More than 500 pieces of relics
Tang Fei, chief of the Research Institute, said, “The new discoveries demonstrate once again that the imagination and
Tang
2 . The discovery of the ruined palace in the Mosul Dam reservoir on the banks of the Tigris River inspired an archeological dig that would improve understanding of the Mittani Empire, one of the least-researched empires of the ancient Near East, a team of German researchers said. “The find is one of the most important archeological discoveries in the region in recent decades,” Kurdish archeologist(考古学家) Hasan Qasim said.
The palace would have originally stood just 65 feet from the river on a terrace(梯田). A terrace wall of mud bricks was later added to make the building stable. Ivana Puljiz, an archeologist from the University of Tübingen’s Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, describes the palace, known as Kemune, as a carefully designed building with mud-brick walls up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) thick.
The team also found wall paintings in shades of red and blue, which were probably a common feature of palaces at the time but have rarely been found preserved. “Discovering wall paintings in Kemune is an archeological sensation,” Puljiz said in a press release, “Kemune is only the second site in the region where wall paintings of the Mittani period have been discovered.”
Ten clay tablets covered in cuneiform, an ancient system of writing, were also discovered and have been sent to Germany for translation. “From the texts we hope to gain information on the inner structure of the Mitani Empire, its economic organization, and the relationship of the Mittani capital with the administrative centers in the neighboring regions,” Puljiz added.
Archeologists first became aware of the site in 2010 when water levels in the reservoir were low, but this is the first time they have been able to dig. However, the site was submerged(淹没) shortly after the dig, Puljiz said, adding“It is unclear when it will come out of water again”.
1. The function of the archeological dig is to ________.| A．attract people to travel to the Tigris River |
| B．help people know the Mittani Empire better |
| C．show ways of rebuilding the Mosul Dam reservoir |
| D．provide some clues about research on the Near East |
| A．To make the palace firmly built. | B．To offer tourists a place for rest. |
| C．To give tourists a good view. | D．To make the building better designed |
| A．Kemune is different from any other palace. |
| B．Wall paintings were an important discovery. |
| C．Kemune is famous for its special wall paintings |
| D．Wall paintings were first discovered in the Mittani Empire. |
| A．Translating the cuneiform into English | B．Knowing relationships between regions. |
| C．Waiting for the water level to drop. | D．Understanding the structure of the empire. |
3 . “How do they walk in these things?” complains Jack Lemmon, walking with difficulty in his heels, newly dressed as his another identity Josephine, in the film “Some Like It Hot”.
High heels were, in fact, originally designed for men — and had an extremely practical purpose. Soldiers on horseback wore them in 10th-century Persia, according to Elizabeth Semmel hack of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. The heel helped keep them stable as they stood up in their stirrups ( 马镫) and took aim at enemies with bows and arrows (cowboy boots still use heels in this way). Over time, heels appeared on the shoes of male nobles across Europe. Yet from the mid-17th century, heels became associated with supposedly “feminine” qualities, and so became women’s wear. Until the mid-20th century heels were heavy, heavy things. After the Second World War, techniques and materials used in aircraft engineering were applied to shoes, creating the stiletto ( 细高跟). The high, narrow heel requires a thin metal pole, strong enough to bear the wearer’s weight yet flexible enough to allow the shoe to move.
Shoemakers have searched actively for a right heel. They aim to reduce the angle created by a high heel, which forces the few square centimeteres of the ball of your foot to bear the entire weight of your body. Joan Oloff, a podiatrist-turned-shoe-designer, makes footwear lined with memory foam ( 泡沫) to absorb the shock of each painful step. The bottom part of the shoe is crafted to support the arch of the foot and distribute the wearer’s weight more equally. Antonia Saint Dunbar, an entrepreneur, makes shoes with a heel cup and strips inside to stop the foot slipping around and getting blisters ( 水泡). And growing numbers of companies make shoes with adjustable heels: two inches for the boardroom, four for the nightclub, none for home.
However, the wisest are stepping down altogether: in 2016, for the first time, more British women bought trainers than heels.
