1 . A national park is an area set aside by a government for the preservation of the natural environment. The national parks in the United States and Canada center on the protection of both land and wildlife.     1     And those in Africa primarily protect animals.

It is widely thought that the idea of a park or nature reserve under state ownership started in the United States in 1870.     2     Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant National Parks were established in the United States in 1890. And the U. S. National Park Service (NPS)was created in 1916 to manage the parks.     3     In addition to national parks, the system included national preserves, seashores, historic parks and sites and so on.

Partly following the American example, movements supporting national parks sprang up in many other countries.     4     . And Canada set up its first three national parks in the mid-1880s. The establishment of modern national parks and nature reserves gained momentum (动力)only after World War I or, in some cases, after World War II in Europe. Great Britain established the administrative machinery for both national parks and nature reserves in 1949.     5    

But interest in parks came later in Asia and Latin America than it did in the Anglo-American countries and Europe.

A．These movements began in Canada.

B．George Catlin offered the idea during the 1830s.

C．Visitors are allowed to enter for different purposes.

D．Those in the United Kingdom center mainly on the land.

E．Japan and Mexico established their first national parks in the 1930s.

F．By the early 21st century the NPS managed more than 400 separate areas.

G．It is also thought that the world’s first such park was Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

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。

Wang Anshi （1021 - 1086）, a poet and reformer of Song Dynasty, is still remembered after a long period of time. This year marked the 1, 000th anniversary of Wang’s birthday. To commemorate the occasion, China Post    1    （issue）a collection of stamps in December（2021）.

When he was young, Wang became familiar    2    the hardships of the peasants. After he passed the imperial civil service exams and became     3     official, Wang wanted to change their conditions and initiated a series of reforms.

He implemented new laws to ease farmers’ burdens, loaned grain to farmers and allowed them to repay their debts after the autumn harvest. He attached great importance to    4    （train）talents in different fields, for example, in laws.     5    （unlucky）, these policies harmed the interests of the upper classes and his reforms eventually failed.

Wang’s     6    （brave） to innovate has inspired many people. The former Chinese Premier Wen: Jiabao- quoted Wang in his speech: A true reformer should fear neither strange astronomical    7    （phenomenon）nor comments.

US politician Henry A. Wallace had a book    8    （record）Wang’s reform policies. When the Unitech States faced sudden economic depression during the Roosevelt administration of the 1930s, Wallace applied Wang’s economic principles and helped the country get through the crisis successfully.

During his lifetime, Wang    9    （pen）more than 1, 000 poems. Often short and plainspoken, these poems contain profound topics,     10    won him wide acclaim（称赞）both at home and abroad.

4 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容(1个单词)或括号内单词的正确形式。

A great number of artifacts from eight tombs    1     (unearth) from an archaeological site in Hunan province several months ago. According to the provincial institute of heritage and archaeology, these artifacts, including pottery pieces and bronze    2     (knife), are believed    3     (date) back as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220).

Six Eastern Han Dynasty tombs are brick tombs, three of    4     might have had owners from the same family, said Chen Bin,     5     member of the archaeological team of the tomb complex under the institute.

It is also the first time that archaeologists    6    (discover)a trench(战壕)4.5meters west of the back chamber of the largest tomb,     7     (measure) about 0.9 meters in width,     8     (approximate)15 meters in length and about 0.1 meters in depth.

“This excavation(挖掘)is    9     great significance to further understanding the funeral customs of people in southern Hunan, as well as the levels of    10     (economy)development and cultural exchanges during the period,” Chen said.

5 . 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。

Oracle bones (甲骨) were believed to be first unearthed in Anyang, once called Yin, the capital of the Shang Dynasty. Villagers then had little idea of what they had found and sold the bones to drugstores as     1    (tradition) Chinese medicines. The medicines gained the notice of historians. The discovery     2    (follow) by a series of archaeological excavations (挖掘).

Over the past 120 years, major systematic excavations have been carried     3    . A relic site museum has been built at the Yinxu site,     4    (recognize) as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Discovering the oracle bones and inscriptions helped explore the cultures of Xia and Shang dynasties,     5     trace the origins of the Chinese civilization.

The content of the inscriptions emphasizes the respect for ancestors and other core Chinese values     6     have been passed on until today. It     7    (appeal) to not only scholars but also those outside the circles of archaeology. Chen Nan, a professor at Tsinghua University’s Academy of Arts and Design, has energized the life of these ancient symbols by     8    (feature) them in the biaoqingbao (emoticons) he developed.

“They represent the     9    (clue) to our cultural lineage (传承), ” Chen says. “I feel     10     our responsibility to communicate about the charm of the primitive inscription with the younger generations and foreigners.”

6 . While DNA from animal bones or teeth can cast light on an individual species, environmental DNA enabled scientists to build a picture of a whole ecosystem.

