1 . It was a simple letter asking for a place to study at Scotland's oldest university which helped start a revolution in higher education. A 140-year-old letter written by a lady calling for her to be led to study medicine at St Andrews University has been discovered by researchers. Written by Sophia Jex-Blake in 1873, the seven-page document, which urged the university to allow women to study medicine at the institution, was released yesterday on International Women's Day.
The document was discovered buried in the university archives by part-time history student Lis Smith, who is completing her PhD at St Andrews Institute of Scottish Historical Research. She said, "We knew that Sophia Jex-Blake and her supporters, in their effort to open up university medical education for women, had written to the Senatus Academicus(校评议委员会)at St Andrews in an attempt to gain permission to attend classes there, but we didn't know documentary evidence existed. While searching the archives for information about the university's higher certificate for women, I was astonished to come across what must be the very letter Jex-Blake wrote."
In the letter, Sophia and her supporters offered to hire teachers or build suitable buildings for a medical school and to arrange for lectures to be delivered in the subjects not already covered at St Andrews. Although her letter was not successful, it eventually led to the establishment of the Ladies Literate in Arts at St Andrews, a distance-learning degree for women. The qualification, which ran from 1877 until the 1930s, gave women access to university education in the days before they were admitted as students. It was so popular that it survived long after women were admitted as full students to St Andrews in 1892.
Ms Jex-Blake went on to help establish the London School of Medicine for Women in 1874. She was accepted by the University of Berne, where she was awarded a medical degree in January 1877. Eventually, she moved back to Edinburgh and opened her own practice.
1. Sophia wrote a letter to St Andrews University because she wanted________.A.to carry out a research project there |
B.to set up a medical institute there |
C.to study medicine there |
D.to deliver lectures there |
A.by pure chance | B.in the school office |
C.with her supporters' help | D.while reading history book |
A.the London School of Medicine for Women |
B.a degree programme for women |
C.a system of medical education |
D.the University of Berner |
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The US Open has been in existence for more than 120 years. The first tournament (锦标赛) was held in 1881 at the Newport Casino. It was called the US National Singles Championship. Entry was limited to only those clubs which were members of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, and the competitors were all male, competing in both singles and doubles. Richard Sears won the men’s championship and he went on to win the next six men’s singles championships.
The Wimbledon
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In 1875, the All England Croquet Club was troubled financially due to declining membership. A new sport called lawn tennis was gaining fast in popularity and taking away the members. Two years later, a new roller was needed for maintaining its lawns so the club proposed to hold a tournament to raise money. Twenty-two players entered that first Wimbledon tournament which was won by Spencer Gore in straight sets over W. C. Marshall. Two hundred spectators each paid a shilling to watch the final game, enabling the club to buy the needed roller plus some extra cash.
The French Open
The very first French Championship was held way back in 1891, and the tournament has since grown into one of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments we know today. The first competition was a one-day national championship which was won by a British. The competition was poorly attended by world class players. It took 24 years before it became fully international and an accepted tennis grand slam event (大满贯赛事). After the First World War, French tennis was achieving stature (名声). Suzanne Lenglen was the predominant French player, winning the championships six times between 1920 and 1926.
The Australian Open
The very first tennis tournament ever played in Australia was held in January 1880, on the courts of the Melbourne Cricket Club. In 1905, the Australian Open was established as the Australasian Tennis Championship and was played at the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground in Melbourne. It became the Australian Championship in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969. Women’s events were added in 1922.