1. Why is a scene in “Some Like It Hot” mentioned in Paragraph 1?| A．To recommend this film. |
| B．To explain Jack’s double identity. |
| C．To introduce the topic of high heels. |
| D．To stress the difficulty of walking in heels. |
| A．By presenting research findings. |
| B．By analyzing cause and effect. |
| C．By following the order of time. |
| D．By following the order of importance. |
| A．To keep soldiers fighting on horseback steady. |
| B．To keep cowboys standing up in stirrups safe. |
| C．To show off the beauty of women. |
| D．To show the nobility of Europeans. |
| A．Popularize shoes with adjustable heels. |
| B．Help women find the right high heels. |
| C．Encourage women to wear trainers. |
| D．Make high heels comfortable. |
4 . Black Friday refers to the day after Thanksgiving. On this day, crowds of shoppers flood into stores all over the country to take advantage of the season’s biggest holiday bargains. But the real story behind Black Friday is a bit complicated.
The most commonly repeated story behind the post-Thanksgiving shopping-related Black Friday tradition links it to retailers (零售商). As the story goes, after an entire year of operating at a loss, recorded in red ink, stores would supposedly earn a profit, marked in black ink, on the day after Thanksgiving, because holiday shoppers blew so much money on discounted products. Though it’s true that retail companies used to record losses in red and profits in black when doing their accounting, this version of Black Friday’s origin is not an accurate story behind the tradition.
The true story behind Black Friday, however, is not as sunny as retailers might have you believe. Back in the 1950s, police in the city of Philadelphia used the term to describe the chaos that happened on the day after Thanksgiving, when tens of thousands of suburban shoppers and tourists flooded into the city in advance of the big Army-Navy football game held on that Saturday every year. Not only would the police not be able to take the day off, but also they would have to work extra-long shifts dealing with the additional crowds and traffic.
The term didn’t spread to the rest of the country until much later, however, and as recently as 1985 it wasn’t in common use nationwide. Sometime in the late 1980s, however, retailers found a way to reinvent Black Friday and turn it into something that reflected positively on them and their customers. The result was the “red to black” concept mentioned earlier. The Black Friday story stuck, and pretty soon the term’s darker roots in Philadelphia were largely forgotten.
1. What is usually believed to be the origin of Black Friday?| A．The great profit retailers may gain. | B．The way retailers do their accounting. |
| C．The much money shoppers spend. | D．The biggest bargains on this day. |
| A．They had to compete with more shoppers for bargains. |
| B．They had to give up the big Army-Navy football game. |
| C．They had to work more hours to deal with the chaos. |
| D．They had to advance to suburb to fight against floods. |
| A．to attract more customers to shop | B．to create the “red to black” concept |
| C．to make profits by this special event | D．to change people’s impression of it |
| A．To introduce the real history of Black Friday. |
| B．To explain a term with various meanings. |
| C．To show the biggest shopping holiday in US. |
| D．To remind readers of a forgotten truth of red and black. |
In 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. In the first few months, before any actual fighting began, there was a lot of
China is now fighting
The Chinese people should be praised because they have been doing the same. The government’s response has also been calm and
This terrible virus hasn’t been defeated and the fight against it may continue. However, it will
Terra-cotta Warriors in Xi’an,
In 221 B.C., Emperor Qin Shi Huang of Qin Dynasty established the first centralized feudal dynasty in China. After his death, he
Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum is the
Terra-cotta Warriors is
7 . We are all busy talking about and using the Internet, but how many of us know the history of the Internet?
Many people are surprised when they find that the Internet was set up in the 1960s. At that time, computers were large and expensive. Computer networks didn’t work well. If one computer in the network broke down, then the whole network stopped. So a new network system had to be set up. It should be good enough to be used by many different computers. If part of the network was not working, information could be sent through another part. In this way, computer network system would keep on working all the time.
At first the Internet was only used by the government, but in the early 1970s, universities, hospitals and banks were allowed to use it, too. However, computers were still very expensive and the Internet was difficult to use. By the start of the 1990s, computers had become cheaper and easier to use. Scientists had also developed software that made “surfing” the Internet more convenient.
Today it is easy to get online and it is said that millions of people use the Internet every day. Sending email is more and more popular among students.
The Internet has now become one of the most important parts of people’s life．
1. The Internet has a history of around ______ years.| A．ten | B．twenty | C．fifty | D．seventy |
| A．break down the whole network |
| B．make itself keep on working all the time |
| C．make computers cheaper |
| D．make computers large and expensive |
| A．Scientists | B．the government |
| C．schools | D．hospitals and banks |
| A．Software | B．Scientists | C．Information | D．Computers |