A core of ice age sediment (沉积物) from northern Greenland has yielded the world’s oldest sequences of DNA. The 2 million-year-old DNA samples revealed the now largely lifeless polar region was once home to rich plant and animal life — including elephant-like mammals known as mastodons (乳齿象), reindeer, hares, lemmings, geese, birch trees and poplars, according to new research published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

The finding is the work of scientists in Denmark who were able to detect and restore environmental DNA — genetic material drop into the environment by all living organisms — in tiny amounts of sediment taken from the Copenhagen Formation, in the mouth of a strait in the Arctic Ocean in Greenland’s northernmost point, during a 2006 expedition.

They then compared the DNA pieces with libraries of DNA collected from both extinct and living animals, plants and microorganisms. The genetic material revealed dozens of other plants and creatures that had not been previously detected at the site based on what’s known from fossils and pollen records.

“The first thing that blew our mind when we’re looking at this data is obviously this mastodon and the presence of it that far north, which is quite far north of what we knew as its natural range,” said study co-author Mikkel Pedersen.

The mix of temperate (温带) and Arctic trees and animals suggested a previously unknown type of ecosystem that has no modern equivalent — one that could act as a genetic road map for how different species might adapt to a warmer climate, the researchers found.

Love Dalen, a professor at the Centre for Palaeogenetics at Stockholm University, said the finding “pushed the envelope” for the field of ancient DNA. “Also, the findings that several temperate species (such as relatives of spruce and mastodon) lived at such high latitudes are exceptionally interesting,” he added.

Further study of environmental DNA from this time period could help scientists understand how various organisms might adapt to climate change. “It’s a climate that we expect to face on Earth due to global warming and it gives us some idea of how nature will respond to increasing temperatures,” he explained.

1. What can we know about environmental DNA from the passage?

A．It makes it easier to understand individual species.

B．It is a collection of DNA from all kinds of living things.

C．It includes DNA of mammals living 2 million years ago.

D．It was first discovered in sediment from northern Greenland.

2. How did the scientists identify the result of their research?

A．By looking at the data of mastodon.

B．By detecting DNA samples at the site.

C．By analyzing fossils and pollen records.

D．By comparing the newly-found DNA with existing ones.

3. What do the underlined words mean in the 7th paragraph?

A．broke the limit	B．laid a foundation
C．raised a new question	D．attracted wide attention

4. Which is the best title for the passage?

A．Northern Greenland faces species extinction

B．Oldest DNA reveals a solution to global warming

C．Northern Greenland faces increasing temperatures

D．Oldest DNA reveals a 2 million-year-old ecosystem

7 . Imagine this: You’re digging a well, and instead of hitting water, you unearth a headless human body made of pottery. This actually happened to farmers in Shanxi province in central China in 1974. Local archaeologists heard of the find and biked over to investigate. They realized that the figure had come from a tomb built over 2,000 years ago for China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang. Archaeologists finally discovered three separate pits (穴) filled with 8,000 life-sized statues, all made from terracotta — a type of fired clay.

About a mile away from these pits, there’s a large mound (山丘). Archaeologists know that this is the main part of Qin Shihuang’s tomb, but they have never looked inside. They have left it alone out of respect for the first emperor and to protect the tomb as it is.

“Many people wish to see the treasures and mysteries inside, but we cannot,” says Xiuzhen Li, an archaeologist. Opening the tomb could damage its contents. Someday, Li hopes, we’ll have technology that will let us see inside the main part of the tomb without opening and disturbing it.

“Probably in the near future we’ll have some new technology that can see inside like an x-ray,” she says. Scientists are working on techniques that make it possible to see underground. Another idea is that a tiny robot could enter through a small hole and capture videos of what it sees. Even if this robotic exploration is done very carefully, however, it would still damage the tomb. For now, the Chinese government prefers to wait to do anything until they have even better technology.

1. What’s the suitable description of the figure from the tomb?

A．A copy of real soldiers.	B．A model of emperors.
C．In ruins.	D．In colors.

2. Why can’t archaeologists go inside the tomb?

A．It might be ruined.

B．It is very dangerous.

C．The robot is not clever enough.

D．The government doesn’t allow it.

3. What’s Xiuzhen Li’s attitude to seeing inside the tomb in the future?

A．Unconcerned.	B．Doubtful.
C．Hopeful.	D．Objective.

4. Where is the text probably taken from?

A．An encyclopedia.	B．A history textbook.
C．A newspaper.	D．A travel guide.

8 . Scientists have solved a puzzle about modern humans, after research showed that a famous skull of a human ancestor found in South Africa is a million years older than experts thought. This discovery has changed what we know of human history.

The skull, which scientists have named “Mrs Ples”, is from an ape-like human relative from a species called Australopithecus africanus (南方古猿). It was found near Johannesburg in 1947 and, based on evidence from its surroundings, was thought to be between 2. 1 and 2. 6 million years old. This puzzled scientists, because although Mrs Ples looks like a possible early ancestor of early humans, the first true humans had already evolved by the time she apparently lived. For this reason, scientists had decided that Australopithecus afarensis, a similar species from East Africa that lived about 3.5 million years ago, was our most likely ancestor instead.

