泛读四unit9fastreading.doc

Passage One Great Wall of China is the longest structure ever built. Its length is about 4 000 miles (6 400 kilometers), and it was erected entirely by hand. The wall crosses northern China between the east coast and north-central China. Over the centuries, various rulers built walls to protect their northern border against invaders. Some of the walls stood on or near the site of the Great Wall. Most of what is now called the Great Wall dates from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Parts of the Great Wall have crumbled through the years. However, much of it remains, and some sections have been restored. The main part of the wall is about 2 150 miles (3 460 kilometers) long. Additional branches make up the rest of its length. One of the highest sections of the Great Wall, on Mount Badaling, near Beijing, rises to about 35 feet (11 meters) high. This section is about 25 feet (7.6 meters) wide at its base and nearly 20 feet (6 meters) at the top. Watchtowers stand about 100 to 200 yards (91 to 180 meters) apart along the wall. The towers, about 40 feet (12 meters) high, once served as lookout posts. Written records indicate that the Chinese built walls along their borders as early as the 600s B.C. Emperor Shi Huangdi of the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.) is traditionally regarded as the first ruler to conceive of, and build, a Great Wall. Most of the Qin wall was north of the present-day wall. Shi Huangdi had the wall built by connecting new walls with older ones. Building continued during later dynasties, including the Han (202 B.C.-A.D. 220) and the Sui (581-618). By the time the Ming dynasty began in 1368, much of the wall had fallen into ruin. In response to the growing threat of a Mongol invasion, the Ming government began building a major wall in the late 1400s. This wall included most of what remains today. Like earlier ones, it protected China from minor attacks but provided little defense against a major invasion. Through the centuries, much of the Great Wall again collapsed. However, the Chinese have done restoration work since 1949. The wall no longer serves the purpose of defense, but it attracts many visitors. Tourists from around the world come to see the wall. Historians study writing and objects found in fortifications and tombs along the structure. Scientists study earthquakes by examining parts of the wall that have been affected by these earth movements. Time _ (411 words) 1. The earliest wall in China was built probably around _. ( A ) (a) the 600s B.C. (b) the 210s B.C. (c) the 210s A.D. (d) the 1300s A.D. 2. Which of the following is Not true? ( A ) (a) The Chinese started building their borders in the seventh century. (b) Emperor Shi Huangdi of the Qin Dynasty was the first to conceive of a Great Wall. (c) Most of the Qin wall was to the north of what is now called the Great Wall. (d) The building of the present-day wall lasted for hundreds of years. 3. The purpose of building walls was _. ( C ) (a) to attract tourists (b) to have earthquake research (c) to protect the border against invasion (d) to demonstrate the power of the ruler 4. The _ dynasty seemed to have made the greatest contribution to the building of Great Wall. ( D ) (a) Qin (b) Han (c) Sui (d) Ming 5. The wall played a(n) _ role in defense. ( B ) (a) important (b) minor (c) historical (d) successful TOP Passage Two In the desert plain that rises gradually from the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan lies the ruin of an Early Bronze Age Fortified town, which some early explorers thought might be the Biblical city of Sodom. Today this site is called Bab edh-Dhra, and scholars are trying to reconstruct the cultural and biological history of the people who lived there between four and five thousand years ago. Some of the most significant events in the history of Man were taking place during this period, as cities in the Near East began to develop into a dominant feature of the emerging civilizations of Sumer in Mesopotamia and Dynastic Egypt. The cultural changes associated with this development often have correlates in Mans biological history. Less than a kilometer south of Bab edh-Dhra is a large cemetery where many thousands of people were buried. The tombs and skeletons offer evidence of the cultural and biological changes occurring with the emergence of city life at Bab edh-Dhra. Earlier work had suggested three major cultural phases during the thousand years of history at Bab edh-Dhra. Between about 3150 and 3000 B.C., the people apparently were nomadic pastoralists. With a perennial water supply, however, the site was important as a meeting place for herdsmen watering their flocks; there may even have been a small permanent settlement. Even then the cemetery was an important part of the culture; much effort was expended in preparing the tombs, pottery, and other gifts. During the pretown phase at Bab edh-Dhra, the dead typically were placed in shaft tombs. Shafts four feet across were dug as deep as nine feet. Near the bottom, the tomb makers would dig laterally, creating a small entryway just large enough for one person to squeeze through. Beyond, they excavated a domed chamber about six feet in diameter. and three feet high at the center. As many as five of these chambers might open off a single