Thanksgiving Day is special holiday in the United States and Canada. Families and friends gather to eat and give thanks for their blessing.

Thanksgiving Day is really a harvest festival. This is why it is celebrated in late fall, after the crops are in. But one of the first thanksgivings in America had nothing to do with a good harvest. On December 4, 1619, the Pilgrims from England landed near what is now Charles City, Virginia. They knelt down and thanked God for their safe journey across the Atlantic.

The first New England Thanksgiving did celebrate a rich harvest. The Pilgrims landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. They had a difficult time and the first winter was cruel. Many of the Pilgrims died. But the next year, they had a good harvest. So Governor Bradford declared a three-day feast（盛宴）. The Pilgrims invited Indian friends to join them for their special feast. Everyone brought food.In time, other colonies（殖民地）began to celebrate a day of thanksgiving. But it took years before there was a national Thanksgiving Day. During the Civil War, Sarah Josepha Hale persuaded Abraham Lincoln to do something about it. He proclaimed（宣布）the last Thursday of November 1863 as a day of thanksgiving. Today, Americans celebrate this happy harvest festival on the fourth Thursday in November. Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving Day in much the same way as their American neighbours. But the Canadian thanks-giving Day falls on the second Monday in October.

1. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated      .

  A. in spring              B. summer   C. in autumn             D. in winter

2. The first to celebrate thanksgiving were      .

  A. some people from England   B. the American Indians

  C. Sarah Josepha Hale         D. Governor Bradford

3. We can infer from the passage that New England must be      .

  A. in the U. S. A.  B. in Great Britain

  C. in Canada   D. on some island off the Atlantic

4. Which of the following is NOT true?

  A. Thanksgiving Day used to be a holiday to celebrate a good harvest.

  B. Abraham Lincoln was not the first to decide on thanksgiving celebrations.

  C. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated to express the American and Indian people’s thanks to God.

  D. There’s little difference between the American way and the Canadian way to celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

5. The passage mainly tells us      .

  A. how Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the U. S. A.

  B. how Thanksgiving Day came into being and the different ways it is celebrated

  C. that Thanksgiving Day is in fact a harvest holiday

  D. how the way to celebrate Thanksgiving Day changed with the time and places

I came to live here where I am now between Wounded Knee Greek and Grass Greek. Others came too, and we made these little grey houses of logs that you see, and they are square, It is a bad way to live, for there can be no power in a square.

You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the respectful circle of the nation, and so long as the circle was unbroken, the people were getting rich. The flowering tree was the living center of the circle, and the circle of the four quarters nursed it. The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain, and the north with its cold and strong wind gave strength and continuous power. This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our brief. Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. Birds make their nests in circle, for theirs are the same as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our places were like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s circle, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to nurse our children.

But the Wasichus (Indian word for “white people”) have put us in these square boxes. Our power is gone and we are dying, for the power is not in us any more. You can look at our boys and see how it is with us. Where we were living by the power of the circle in the way we should, boys were men at twelve or thirteen years of age. But now it takes them very much longer to be full - grown.

1..

According to the passage, the Indians _______.

2..

Two things being compared in the passage are _______.

3..

. In the second paragraph “the four quarters” refers to _______.

4..

According to the author, once the Indians moved into square houses, ______________.