To get a more accurate age for Mrs Ples, a team led by Professor Darryl Granger of Purdue University in Indiana, US, used a new method to date the sandy rocks where the skull lay. They measured the amount of certain chemicals in rocks, which form at a steady rate when they are exposed to cosmic rays (宇宙射线) on Earth’s surface. Once rocks are buried, these chemicals stop forming and slowly disappear;the surviving amount reveals how much time has passed since the rock (or bones) were on the surface.

The new study shows that Mrs Ples and other australopithecine bones nearby are between 3.4 and 3.7 million years old. This means they lived at the same time as their East African relatives, so that either group could have given rise to modern humans. However, team member Dr Laurent Bruxelles pointed out that over millions of years, at only 2,500 miles away, these groups had plenty of time to travel and to breed with each other. In other words, the groups could quite easily have met, had children together and both been part of the history of modern humans.

1. What can we learn about Mrs Ples from the first two paragraphs?

A．It is a skull found in East Africa.

B．It is the most possible ancestor of humans.

C．It is a million years older than scientists expected.

D．It is proved to live between 2.1 and 2.6 million years ago.

2. How did scientists get the accurate age of “Mrs Ples”?

A．By studying the effect of cosmic rays.

B．By calculating the forming rate of chemicals.

C．By locating the sandy rocks where the skull lay.

D．By measuring the surviving amount of chemicals.

3. What can we infer from the new study?

A．Modern humans came into being in East Africa.

B．Mrs Ples travelled and had children with East African relatives.

C．The history of modern humans might begin 3.5 million years ago.

D．Ape-like species from Africa could have interacted with each other.

4. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A．Historical Puzzle Unsolved	B．Ancestor Mystery Solved
C．Mrs Ples: The Earliest Human Being	D．Mrs Ples: A Famous Skull

9 . Four Historic American Theatres

Today, theatres remain a key part of a city’s lifeblood. The following are four historic theatres in America.

Pantages Theatre, Minneapolis, MN

The Pantages Theatre, which now seats 1,014, opened in 1916 as part of Alexander Pantages’s well-known group of theatres. It was designed by the local firm Kees and Colburn. In 1922, the theatres was rebuilt by Scottish theatres architect Benjamin Marcus Priteca. After going through several owners, in 1984, it was closed and remained unopened until 1996. Some theatre supporters had it repaired and improved, resulting in its reopening in 2002.

Saenger Theatre, New Orleans, LA

New Orleans’s Saenger Theatre was built two years before the Great Depression, in 1927, and cost a then unheard-of $ 2.5 million. It was designed by Emile Weil, featuring a 15th-century Florentine courtyard and gardens, and Greek and Roman statues. Although the theatre was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, after a $ 53 million renovation (修葺), it reopened in 2013.

Thalian Hall, Wilmington, NC

Thalian Hall has been in almost continuous use since its opening in 1858. It is the only surviving theatre designed by John Montague Trimble, one of America’s foremost 19th-century theatre architects, and originally housed the town government, a library, as well as an “Opera House”, seating 1, 000 people. Some repairs in 1909 led to the removal of the side balconies and the installation of electric stage lights.

Providence Performing Arts Center, Providence, RI

It was originally opened as a movie palace in 1928, and the silent movies it showed were accompanied by a $ 90, 000 Robert Morton organ. After several decades, the theatre suffered from the increased popularity of television, as well as damage by two hurricanes. Over the past decade and a half, it has undergone extensive renovations and modernization.

1. What can we know about the Pantages Theatre?

A．It has a seating capacity of 1, 916.	B．It will be turned into a movie house.
C．It was designed by Alexander Pantages.	D．It was once shut down for over a decade.

2. Of the following theatres, which is the oldest?

A．Pantages Theatre.

B．Saenger Theatre.

C．Thalian Hall.

D．Providence Performing Arts Center

3. What do the listed theatres have in common?

A．They went through major renovations.

B．They were hit by terrible natural disasters.

C．They were built by American theatre architects.

D．They belong o Alexander Pantages’s group of theatres.

10 . 语法填空

An epidemic is an infectious disease that     1    (rapid) spreads to a large number of people within a short period of time. Epidemics can be caused by several different     2    (factor), such as a virus or bacteria.

One of the earliest     3    (record) epidemics happened between about 500 and 550 CE. It killed up to 50% of the area’s population,     4    (make) it one of the main reasons of the fall of the Roman Empire. In     5    1330s, the epidemic known as “The Black Death” returned in Asia and spread to Europe. Centuries later in 1918, the Spanish Flu     6    (strike). In 2002, SARS began     7    a case of lung disease in China. It spread to Canada, Vietnam and Singapore and lasted until 2003. Then in West Africa between 2013 and 2016, there was the most widespread outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD),     8    killed over 11,000 people.

Governments worldwide have underlined the fact that they need     9    (far) medical research on epidemics     10    (get) at the causes and come up with cures as soon as possible.