D．Controlled.

4. What came to the author’s mind during his visit to Napoleon’s gardens?

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.

9 . Three divers enter a hole leading to a water-filled cave on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. They swim for an hour. Finally, they reach a large room 60 feet underground and about the size of two basketball courts. Here, they discover an upside-down human skull (the bones of a person’s head). Other bones lay nearby.

The team came across the skull in 2007. The divers then told the Mexican government about the finding. Soon the government formed a team of scientists to look into it. The group, which included archaeologist (考古学家) Dominique Rissolo, believed that the skull belonged to someone who lived in the last ice age. At the ice age’s height some twenty thousand years ago, sea levels dropped and new land appeared. Over time, rain and wind ate holes into some of the land.

“The person may have died after entering the cave,” Rissolo says. Then, when the ice age ended some ten thousand years ago, sea levels rose. Water flooded the cave, covering the remains.

Worrying that moving the skull might destroy it, scientists decided to examine it at its watery resting place. They collected information about the skull and other pieces of bones. They found that the bones belonged to a 15- to 17-year-old girl who lived at least twelve thousand years ago. The team named her Naia after some sea creatures in Greek myths.

Naia is the oldest nearly complete human skeleton (骨架) ever found in the Americas. DNA tests showed that she’s a direct ancestor of present-day Native Americans. Naia’s DNA also matches with people native to Siberia, a part of Russia. Scientists have long thought that ancient people from this area arrived in Alaska during the last ice age. They were the first humans to live in the Americas. And Naia proves how far south they went. (Mexico is a country to the south of the US.)

In 2014 the scientists decided to bring up Naia’s skull from the cave to protect it from curious divers. So it was taken to a lab, where it remains today.

1. What do we learn about the skull?

A．It was left alone in the cave.

B．It lay under a basketball court.

C．It drew the government’s attention.

D．It was discovered by three scientists.

2. When did Naia probably live?

A．After the last ice age ended.

B．Before the last ice age ended.

C．Before the last ice age started.

D．At the beginning of the last ice age.

3. Why was the skull studied in the cave for several years?

A．Scientists tried to protect it.

B．The temperature was fine in there.

C．It was against the law to take it out.

D．It would help scientists study the cave,

4. Who were Naia’s distant ancestors?

A．Early humans in Greece.

B．Early humans in Siberia.

C．Early humans in Alaska.

D．Early humans in Mexico.

10 . 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

2. Which of the following was related to a royal family member?

A．The White City

B．Canopus and Heracleion

C．Machu Picchu

D．Troy

3. What can we learn about 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.