Throughout history, people have been interested in knowing how languages first began, but no one knows exactly where or how this happened. However, we do know a lot about languages, the languages of today and also the languages of earlier times. There are probably about 3,000 languages in the world today. Chinese is the language with the most speakers. English, Russian and Spanish are also spoken by many millions of people. On the other hand, some languages in the world have less than one hundred speakers.
There are several important families of languages in the world. For example, most of the languages of Europe are in one large family called Indo-European. The original (最初的) language of this family was spoken about 4,500 years ago. Many of the present day languages of Europe and India are modern forms of the language of 4,500 yeas ago.
Languages are always changing. The English of today is very different from the English of 500 years ago. In time some even died out completely. About 1,000 years ago, English was a little-known relative of German spoken on one of the borders of Europe.
If a language has a large number of speakers or if it is very old, there may be differences in the way it is spoken in different areas. That is, the language may have several dialects. Chinese is a good example of dialect differences. Chinese has been spoken for thousands of years by many millions of speakers. The differences between the dialects of Chinese are so great that speakers of Chinese from some parts of China can’t understand speakers from other parts.
1 The first paragraph mainly tells us that ____ .
A. most people in the world speak Chinese
B. there are thousands of languages in the world today
C. man has much knowledge about languages
D. some people know several languages
2 According to the passage, most European and Indian languages ____ .
A. will soon die out completely B. were once a relative of English
C. are no longer spoken D. come from the same family
3 According to the passage, ____ has the most speakers.
A. Chinese B. English C. Spanish D. German
4 According to the passage, ____ seems to have changed a lot.
A. German B. English C. Spanish D. Chinese
5The underlined word dialect in the last paragraph probably means ____ .
A. a special language spoken by Chinese
B. the sign used by the Chinese people in a special area
C. the difference between the old and today’s Chinese
D. the form of a language used in one part of the country
第二部分 阅读理解 (满分35分)
第一节 语篇阅读 (每小题2分)
阅读理解下面的短文，然后根据短文内容，指出能完成所给句子或回答所提问题的最佳答案。
Astronomy (天文学) is the oldest science known to man. Thousands of years ago man looked at the stars and wondered about heavens (天堂). But the six planets that he could see with his eyes alone limited man.
The Greeks studied astronomy over 2,000 years ago. They could see the size, color, and brightness of a star. They could see its place in the sky. They watched the stars move as the seasons changed. But the Greeks had no tools to help themselves study the heavens.
Each new tool added to the field of astronomy helped man reach out into space. Until there were telescopes (望远镜), man did not know much about the moon. He did not know that the planet called Saturn (土星) had rings around it. His sight was so limited that he could not see all the planets. In the early 1700s, people thought there were only six planets. Pluto (冥王星), the last of the nine planets to be discovered was seen until 1930.
Before the spectroscopes (分光镜), man didn’t know what kind of gas was in the sun or other stars, without radio telescopes (射电望远镜), we did not know that radio noise came from far in space.
Today, astronomy is a growing science. We have learned more in the past fifty years than in the whole history of astronomy.
1Thousands of years ago, man watched ____ with his eyes.
A. the moon B. the stars C. the universe D. all the planets
2 When the Greeks watched the stars, they could ____ .
A. know what the stars were made of B. not see their places in the sky
C. help themselves study the heavens D. watch the stars move as the seasons changed
3Until there were ____ , man knew very little about the moon.
A. telescopes B. spectroscopes C. radio telescopes D. spaceships
3People didn’t know about Pluto until ____ .
A. the 1700s B. 2,000 years ago C. 1930 D. thousands of years ago
5____ people began to do research on astronomy.
A. 50 years ago B. 90 years ago C. In the early 1700s D. Over 2,000 years ago
The company has turned ____ e-commerce.
|
A．did |
B．does |
C．to do |
D．to doing |
The enemies tried to ____ the city, but they failed in the end.
|
A．make possession of |
B．take possession of |
|
C．be covered with |
D．make up of |
Japan is ____ the east of China, while India is ____ the west of China.
|
A．to; on |
B．on; to |
C．in; to |
D．to; in |
It was stupid ____ him for help. Everyone knows that he is very mean.
|
A．you ask |
B．for you to ask |
C．of you to ask |
D．of you asking |