1. What is special about the first U.S. Open?A.It has a history of more than 120 years. |
B.Only men were allowed to play in the game. |
C.Richard Sears won six championships. |
D.It has remained about the same through all these years. |
A.raise some fund for a lawn roller |
B.attract more people to play tennis |
C.attract more audience to watch the game |
D.celebrate the renaming of the club |
A.the tournament has been played in the same place all these years |
B.twenty-two players played in the first tournament |
C.few good tennis players took part in the first French Championship |
D.the players played in singles and doubles in the tournament |
A.they were all born in the same year |
B.they all had only male players in the first tournament |
C.they have all experienced financial difficulties |
D.they all have had a history of 120 years or more |
A.how the four international tennis tournaments came into being |
B.how long it took for women to have the right to play in the game |
C.how the four international tennis tournaments get their present names |
D.why the tennis tournaments are held in these four countries |
For centuries, people dreamed about leaving Earth and travelling to other worlds. Then, in 1957, the Soviet Union
Early space activities were conducted
During the last 60 years, unmanned probes(探测器)have been sent towards many of the planets
More than 500 people have flown in space since Yuri Gagarin paved the way in 1961. 20 people have travelled to the moon, 12 of
American Mikah Meyer has an unusual goal. He wants to visit all of the more than 400 properties operated by the National Park Service.
He spent January 2017 visiting historic areas in the southeastern United States.
One of his first stops was Fort Sumter,
After years of rising tensions between Northern and Southern states, the two sides clashed in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. That was when the Southern army launched an artillery attack on Fort Sumter. Federal troops surrendered the fort a short time later. Union forces eventually fought
As he stood inside the large walls of Fort Sumter National Monument, Mikah Meyer looked across the water to the port at Charleston. He imagined what the area must have looked like more than a century and half ago. “You’ll see across that bridge, Charleston, South Carolina. It was under siege at one point for 17 months. There were cannons that
During his travels in January, Meyer had a surprise. Barack Obama, in his last few days as president, named a new national park site in Beaufort, just south of Charleston. It is called the Reconstruction Era National Monument. The Reconstruction Era National Monument will help tell the story of post-Civil war America.
The Reconstruction Era
5 . Sometimes it’s hard to let go. For many British people, that can apply to institutions and objects that represent their country’s past-age-old castles, splendid homes… and red phone boxes.
Beaten first by the march of technology and lately by the terrible weather in junkyards (废品场), the phone boxes representative of an age are now making something of a comeback. Adapted in imaginative ways, many have reappeared on city streets and village greens housing tiny cafes, cellphone repair shops or even defibrillator machines (除颤器).
The original iron boxes with the round roofs first appeared in 1926. They were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Battersea Power Station in London. After becoming an important part of many British streets, the phone boxes began disappearing in the 1980s, with the rise of the mobile phone sending most of them away to the junkyards.
About that time, Tony Inglis’ engineering and transport company got the job to remove phone boxes from the streets and sell them out. But Inglis ended up buying hundreds of them himself, with the idea of repairing and selling them. He said that he had heard the calls to preserve the boxes and had seen how some of them were listed as historic buildings.
As Inglis and, later other businessmen, got to work, repurposed phone boxes began reappearing in cities and villages as people found new uses for them. Today, they are once again a familiar sight, playing roles that are often just as important for the community as their original purpose.
In rural areas, where ambulances can take a relatively long time to arrive, the phone boxes have taken on a lifesaving role. Local organizations can adopt them for l pound, and install defibrillators to help in emergencies.
Others also looked at the phone boxes and saw business opportunities. LoveFone, a company that advocates repairing cellphones rather than abandoning them, opened a mini workshop in a London phone box in 2016.
The tiny shops made economic sense, according to Robert Kerr, a founder of LoveFone. He said that one of the boxes generated around $13,500 in revenue a month and cost only about $400 to rent.
Inglis said phone boxes called to mind an age when things were built to last. “I like what they are to people, and I enjoy bringing things back,” he said.
1. The phone boxes are making a comeback ______.A.to form a beautiful sight of the city |
B.to improve telecommunications services |
C.to remind people of a historical period |
D.to meet the requirement of green economy |
A.They were not well-designed. | B.They provided bad services. |
C.They had too short a history. | D.They lost to new technologies. |
A.their new appearance and lower prices | B.the push of the local organizations |
C.their changed roles and functions | D.the big funding of the businessmen |
6 . America’s first transcontinental railroad, completed 150 years ago today at Promontory Summit in Utah, connected the vast United States and brought America into the modern age. Chinese immigrants contributed greatly to this notable achievement, but the historical accounts that followed often ignored their role.
