Few buildings on earth can compete with the legendary beauty of the Taj Mahal. Towering over the ancient Indian city of Agra, the Taj Mahal is the grandest monument (纪念碑) to love ever created.

The lovers in this story are the 17th century Indian emperor Shah Jehan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. She took a leading role in advising him, which is something unusual for a woman to do for a husband who’s an emperor. Over the course of their nineteen-year marriage she gave birth to 14 children. But in 1631 while trying to deliver their fifteenth — she tragically died. He was heartbroken when she died. And after her death, he decided to build the world’s greatest monument ever built, for love.

He ordered the royal architects to design the most beautiful building the world had known and decided to name it after his beloved, Mumtaz Mahal. He called on twenty thousand workers and sent many more people to all corners of his country in search of valuable metals and jewels. And after seventeen years of hard work, Shah Jehan’s monument was completed and his beloved empress was moved to her final resting place.

       Everything had gone according to plan, but Shah Jehan’s luck was about to change ... In 1658, just four years after the completion of the Taj Mahal, he was thrown out of power. Unfortunately, his son, Aran Azibe imprisoned him, his own father. And he spent the last seven years of his life in prison. And he was allowed to look at the Taj Mahal through a window. His life was in ruins, but when he died his last wish was promised. He was buried beside his beloved wife in the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal was built for ______.

A. Mumtaz                      B. Shah      C. Mumtaz or Shah           D. Mumtaz and Shah

The Taj Mahal was completed in ______.

A. 1658   B. 1662          C. 1665      D. 1654      

What was unusual for Mumtaz Mahal according to the passage?

A. She gave birth to 14 children for her husband.   B. She gave important advice to her husband.

C. She asked her son to imprison his father.   D. She planned to build the world’s greatest monument.

Which of the following is TRUE about Shah Jehan?

A. He was killed by his own son.  B. He lost his power as a result of the Taj Mahal.

C. He put his own son into prison.  D. He hoped to be buried together with his wife.  

It is hardly surprising that clothing manufacturers(生产商) follow certain uniform standards for various features(特征) of clothes. What seems strange, however, is that the standard adopted for women is the opposite of the one for men. Take a look at the way your clothes button. Men’s clothes tend to button from the right, and women’s from the left. Considering most of the world’s population----men and women----are right-handed, the men’s standard would appear to make more sense for women. So why do women’s clothes button from the left?

History really seems to matter here. Buttons first appeared only on the clothes of the rich in the 17th century, when rich women were dressed by servants. For the mostly right-handed servants, having women’s shirts button from the left would be easier. On the other hand, having men’s shirts button from the right made sense, too. Most men dressed themselves, and a sword drawn from the left with the right hand would be less likely to get caught in the shirt.

Today women are seldom dressed by servants, but buttoning from the left is still the standard for them. Is it interesting? Actually, a standard, once set, resists change. At a time when all women’s shirts buttoned from the left, it would have been risky for any single manufacturer to offer women’s shirts that buttoned from the right. After all, women had grown so used to shirts which buttoned from the left and would have to develop new habits and skills to switch. Besides, some women might have found it socially awkward to appear in public wearing shirts that buttoned from the right, since anyone who noticed that would believe they were wearing men’s shirts.

1.What is surprising about the standard of the clothing industry?

A. It has been followed by the industry for over 400 years.

B. It is different for men’s clothing and women’s.

C. It woks better with men than with women.

D. It fails to consider right-handed people.

2.What do we know about the rich men in the 17th century?

A. They tended to wear clothes without buttons.

B. They were interested in the historical matters.

C. They were mostly dressed by servants.

D. They drew their swords from the left.

3.Women’s clothes still button from the left today because         .

A. adopting men’s style is improper for women

B. manufacturers should follow standards

C. modern women dress themselves

D. customs are hard to change

4.The passage is mainly developed by          .

