2 . Ireland has had a very difficult history. The problems started in the 16th century when English rulers tried to vanquish Ireland. For hundreds of years, the Irish people fought against the English. Finally, in 1921, the British government was forced to give independence to the south of Ireland. The result is that today there are two “Irelands”. Northern Ireland, in the north, is part of the United Kingdom. The Republic of Ireland, in the south, is an independent country.

In the 1840s the main crop, potatoes, was affected by disease and about 750,000 people died of hunger. This, and a shortage of work, forced many people to leave Ireland and live in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. As a result, the population fell from 8.2 million in 1841 to 6.6 million in 1851.

For many years, the majority of Irish people earned their living as farmers. Though many people still follow the routine nowadays, more and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories and offices. Life in the cities is very different from life in the countryside, where things move at a quieter and slower pace.

The Irish are famous for being warm-hearted and friendly. Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer, once said that the Irish were “the greatest talkers since the Greeks”. Since independence, Ireland has revived (复兴) its own culture of music, language, literature and singing. Different areas have different styles of old Irish songs which are sung without instruments. Other kinds of Irish music use many different instruments such as the violin, whistles, etc.

1. What does the underlined word “vanquish” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?

A．Conquer.

B．Ruin.

C．Protect.

D．Free.

2. Why did the population of Ireland once decrease greatly?

A．The Irish were killed by the English rulers.

B．The Irish were affected by a deadly disease.

C．The Irish were not eager to give birth to babies.

D．The Irish suffered from food and work shortage.

3. How did most Irish people make their living?

A．By working in the fields.	B．By working in factories.
C．By trading with other countries.	D．By performing musical instruments.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Life in Ireland	B．Ireland, Past and Present
C．A Very Difficult History	D．The Independence of Ireland

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

The trade routes are of great importance. In March, the Suez Canal, one of the world’s most important sea trade routes     1     (block) by a ship, causing an epic maritime traffic jam of nearly 300 ships between Europe and Asia.

Besides the Suez Canal, China’s ancient Silk Road also played     2     important role in trade and cultural exchanges between China and Europe.

In early history, the Silk Road was the most important trade route,     3     (mark) the beginning of globalization. As the first route     4     introduced the Eastern world to the Western civilization, the Silk Road in China can date     5     the Han dynasty in ancient China. In the following years in history, many great     6     (figure ) had made significant contributions to the development of the Silk Road.

Though the Silk Road was mainly a trading route, it was     7     (benefit) to each other in the first place. It     8     (actual) opened long-distance political and economic communication between Europe and Asia. The ancient Silk Road is more like a historical textbook, enabling people from different cultures and regions     9     (understand) what happened during the ancient time. Up to now, the Silk Road in China     10     (bring) great attraction to the tourism in China even in the world.

4 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

You may think you cannot live through summer without air conditioners. But in ancient China, hand fans were almost the only help for people       1     (drive) the heat away.

Chinese people started to use hand fans over 2,000 years ago. The fans came       2     different shapes, such as round and square and they were made from various materials. Palm leaf fans were cheap and easy to make. Feather fans showed the owner’s high status. Sandalwood fans     3     (send) out a fragrant smell.

    4     (late), hand fans became more than something     5     could cool you down. They developed into art works, in which tuanshan and zheshan were the most common.

Shaped like     6     full moon, tuanshan was usually made of silk. They had beautiful embroidery(刺绣) featuring birds and flowers on them. Females, especially     7    (woman) in the royal palace,liked to use them. Poets in ancient China often compared a woman’s abandoned fate to tuanshan. A poet wrote during the Qing Dynasty, “If only life were as     8     (beauty) as when we first met, why should the autumn wind bother to pity deserted painted fans?”

Meanwhile, men, especially the literati (文人), used zheshan. The literati liked them because they could paint and write poems on them.     9     was a way for them to show off their talent in literature, painting and calligraphy. Almost anything could     10       (paint) on zheshan, but the most popular ones usually featured landscapes.

