On January 24, 1848, James Marshall, a mechanic, discovered gold in the Coloma Valley of California. Word of this finding    1    (publish)in Eastern newspapers in the fall of 1848 and was further popularized in remarks    2    (make)by James K. Polk in his farewell address. Soon, passenger-loaded ships sailed    3    the East Coast, around Cape Horn, and northward to California.

Within the first year, more than 80 000 prospectors, the Forty-Niners(淘金者), arrived. San Francisco    4    (grow) to a community of 20 000 in a few months. In 1848, the population of California was about 15000. By 1852, California's population topped 250 000. The ranks of new residents were swollen by sailors    5    jumped ship in San Francisco and headed to the gold fields,    6    (leave)their ships too short on crew to continue. California attracted many reputable people,    7    the first to go were the ones with the least to lose and the    8    (few)responsibilities. The predictable result was a rise in crime, which led to the founding of the Sari Francisco Committee of Vigilance(警戒)in 1851.The    9    (discover) of gold transformed California from an underpopulated,    10    (distance) region into an area ripe for statehood.

3 . 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.

Searching for Guinevere

Stories of kings and queens have appealed to readers for centuries, and arguably, the tales of King Arthur and Guinevere are among the most appealing. Arthur ruled the kingdom of Camelot, and Guinevere was his queen.     1     The debate has continued for centuries. Though many scholars have found evidence that the legendary Arthur was, at the very least, based on a real person who lived in Britain roughly between 450 and 500 CE, they continue to search for the historical identity of Guinevere. Guinevere first appeared as King Arthur’s queen in one of the most widely-studied works of Arthurian literature, The History of the Kings of Britain , written by Geoffrey of Monmouth around 1135 CE.     2    

Guinevere is identified by Geoffrey a noblewoman of Roman descent （血统） who met King Arthur in the court of Duke Cador of Cornwall.     3     In Malory’s portrayal, Guinevere had no real power as a monarch but served as a kind of spiritual leader, providing guidance and moral support to the knights in their roles as defenders of the kingdom. Le Morte d’Arthur was also one of the first works to refer to Guinevere’s romance with the knight, Sir Lancelot.

As many Arthurian scholars know, the distinction between history and literature was unclear in the Middle Ages.     4     Yet regardless of whether Guinevere was real or fictional, her story has endured centuries-and through each retelling, she continues to live on in the imaginations of people around the world.

5 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Today the Statue of Liberty is a beloved landmark. It     1    (tower) above of the harbor of New York and is lovingly cared for by the National Park Service. Many thousands of visitors who visit Liberty Island each year might never suspect that getting the statue     2    (build) was a long slow struggle. More than a century ago, it     3    (be) the celebration of freedom and the commemoration of the friendship between America and France that inspired sculptor Auguste Bartholdi and finally he went forward with designing the potential statue and promoting the idea of building it. However, money was so big a problem     4    was haunting the two governments from the beginning to the end.

Donations for the building of the statue first began coming in throughout France in 1875.Numerous people gave donations. A copper company donated the copper sheets that would be used to fashion the skin of the statue. Various donations were helpful,     5     the cost of the statue kept riding.     6    (face) with a short fall of money, the French-American Union held a lottery. Merchants in Paris donated prizes, and tickets were sold. The lottery was a success, but more money was still needed. The sculptor Bartholdi eventually sold miniature versions of the statue,     7     the name of the buyer engraved on them.Finally, in July 1880 the French-American Union announced that enough money had been raised to complete the building of the statue.

While the French had announced that the funds for the statues were in place in 1880, by late 1882 the American donations, which would be needed to build the pedestal, were sadly lagging. The sculptor Bartholdi had travelled to America in 1871 top romote the idea of the statue. Despite Bartholdi’s efforts, the idea of the statue was difficult     8    (sell). some newspapers, most notably the New York Times, often criticized the statue as folly, and vehemently opposed     9    (spend) any money on it. The newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, who had purchased a New York City daily, The World, in the early1880s, took us the cause of the statue’s pedestal. He mounted an energetic fund drive, promising to print the name of each donor,     10     small the donation, Pulitzer’s audacious plan worked, and millions of people around the country began donating whatever they could.

In August1885, that final $100,000 for the statue;s pedestal had been raised.Construction work on the stone structure continued, and the next year the Statue of Liberty, which had arrived from France packed in crated, was erectedon top.

6 . What happens when you want to go from one place to another, but there's water in the way？That's the problem people faced for hundreds of years in the area that is now New York City. In the city, there is a natural canal called the Narrows, separating Brooklyn on one side from Staten Island on the other.

But the Narrows isn't really so narrow. The water is almost a mile wide, and it's more than 100 feet deep.     1     When they wanted to talk to each other, they climbed into their boats and sailed across.