Between 1863 and 1869, as many as 20,000 Chinese workers helped build the dangerous western part of the railroad, a winding ribbon of track known as the Central Pacific. At first, the Central Pacific Railroad’s directors wanted a whites-only workforce. When not enough white men signed up, the railroad began hiring Chinese men for the backbreaking labor. Company leaders were skeptical of the new recruits’ ability to do the work, but they proved themselves not only capable but even superior to the other workers.
Chinese workers cut through dense forests, filled deep narrow steep-sided valley, constructed long trestles(高架桥) and built enormous retaining walls(防护墙) -- some of which remain complete and undamaged today. All work was done by hand using carts, shovels and picks but no machinery. However, progress came at great cost: an estimated 1,200 Chinese laborers died along the Central Pacific route.
Despite these facts, Chinese workers were often left out of the official story because of their identity of foreigners. On the transcontinental railroad's 100th birthday, the Chinese workers were still not honored. It was another fifty years later that their role was gradually highlighted. To celebrate the railroad’s 150th anniversary in 2019, the California assembly passed a resolution in 2017 to recognize and honor the Chinese railroad workers by designating May 10, 2017, and every May 10 thereafter, as California Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial Day.
1. What might be the best title for the text?A.The Birth of the Central Pacific Cost Dearly |
B.May 10--A Special Day for Chinese Immigrants |
C.Chinese Workers’ Contributions Gained Recognition |
D.The 150th anniversary of the Central Pacific Railroad |
A.Chinese laborers. | B.White workers. |
C.Company leaders. | D.Railroad directors. |
A.To prove Chinese workers’ superior skills. |
B.To stress the danger and difficulty of the work. |
C.To describe the grand scenery along the railroad. |
D.To show notable achievements made by Chinese workers. |
A.None so blind as those who won’t see. | B.No pains, no gains. |
C.Truth will come to light sooner or later. | D.Doing is better than saying. |
The celebrations with the military parade for China's 70th anniversary(周年纪念日)on National Day have clearly shown
On the one hand, National Day
The parade also told the
Under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people have created
8 . Mr.Selfridge, the Wisconsin-born retailer (零售商) who left school at 14, rose to become a partner in Marshall Field’s, Chicago. Founded in 1852, it was one of the first and most ambitious US department stores. Mr.Selfridge had done well with Marshall Field’s. He liked to say, “The customer is always right,” which made the Chicago store popular. And he is believed to have invented the phrase “Only (so many) Shopping Days until Christmas”.
When he visited London on holiday in 1906 he was surprised to find most of the city’s department stores were no match of their American and Parisian competitors. This led Selfridge to leave the US and establish Selfridges, a department store named after him, at the west end of London’s Oxford Street. In Oxford Street, Selfridge’s design team shaped an ambitious classical palace building with a wall of plate glass windows.
Opened in 1909, Selfridges offered customers a hundred departments along with restaurants, a roof garden,reading and writing rooms, reception areas for foreign visitors, a first aid room and most importantly, a small army of knowledgeable floor-walking assistants who served as guides as well as being thoroughly instructed in the art of making a sale.
Mr.Selfridge did much to make the department store a destination rather than just a big and comprehensively stocked city shop. It became a place to meet and for ladies to lunch. Mr.Selfridge later introduced the department store as a key element of the 20th Century culture, and Chaplin acknowledged the growing trend for shopping in the department store in his film The Floorwalker.