B
Ever since I was a small girl in school, I’ve been aware of what the school textbooks say about Indians. I am an Indian and, naturally, am interested in what the schools teach about natives of this land.
One day, I read that a delicacy(美味) of American Indian people was dried fish, which , according to the textbook, tasted “like an old shoe, or was like chewing on dried leather.” To this day I can remember my surprise, my anger and my sadness at reading these words. We called this wind-dried fish “sleet-shus”, and to us, it was our favorite delicacy and, indeed, did not  taste like shoe leather, and didn’t rot our teeth and bring about the various dietary problem that trouble Indian people in modern times. It took many hours of long and hard work to cure the fish in just this particular fashion. Early fur traders and other non-Indians must have agreed, for they often had this food as they traveled around isolated areas.
I brought the textbook home to show it to my father, leader of my tribe at that time. On this particular day, he told me in his wise and modest manner that the outside world did not understand Indian people, and that I should not let it prevent me from learning the good parts of education.
At a later time in my life, I had brought a group of Indian people to the country fairgrounds to sell Indian-made arts and crafts. My group was excited to make some money by selling Indian handicrafts. We thanked the man who showed us to our booth and told him it was nice of him to remember the people of the Indian community. The man expanded a little and remarked that he liked Indian people. “In fact,” he went on to state, “we are bringing some professional Indians to do the show!”
As we stood there in shock, listening to this uninformed outsider, I looked at my dear Indian companion, an eighty-year-old woman who could well remember the great chiefs of the tribe who once owned all the land of this country before the white man came bringing “civilization”, which included diseases and pollution. My friend said not a word, but took the hurt as Indian people have done for many years.
Of course, we all knew that the “professional Indian” were not Indians at all, but dressed in leather and dancing their own dances. And, anyway, how does one become a “professional Indian”?
45．Which of the following statements about “sleet-shus” is true?
A．It tasted like an old shoe.
B．Eating it was like chewing on dried leather.
C．It was delicious but bad for our teeth.
D．It must have brought pleasure to Indians as well as early business men.
46．What does the writer mean by saying “how does one become ‘a professional Indian’”?
A．Only the Indians know how to become professional Indians.
B．The outside civilization can help and Indian become a professional Indian.
C．An Indian is a born professional Indian.
D．The outside civilization can help white people become professional Indians.
47．After reading the passage, you don’t know __________.
A．what the writer’s profession is
B．what upset the writer and her friend at the county fair
C．why the writer went to the county fair
D．the writer’s attitude to the so-called civilization
48．This story is primarily about ___________.
A．customs of native Americans
B．how textbooks describe native Americans.
C．misunderstanding between people from different cultures
D．how an Indian becomes a “professional Indian”

    根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

E

The Mississippi

    The Mississippi is a great river whose relationship with man goes way back beyond its discovery in the 16th century. The River Indians used it as a highway and as a source of food, and it was they who gave it its name—“misi” meaning “great” and “sipi” meaning “water”．When the length of its branch, the Missouri, is added to it, the Mississippi becomes greater.  71  . From the source of the Missouri to the tip of the delta （三角洲）, it is 2, 480 miles long.

    Great rivers are likely to suffer floods. In 1927 the Mississippi flooded 26 thousand acres, sweeping away farms, towns, everything in its path. In 1938 its floods drowned or killed 200 people and made millions homeless. Today the river has largely been controlled.   72  .

    Industries have spread down some of the waterways of the delta, but otherwise the delta is a remote place, the homeland of a little colony of French Canadians that the British drove out of Nova Scotia in the 18th century. They still speak French, mixed with English, Indian, Spanish and Negro idioms. They keep to themselves, fanning the rich soil of the delta.   73  .

      74  . Pioneers who first reached its banks wondered not only where it went, but what lay beyond. In 1764 the French founded a city on the right bank of the river, and named it after their king, Louis XV. This city, named St. Louis, became the jumping-off place for the adventurous men and women who opened up the Great Plains, and the way to the Far West.

    Some 40 years earlier, at the beginning of the 18th century, the French had founded another city just above the Mississippi delta, New Orleans.   75  . New Orleans is one of the great ports of the world, and one of the greatest terminals for both sea and river traffic.

    A．It was the Mississippi that made the city what it is

    B．Levees, high banks built of earth, hold back the flood waters

    C．Therefore, as we know, it’s the third longest river in the world

    D．It is known that the“Great Water”has also been a frontier river

    E．However, they paddled up and down the Mississippi in their boats to seek their fortune

    F．The“Great Water”always remains a thread, for the streets of the city are below the level      of the river

    G．They call themselves Cajuns, who have actually been leading fairly primitive lives and      preserving their own traditions

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