A. analyzing causes                     B. making comparisons

C. examining differences                 D. following the time order

Chinese press, thousands of tourists and space experts from Japan, Germany, Italy and other countries have gathered at China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan Province on Tuesday, October 23 to witness the historic moment-the launch of the nation’s first moon orbiter (人造卫星), which is scheduled to take place at 6:05 p.m.on Wednesday．
Space center experts were worried earlier in the day when Xichang experienced an unexpected rainfall from about 4:05 a.m．till 7:10 a.m．on Wednesday, but they were able to breathe a sigh of relief when the weather cleared．Both national and local meteorological observatories (气象台)forecast cloudy weather for the launch site on Wednesday afternoon．However they said they believed it would not affect the launch mission, an opinion which was shared by technological staff at the site．     
Local villagers within a radius of 2.5 km of the launch site and under the trajectory(轨道) of the carrier have been told to move to safe areas two hours prior to the planned launch．Tourists have been charged 800 yuan (105 U.S.dollars) to witness the launch of China’s first lunar satellite．A local travel agency has said that the two observation platforms are capable of holding 2,000, but it is not known how many people paid for the chance．
The moon orbiter, Chang’e-1, named after a legendary Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, and the carrier Long March 3A have passed all pre-launch tests．     
China hopes to become the 17th nation to join the International Space Station (ISS) project, and carried out its first piloted space flight in October 2003, making it only the third country in the world after the Soviet Union and the United States to have sent men into space．In October 2005, China completed its second manned space flight, with two astronauts on board．
1．Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?
A．China counting down to launch of its first lunar satellite  
B．Chang’e-1 lunar satellite and its launch
C．Chang’e-1 lunar satellite to conduct 1st orbit transfer  
D．China hopes to join the International Space Station
2．Space center experts believed _______．
A．rainfall would come as soon as possible．
B．the cloudy weather wouldn’t affect the mission．
C．All the 2,000 tourists should paid 800 yuan each to witness the launch．
D．The mission was the third time of China’s manned flight．
3．Please arrange the time order of the following events according to the passage．
a．Local villagers have been told to move to safe areas．    
b．Unexpected shower fell on the early morning of Wednesday．
c．The moon mission is scheduled to take place．        
d．Journalists and tourists gathered at the Satellite Launch Centre．
A．b c d a              B．a b c d               C．d b a c              D．c d a b
4．It can be implied from the passage that _____________．
A．China has become the 17th country to join the International Space Station         
B．China will launch its manned spaceship to the moon soon
C．China is the third nation to send men into space       
D．China is pioneering in the space exploration now

Many famous painters worked in Antwerp during the city’s period of greatest power but Peter Paul Rubens is undoubtedly the most famous one of them. Known as Rubens House, the palace-like residence(大宅) and studio where Rubens worked and lived from 1616 until his death in 1640 is now one of Antwerp’s most visited museums.

Almost all of the works Rubens and his students created in the Rubens House have been dispersed (分散) over major museums across the whole world, but there is still an impressive collection well worth the visit. Besides paintings form the master himself you will find other works of art and furniture of the 17th century as well as paintings from his students, including works by Jacob Jordaens and Anthony Van Dyck.

The Rubens House was not only a studio but also a meeting place for the rich and famous. His clients(委托人) included wealthy merchants, diplomats, and there were also many noblemen who often visited his studio to see how work progressed. The Rubens House even had a special viewing area which allowed visitors to see the artists at work.

Ruben bought the house at the beginning of the 17th century after his eight-year-long stay in Italy. Influenced by Italian architecture, he rebuilt the building into an Italian-styled palace with a beautiful garden and moved in the house in1616.

After his death the building was sold. New owners modified the building greatly and by 1937, when the building was purchased by the city of Antwerp, it hardly resembled the original structure.

The impressive entrance hall, which connected the studio and the residence, is one of the few parts that survived. Other parts have been carefully restored and reconstructed after original plans and paintings of the house.

1.As a museum, the Rubens House is popular because _______.

A. it lies in the famous city of Antwerp

B. it holds all the works by Rubens and his students

C. there are many people who enjoy visiting it

D. Rubens, a great artist, lived and worked there

2.We can learn from the third paragraph that _______.