1. What can be learned about Mr.Selfridge from Paragraph 1?A.He was well-educated. | B.He was a modest man. |
C.He was a gifted businessman. | D.He was dishonest. |
A.The broad choice of goods. | B.The large number of departments. |
C.The small group of guards. | D.The well-trained sales guides. |
A.To encourage shoppers to spend more. | B.To introduce the history of Selfridges. |
C.To compare different department stores. | D.To explain how to start a department store. |
9 . At the end of the First World War, in 1918. China was convinced it would be able to reclaim the territories occupied by the Germans in present-day Shandong Province. After all, it had fought along with the Allies. However it was not to be. The warlord government of the day had
In the course of this May Fourth Movement, some 5,000 students from Peking University hit the streets to
The May Fourth Movement was part cultural revolution, part
At the same time, intellectuals untied in the New Culture Movement attempted to make Chinese culture more
The social aspects of May Fourth consisted of attempts to free the Chinese woman, although this was often limited to movements to bring foot-binding to a halt. Nonetheless, in the cities newly
May Fourth is seen as a critical
Even today, May Fourth functions as a point of
A.firmly | B.suddenly | C.immediately | D.secretly |
A.on the other hand | B.for instance | C.on the contrary | D.with no exception |
A.challenge | B.honor | C.withdraw | D.investigate |
A.agree on | B.draw up | C.demonstrate against | D.adhere to |
A.political | B.democratic | C.social | D.revolutionary |
A.contentment | B.dissatisfaction | C.interconnection | D.identification |
A.accessible | B.modernized | C.complex | D.appealing |
A.written | B.non-verbal | C.informal | D.dead |
A.debated | B.parted | C.disagreed | D.identified |
A.effect | B.being | C.power | D.fortune |
A.engaged | B.divorced | C.liberated | D.widowed |
A.burden | B.accelerator | C.message | D.handbrake |
A.superficial | B.unrealistic | C.applicable | D.imperfect |
A.departure | B.difference | C.interest | D.reference |
A.alters | B.denies | C.overstates | D.remains |
10 . When the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris (巴黎圣母院) was on fire, it seemed as if the nation had lost a piece of its soul. A similar tragedy took place in 19th century Russia. And the rebuilding effort of the Russians might offer some inspiration for the French.
Standing in the heart of the Russian capital, with 60,000 square meters of floor space and 1,500 rooms, the Winter Palace was among the world’s grandest building. On Dec. 17, 1837, a fire broke out at the Winter Palace. By the morning of Dec.19, only the structure’s framework remained.
For the czar (沙皇) , the fire presented a political challenge. Fearing that Russia's enemies would cast the fire as a blow to the czarist orders, the czar’s supporters quickly worked together to shape the description of the fire in Russia and abroad. They wanted the country to appear united. And they certainly didn't want despair to become the story.
The first full account of the fire was written in French by the poet Petr Viazemskii. A Russian translation appeared two months later. That text and others painted a highly idealized picture of the response to the tragedy. The accounts noted that the czar forcefully directed the fire’s containment. Soldiers were selfless to save the palace. The Russian people felt the loss just as deeply as the czar.
To erase the shame of the fire, the czar set a nearly impossible goal: rebuild the palace within 15 months, and he ordered that rebuilt palace look exactly as it had before.Thousands of workers labored on the construction site. They made rapid progress. On Match 25, 1839, the czar celebrated the rebirth of the Winter Palace.
Outwardly identical to the old version, the new palace featured more iron and brick in its structures---and less wood. It was far less fire-prone than the original.
Notre Dame hasn’t experienced the same level of destruction as the Winter Palace, if the Russian phoenix of 1839 is any indication, there is hope that a renewed Notre Dame will once again grace the banks of the Seine.
1. What do we know about the fire in the Winter Palace?A.It burnt down 60,000 rooms |
B.It lasted more than 24 hours |
C.It was set by Russia’s enemies |
D.It completely destroyed the palace |
A.To secure his power |
B.To challenge his enemies |
C.To unite French people |
D.To celebrate his birthday |
A.The scene of the fire |
B.The selflessness of the czar |
C.The Russians’ joint effort to fight the fire |
D.The ideal result achieved by the Russians. |
A.To describe a fire at the Winter Palace |
B.To praise the renewal of the Winter Palace |
C.We express sympathy for the Notre Dame |
D.To inspire confidence in rebuilding the Notre Dame. |