1 . Time flies, but the tracks of time remain in books and museums. This is what made a recent tragedy in Brazil even more terrible.
On Sept.2, a big fire ripped through the National Museum of Brazil. “ Two hundred years of work, research and knowledge were lost, ” Brazilian President Michel Temer wrote on Twitter after the fire. “It's a sad day for all Brazilians.”
Most of the 20 million pieces of history are believed to have been destroyed. Only as little as 10 percent of the collection may have survived, Time reported. Among all the items, there were Egyptian mummies, the bones of uniquely Brazilian creatures such as the long－necked dinosaur Maxakalisaurus, and an 11,500－year－old skull called Luzia, which was considered one of South America's oldest human fossils.
Besides these, Brazil's indigenous(本土的，土著的) knowledge also suffered. The museum housed world－famous collections of indigenous objects, as well as many audio recordings of local languages from all over Brazil. Some of these recordings, now lost, were of languages that are no longer spoken.
“The tragedy this Sunday is a sort of national suicide, a crime against our past and future generations,” Bernard Mello Franco, one of Brazil's best－known columnists, wrote on the O Globo newspaper site.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, as BBC News reported on Sept. 3. After the fire burned out, crowds protested outside the museum to show their anger at the loss of the irreplaceable items of historical value.
According to Emilio Bruna, an ecologist at the University of Florida, museums are living, breathing stores of who we are and where we've come from, and the world around us.
Just as underwater grass floats on the surface if it loses its roots, a nation is lost without its memories. The fire at the National Museum of Brazil teaches the world an important lesson: We should never neglect history.
1. What can be summarized as the main idea of the 3rd and 4th paragraphs?
| A．Long history of South America. | B．Remains from the fire. |
| C．Mysteries to be solved. | D．History and knowledge burned up. |
2. What opinion may be shared by Bernard Mello Franco and the protesters?
| A．The government is to blame for the tragedy. |
| B．The museum should be rebuilt |
| C．The loss can't be made up for. |
| D．The criminal should be sentenced to death. |
3. What does Emilio Bruna compare museums to?
| A．Living stores of our past. | B．Underwater grass. |
| C．The oldest fossils. | D．National suicide. |
4. What may be the best title of the passage?
| A．Death of a civilization | B．Functions of museums |
| C．Gone with the fire | D．Brazilians' memories |
