“How many common English words were invented by Shakespeare?”

How long did it take people to find the answer to this question 15 years ago? And now! You can google it and find the answer immediately!

Google is the most popular Internet search engine（搜索引擎）in the world. It was invented by two students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They met in 1993, when they were studying computer science at Stanford University, USA. They dreamed of producing something that could also answer any question in seconds.

Internet search engines at that time were slow and gave many websites that weren’t useful. In January 1996, Page and Brin decided to make a better and faster search engine. They thought the results should be based on the most popular websites.

Nobody would give them money for their project, so they used their own money. They also borrowed money from family and friends. Then, in 1998, they were given a cheque for $100,000, and they started their own company(公司). Their first office was in a friend’s garage(车库).The company name is Google, a word which comes from mathematics. A “google” is a very high number — 1 followed by a hundred zeros.

The Google search engine was soon used by thousands of people worldwide because it was fast, easy and correct. By 2002 it was the biggest search engine on the Internet. Now, more questions have been answered by Google than any other Internet service, from sport to science, and from music to medicine. Google hopes that in the future all the world’s information will be put on the Internet, so that everybody can find everything.

1.Why did the writer begin this passage by asking you a question?

A．Because he or she liked to begin this passage by asking readers a question.

B．Because he or she was afraid that the readers didn’t know this question.

C．Because he or she wanted to make the readers interested in this passage.

D．Because Shakespeare is one of the most famous people in the world.

2.The underlined word “cheque” in the fifth paragraph means _______.

A．楼房             B．账单             C．订单             D．支票

3.From the passage we know that at the beginning of their project, _______.

A．there was not any search engine on the Internet

B．nobody supported them except their family and friends

C．Larry Page and Sergey Brin dreamed to answer any question

D．one of the most popular websites gave them a cheque for $100,000

4.Which statement is NOT true according to the passage?

A．Now the Google search engine is widely used in the world.

B．The Google search engine was not the biggest one before 2002.

C．Larry Page and Sergey Brin named google after a hundred zeros.

D．The service of the Google search engine is very popular.

5.The passage mainly tells us _______.

A．the development of the Google search engine

B．about Larry Page and Sergey Brin

C．how to find information on the Internet

D．how to use the Google search engine

    It’s true that Shakespeare’s play ______ by so many people every year.

A. see              B. will see         C. are seeing       D. are seen

William Shakespeare was one of the world’s great writers. He lived in England    21  1564 to 1616. Shakespeare is famous for his   22  and poems. His plays are all about love and feelings. Some, like Julius Caesar, are about history.   23 , like Romeo and Juliet, are about love and romance. The plays are very interesting, and the writing is beautiful. Sometimes it’s hard to understand them. English today is very different from   24  it was 400 years ago. Also, people in the plays often speak like they’re in a poem. There are many movies about Shakespeare’s plays. When you don’t have the chance to see a live play(现场演出), you can   25  one of the movies.

My name is Toby. I’m eighty-three years old now. I once knew the greatest man in England. William Shakespeare was his name. I first met William near a big field of apple trees in the town named Stratford in October, 1579. He told me he was 15 years old. He was two years older than me. He had a sister, Joan, and two younger brothers, Gilbert and Richard. And the next year he had another brother, Edmund. After William’s parents died, he and his sister lived with his mother’s brother. I became his friend from that day until he died. We met nearly every day. We were friends for thirty years.

I once worked with him in the theatre, through the good times and the bad times. William was good at acting. He could make all kinds of people pleased. By 1592, he became very famous. He was always busy day and night. I don’t know when he slept. He not only acted in plays, but also wrote his own plays. In his whole life, William wrote 37 plays in all. He was the best playwright in England.

He wrote a play about love in 1595. It was Romeo and Juliet. He once used my name, Toby, in his play—Twelfth Night. In this play, Sir Toby Belch was a big fat man, who liked drinking too much and having a good time. Queen Elizabeth the First watched this play on the 6^th of January, 1601. She liked it.

William Shakespeare is dead now, of course. He has been dead for more than thirty years. There’s no singing, no dancing, no plays. It isn’t like that in my young days. But I can still think—and remember when William and I were young, we had a good time in London, William and I…

1.Toby and William first met in ______.

   A. 1601          B. 1595         C.1592          D. 1579

2.Who was William’s youngest brother?

   A. Gilbert           B. Edmund       C. Richard      D. Joan

3.In the second paragraph, the underlined word “playwright” means “a person who ______”.

   A. writes plays                      B. performs in plays   

   C. watches plays                 D. works in a theatre

4.Romeo and Juliet is a play about _______.

   A. war           B. peace            C. love         D. friendship

The famous writer William Shakespeare was born       1564.

A. in         B. on             C at               .D of