By the late 1800s, circumstances had changed dramatically. Population growth meant there were now many people needing to travel between Staten Island and Brooklyn for work.     2    

Between 1888 and 1920 there were two major efforts to build a train tunnel to connect the areas.     3     Proposals to build a connecting bridge made during the 1910s also ended in failure due to opposition from the US Navy.

Finally, after World War II, there were so many people living in New York City that leaders decided Brooklyn and Staten Island needed a direct connection. Since tunnels were too expensive, they decided to build a bridge. The design selected had two separate roadways stacked on top of each other.     4     Construction, which took five years, was completed in 1964 and cost $320 million. Today about 190,000 cars and trucks cross the bridge every day.

    5     But in the case of the Narrows, figuring out a good solution took hundreds of years.

7 . 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.

8 . Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. There were events around the world in memory of those who died in the conflict. We have picked out three of them in European countries. Let's take a look.

Belgium

In a park, the famous Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen had an exhibition called Coming World, Remember Me. The work consisted of 600,000 individual(个别的) clay sculptures, one for each person killed during the World War. In the center of the exhibition was a big egg made of clay, symbolizing a new world.

UK

In a small town called Aldridge, almost 100 houses in one street were covered with 24,000 poppies and statues of soldiers. They stood for the men from the area who had been killed in the war. The flowers were chosen because of a poem written by the Canadian doctor John McCrea in 1915. They made people think of fields of blood.

France

The British artist Guy Denning arrived in La Feuille, a small town in the northwest of France, to stick life-size drawings of soldiers who never came back home. Armed with glue and a brush, Denning stuck his drawings carefully on walls. Before long 112 men, mainly young adults, were brought back to mind, if not to life.

Cholera was a deadly disease of its day. Neither its cause nor its cure     1     (understand). So thousands of     2     (terrify) people died when there was an outbreak. John Snow wanted to solve     3     problem. He knew that cholera would not be controlled     4     its cause was found.

He became interested in two theories     5     possibly explained how cholera killed people. The first suggested that cholera     6     (multiply) in the air. The second suggested that people absorbed this disease     7     their bodies with their meals.

John Snow suspected that the second theory was correct but he needed evidence. So when another outbreak hit London in 1854, he was ready    8     (begin) his enquiry. With all the evidence he gathered, John Snow was able to announce with     9     (certain) that polluted water carried the virus.     10     (final) “King Cholera” was defeated.

10 . The Battle of Chancellorsville, one of the most famous battles of the Civil War, took place in Virginia in the spring of 1863. For months, the two armies had been staying on opposite banks of a narrow river. The Confederate(南方联盟) troops were led by perhaps     1     (honored) military tactician(战略家) in American history, General Robert E. Lee. The Union (北方联盟)soldiers were led by “Fighting” Joe Hooker.

In appearance, personality, and lifestyle, these men were nearly perfect opposites. Lee, an older man in poor health with a gray beard, had a solemn, measured character. Hooker was a blond, broad-shouldered young man     2     pride over his appearance was but one aspect of his self-centeredness. Whereas Lee was loyal and principled, Hooker was known for his rollicking enjoyment of both women and whiskey.

Despite the fact that the Confederacy     3     (win) the last four major battles and the Union soldiers were starving,     4     (exhaust), and demoralized, Hooker proclaimed, “My plans are perfect. And when I start to carry them out,     5     God have mercy on Bobby Lee, for I shall have none.” Why was Hooker so confident?

Hooker had used spies, analysts, and even hot air balloons to compile a vast amount of intelligence about Lee’s army. He had already been aware, for example,     6     Lee had only 61,000 men to Hooker’s own 134,000. Supported by his superior numbers, Hooker secretly moved 70,000 of his men fifteen miles up and across the river, and then ordered them to sneak back down to position themselves     7     Lee’s army. In effect, Hooker had cut off the Confederate soldiers in front and behind. They were trapped. Satisfied with his advantage, Hooker became convinced that Lee’s only option was to retreat to Richmond, thus     8     (assure) a Union victory.

Yet Lee, despite his disadvantages of both numbers and position, did not retreat. Instead, he moved his troops into position to attack. Union soldiers who tried to warn Hooker that Lee was on the offensive     9     (dismiss) as cowards. Having become convinced that Lee had no choice but     10     (retreat), Hooker began to ignore reality. When Lee’s army attacked the Union soldiers at 5:00 p.m., they were eating supper, completely unprepared for battle. They abandoned their rifles and fled as Lee’s troops came shrieking out of the brush, bayonets drawn. Against all odds, Lee won the Battle of Chancellorsville, and Hooker’s forces withdrew in defeat.