shaft. Typically, we found the bones of three or more individuals in a single chamber. Except for the skulls and lower jaws, all the bones would be intermingled. This means, of course, that the bodies had been reduced to skeletons before the bones were entombed. Perhaps bodies were temporarily buried where people died, and the bones were recovered periodically and brought back to Bab ehd-Dhra for appropriate ceremonies and permanent burial. Several of the skulls had been slightly broken during this second burial, indicating that the first burial had lasted long enough for the bone to become rather fragile. Time _ (422 words) 6.In history the place where the story took place was _. ( A ) (a) an Early Bronze Age Fortified town (b) the Biblical city of Sodom (c) Bab edh-Dhra (d) the Near East 7. According to the passage, why is this period significant in Mans history? ( B ) (a) Architectural developments are representative of urban life. (b) The development of cities correlates with the advance of civilization. (c) The domestication of animals increased agricultural yield. (d) A nomadic way of life discouraged division of labor. 8. During which phase in the history of Bab edh-Dhra were shaft tombs primarily built? ( C ) (a) Urban phase . (b) Pastoral phase. (c) Pretown phase. (d) Urban and pretown phases. 9. If the relative population distribution of prehistoric society could be determined, the best archaeological evidence would be _. ( C ) (a) ceremonial sites (b) written records that recorded burials (c) burial sites (d) habitation sites 10. According to the passage, why was the site of Bab edh-Dhra a potential area for urban development? ( D ) (a) It offered defensible borders. (b) The fertility of the soil favored agriculture. (c) Mineral deposits favored trade agreements. (d) Water resources favored settlement. TOP Passage Three History, in its broadest sense, is the totality of all past events. Historiography is the written record of what is known of human lives and societies in the past and how historians have attempted to understand them. The concern of all serious historians is to collect and record facts about the human past and often to discover new facts. Historians know that the information they have is incomplete, partly incorrect, or biased, and that it requires careful attention. They try to sift through the facts to discover patterns of meaning addressed to the enduring questions of human life. Except for the special circumstance in which historians record events they themselves have witnessed, historical facts can only be known through intermediary sources. These include testimony from living witnesses; narrative, legal, financial, and other written records; and the unwritten information derived from the physical remains of past civilizations. The relation between evidence and fact is rarely simple and direct. Historians must assess their evidence with a critical eye. In this process, the historian must respect the facts, avoid ignorance and error as far as possible, and create a convincing, intellectually satisfying interpretation. Western historiography originated with the ancient Greeks, and the standards and interests of the Greek historians dominated historical study and writing for centuries. In the 5th century BC Herodotus and Thucydides recorded contemporary or near-contemporary events in prose narratives of striking style, depending as much as possible on eyewitnesses or other reliable testimony for evidence. Roman historian Sallust developed a political analysis, based on human motivation, which had a long and pervasive influence on historical writing. During the 4th century AD, Christianity introduced new subjects and approaches to history, mingling secular and religious history with moral interpretation. With the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, many monasteries kept continuing annals that recorded events year by year, with no attempt at artistic or intellectual elaboration. The renewal of classical education in 15th-century Italy encouraged a secular and realistic approach to political history. While the classical traditions had emphasized literary skill and interpretation at the expense of basic research, many European scholars from the 16th century onward systematically collected sources for their histories. In the 18th century all facets of civilization were included in a historiography of sweeping intellectual scope, although some of the eras historians displayed a rather careless evaluation of evidence. With the work and influence of 19th-century historians, history achieved its identity as an independent academic discipline with its own critical method and approach. By the 20th century, history was firmly established in European and American universities as a professional field, resting on exact methods and making productive use of archival collections and new sources of evidence. In recent years, historiography has been affected by the belief that no accumulation of facts constitutes history as an intelligible structure and that no historian can be a totally objective recorder of reality. Furthermore, the scope of history has expanded immeasurably, both in time, as archaeology and anthropology have provided knowledge of earlier ages, and in breadth, as fields of inquiry such as economic history and the history of ideas have emerge