1 . A huge fire broke out on 2 September 1666 in London. The fire, known as the Great Fire of London, was the worst fire in the history of London. It burned down more than three quarters of the old city.

The fire started in the very early hours of Sunday morning in the house of the king’s baker. A strong wind blew the fire from the baker’s house into a small hotel next door. Then it spread quickly into Thames Street. That was the beginning.

At that time, most of the buildings in London were made of wood, so it was easy for the fire to spread quickly. By eight o’clock, three hundred houses were on fire. By Monday, nearly a kilometre of the city was burning along the Thames River. On Tuesday, which was considered the worst day, the fire destroyed many well-known buildings, including the old St Paul’s Cathedral.

The fire burned until finally hundreds of buildings in the path of the fire were destroyed to create a firebreak. The fire then died out eventually with nothing left to burn.

1. Why is the fire of 1666 called the Great Fire of London?

A．The fire broke out in the capital of England.

B．The fire was the worst fire in the history of London.

C．People in England will never forget the fire.

D．The fire spread fast into Thames Street.

2. Where did the fire break out?

A．In the house of the king’s baker.

B．In Thames Street.

C．In the house of the baker’s neighbour.

D．In St Paul’s Cathedral.

3. Why did the fire spread quickly?

A．It started in a baker’s house.

B．It broke out on a Sunday morning.

C．A hotel was next to the baker’s house.

D．Most of the buildings in London were wooden.

4. What was destroyed in the fire?

A．The old St Paul’s Cathedral.

B．Hundreds of buildings in the path of the fire.

C．Hundreds of wooden houses.

D．All of the above.

2 . 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。

Sugar cane cultivation(甘蔗种植) originated in southwest Asia, where Marco Polo reported in his     1     (know) journals that the Chinese used dark brown sugar freely without additional refining(提炼). Sugar can cultivation spread from southwest Asia     2     the Middle East and the Mediterranean trade circle in the twelfth and thirteenth     3     (century).

In the fourteenth century, the island of Cyprus was the location of major sugar farms,     4     (use) Syrian and Arab slaves as labor. Sugar cane cultivation was made a science in the fifteenth century in Sicily, with the     5     (invent) of the roller mill to speed up     6     process. In those times, brown sugar was a byproduct of sugar refining, and wasn't used widely in cooking     7     the people in the sixteenth century found its real value.

Brown sugar     8     (come) into popular use with the rise of European sugar plantations in the Caribbean in the 1700s. It was widely used as a sweetener in English and     9     (it) colonies(殖民地) because it was much     10     (cheap) than white sugar. The use and export of brown sugar from islands rose with the trade.

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 horse-head bronze statue lost from Yuanmingyuan in 1860     1     (return) to the site of the former royal resort last Tuesday.

The statue was one of 12 Chinese zodiac animals(生肖). But they     2     (rob) by the invading English and French forces in 1860. Yuanmingyuan was also destroyed at that time.

The horse-head statue is so far the first animal-head statue     3     (come ) back to Yuanmingyuan,     4     was donated by the late Macau businessman Stanley Ho to the country last year, and the National Cultural Heritage Administration recently handed it over     5     the administration of Yuanmingyuan ruins.

The statue will be     6     (regular) displayed in the Zhengjue Temple area. The temple is one of a few     7     (site) that generally remain complete to date. More than 10 million yuan ($1.52 million) was spent by the Haidian district government to improve facilities to ensure its     8     (safe).

Seven of the 12 statues     9     (include) the horse have returned to China, and the rest six are now housed in     10     National Museum of China.

4 . The native Americans, the people we call the “Indians”, had been in America for many thousands of years before Columbus arrived in 1492. Columbus thought he had arrived in India, so he called the native people “Indians”.

The Indians were kind to the early settlers. They were not afraid of them and they wanted to help them. They showed the settlers the new world around them. They taught them about the local crops like sweet potatoes, corn and peanuts. They introduced the Europeans to chocolate and to the turkey and the Europeans did business with the Indians.

But soon the settlers wanted bigger farms and more land for themselves and their families. More and more immigrants were coming from Europe and all these people needed land. So the Europeans started to take the land from the Indians. Naturally, when the whites started taking all the Indians’ land, the Indians started fighting back.

But the whites were stronger and cleverer. Slowly they pushed the Indians into those parts of the continent that the whites didn’t want- the parts where it was too cold or too dry or too mountainous to live comfortably. By 1875 the Indians were living in special places called “reservations”. But even here the whites took land from them- perhaps the whites wanted the wood, or perhaps the land had important minerals in it, or they even wanted to make national parks there. So even on their reservations the Indians were not safe from the whites.

There are many Hollywood films about the fight between the Indians and the whites. Usually in these films the Indians are bad and the whites are good and brave. But was it really like that? What do you think? Do you think the Indians were right or wrong to fight against the whites?

1. Why did Columbus call the native people “Indians”?

A．Because he thought he had arrived in India.

B．Because he liked Indian culture very much.

C．Because he knew they were from India.

D．Because he was an Indian himself.

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The Indians gave up their land willingly.

B．The settlers wanted to buy land from the Indians.

C．The whites even wanted more land on Indians’ reservations.

D．The Indians were stronger and cleverer than the white settlers.

3. We can learn from the last paragraph that______.

A．the Indians are usually beautified in the films

B．the author is doubtful about what the films show to us

C．films about fights are the most popular ones in the market

D．films about the fight between the Indians and the whites are very limited

4. The passage is most probably taken from the ______ column of a newspaper.

A．entertainment

B．history

C．economy

D．industry