7 . As early as the twelfth century AD, the settlements of Chaco Canyon in Mexico in the American Southwest were notable for “their great houses” massive stone buildings that contain hundreds of rooms and often stand three or four stories high.     1     While there is still no universally agreed upon explanation, there are three competing theories.

One theory holds that the Chaco structures were purely residential.     2     Supporters of this theory have interpreted Chaco great houses as earlier versions of the architecture seen in more recent Southwest societies. In particular, the Chaco houses appear strikingly similar to the large, well known “apartment buildings” at Taos, New Mexico, in which many people have been living for centuries.

    3     One of the main crops of the Chaco people was grain maize, which could be stored for long periods of time without spoiling and could serve as a long-lasting supply of food. The supplies of maize had to be stored somewhere.     4    

A third theory proposes that houses were used as ceremonial centers. Close to one house, called Pueblo Alto, excavations of the mound revealed deposits containing a surprisingly large number of broken pots.     5    . At the ceremonies, they ate festive meals and then discarded the pots in which the meals has been prepared or served.

A．Almost every structure houses hundreds of people.

B．Some experts think the Chaco structures were used to store food supplies.

C．Archaeologists have been trying to determine how the buildings were used.

D．The size of the great houses would make them very suitable for the purpose.

E．Such ceremonies have been documented for other Native American cultures.

F．Archaeologists identified an enormous mound formed by a pile of old material.

G．This finding has been interpreted that people gathered at Pueblo Alto for special ceremonies.

8 . Six “sacrificial pits(祭祀坑)”, dating back 3,200 to 4,000 yeas, were newly discovered in Sanxingdui Ruins site in Guanghan. Over 500 artifacts, including gold masks, bronze wares, ivories, jades and textiles were unearthed from the site. Sanxingdui site is located in Sanxingdui Town, Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, on the south bank of Qianjiang River (Yangtze River), a tributary of Tuojiang River in the north of Chengdu Plain. The site covers an area of about 12 square kilometers, and the core area is the ancient city of Sanxingdui, with an area of about 3.6 square kilometers. It is the largest and highest-grade central site found in Sichuan Basin during the Xia and Shang period.

Sanxingdui site, first found in 1929, is generally considered as one of the most important archaeological sites along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. However, the work of excavation on the site only began in 1986, when two pits — widely believed for sacrificial ceremonies — were accidentally discovered.

Investigation in the area around No.1 and 2 pits was relaunched in October 2019, and No.3 pit was found in December 2019, according to Lei Yu, a researcher of Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute who heads the ongoing excavation. Thirty four research universities and research institutes have cooperated in this project. He said the new discoveries will help to better understand many unexplained findings in 1986.

More excavation followed in March 2020, and five more pits were found last year. And detailed research began in October. Excavation capsules with hi-tech equipment were set up in the pits in order to prevent the site from further damage.

According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, studies of Sanxingdui site will become a crucial project in an ongoing program Archaeology China, which tries to explain the origins of Chinese civilization and how diverse cultures communicate and come together.

1. What does the underlined word “excavation” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Check.

B．Dig.

C．Protection.

D．Extension.

2. How did archaeologists protect the Sanxingdui site?

A．By conducting more experiments around the site.

B．By dividing the task of excavation into several parts.

C．By cooperating with research universities and institutes.

D．By using excavation capsule armed with hi-tech equipment.

3. What can we infer about the pits from the text?

A．There are 6 sacrificial pits discovered in Sanxingdui site in all.

B．The size of the core zone is about 1/3 of Sanxingdui site.

C．The discovery of Sanxingdui site only began in 2019.

D．All sacrificial sites were discovered in the meantime.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Sanxingdui site needed protecting.

B．Hi-tech helped to explore Sanxingdui site.

C．Sanxingdui discoveries reveal ancient China.

D．Sacrificial pits were unearthed in Sanxingdui site.