A. the Rubens House was popular with upper-class people

B. the Rubens House was the best studio in its time

C. Rubens’s students included noblemen and diplomats

D. people were not allowed to view the artists working

3.What can be inferred from the text?

A. Thanks to its great painters, Antwerp became a rich city.

B. Ruben possibly showed strong interest in Italian buildings.

C. Antwerp must be a historical city in Italy.

D. The Rubens House was completely rebuilt before 1937.

4.Which of the following is TRUE, according to the text?

A. Rubens created his works by working with his students.

B. A beautiful garden was added to the Rubens House by new owners.

C. The Rubens House is decorated with furniture of the 17th century.

D. Today’s Rubens House looks like its original structure.

Social circumstances in Early Modern England mostly served to repress women’s voices. Patriarchal culture and institutions constructed them as chaste, silent, obedient, and subordinate. At the beginning of the 17th century, the ideology of patriarchy, political absolutism, and gender hierarchy were reaffirmed powerfully by King James in The Trew Law of Free Monarchie and the Basilikon Doron; by that ideology the absolute power of God the supreme patriarch was seen to be imaged in the absolute monarch of the state and in the husband and father of a family. Accordingly, a woman’s subjection, first to her father and then to her husband, imaged the subjection of English people to their monarch, and of all Christians to God. Also, the period saw an outpouring of repressive or overtly misogynist sermons, tracts, and plays, detailing women’s physical and mental defects, spiritual evils, rebelliousness, shrewish ness, and natural inferiority to men.

Yet some social and cultural conditions served to empower women. During the Elizabethan era (1558—1603) the culture was dominated by a powerful Queen, who provided an impressive female example though she left scant cultural space for other women. Elizabethan women writers began to produce original texts but were occupied chiefly with translation. In the 17th century, however, various circumstances enabled women to write original texts in some numbers. For one thing, some counterweight to patriarchy was provided by female communities—mothers and daughters, extended kinship networks, close female friends, the separate court of Queen Anne (King James’ consort) and her often oppositional masques and political activities. For another, most of these women had a reasonably good education (modern languages, history, literature, religion, music, occasionally Latin) and some apparently found in romances and histories more expansive terms for imagining women’s lives. Also, representation of vigorous and rebellious female characters in literature and especially on the stage no doubt helped to undermine any monolithic social construct of women’s mature and role.

Most important, perhaps, was the radical potential inherent in the Protestant insistence on every Christian’s immediate relationship with God and primary responsibility to follow his or her individual conscience. There is plenty of support in St Paul’s epistles and elsewhere in the Bible for patriarchy and a wife’s subjection to her husband, but some texts (notably Galatians 3:28) inscribe a very different politics, promoting women’s spiritual equality: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Jesus Christ.” Such texts encouraged some women to claim the support of God the supreme patriarch against the various earthly patriarchs who claimed to stand toward them in his stead.

There is also the gap or slippage between ideology and common experience. English women throughout the 17th century exercised a good deal of accrual power: as managers of estates in their husbands’ absences at court or on military and diplomatic missions; as members of guilds; as wives and mothers who apex during the English Civil War and Interregnum (1640-60) as the execution of the King and the attendant disruption of social hierarchies led many women to seize new roles—as preachers, as prophetesses, as deputies for exiled royalist husbands, as writers of religious and political tracts.

     What is the best title for this passage?

[A]. Women’s Position in the 17th Century.

[B]. Women’s Subjection to Patriarchy.

[C]. Social Circumstances in the 17th Century.

[D]. Women’s objection in the 17th Century.

     What did the Queen Elizabeth do for the women in culture?

[A]. She set an impressive female example to follow.

[B]. She dominated the culture.

[C]. She did little.

[D]. She allowed women to translate something.

Which of the following is Not mention as a reason to enable women to original texts?

[A].Female communities provided some counterweight to patriarchy.

[B]. Queen Anne’s political activities.

[C]. Most women had a good education.

[D]. Queen Elizabeth’s political activities.

     What did the religion so for the women?

[A]. It did nothing.

[B]. It too asked women to be obedient except some texts.

[C]. It supported women.

[D]. It appealed to the God.