2016年6月英语四级考试预测试题（二）_第2页

　　Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)

　　Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.

　　The "Lost" Great Wall of China

　　A forgotten section of the Great Wall of China has been discovered deep in the Gobi Desert--and outside of China--researchers say.

　　With the help of Google Earth, an international expedition documented the ancient wall for roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) in a restricted border zone in southern Mongolia in August 2011.

　　The defensive barrier formed part of the Great Wail system built by successive Chinese dynasties to repel Mongol invaders from the north, according to findings published in the March issue of the Chinese edition of National Geographic magazine. (The National Geographic Society is responsible for both the magazine and Nationai Geographic News.)

　　Preserved to a height of 9 feet (2.75 meters) in places, the desert discovery belongs to a sequence of remnant( 遗留的 ) walls in Mongolia collectively known as the Wall of Genghis Khan, said expedition leader and Great Wall researcher William Lindesay.

　　Named after the founder of the Mongol Empire, the Wall of Genghis Khan usually survives only as "a faint trace," Lindesay said in an email.

　　But "we found a 'real wail', standing high and existing as a dominant landscape feature," he said.

　　What's more, it wasn't the work of Genghis Khan or his heirs but actually a long-lost segment of the Great Wall of China network, the team's findings suggest.

　　First to Investigate New Great Wall?

　　Close to China in the border region of omnogovi Province, the ancient structure hadn't been scientifically explored or studied before, said Lindesay, director of the International Friends of the Great Wall conservation group, based in Beijing, China.

　　"We're the first to investigate the ruins," he said.

　　"According to the army officers who minded us, we were the first outsiders to be allowed into the area,"

　　Lindesay added. "We assumed various local Mongolians had been to the area, but had not considered the structure of much interest."

　　At times seeking out topographic clues seen in Google Earth--the wall is visible on satellite images—the team located two well preserved but contrasting stretches of wall. One section had been made mainly with wet mud and a woody desert shrub(灌木)called saxaul(梭梭树)， the other from blocks of black volcanic rock.

　　Along its vast length, Lindesay suspects, the wall originally stood at least 2 meters (6.5 feet) taller than it does today.

　　"What we found was just the last remaining piece of a ' fossil'--the skull or the large thighbone, with the rest missing," he said.

　　"One can expect the wall was both much higher and continuous for vast distances."

　　That dark basaltic rock(玄武岩)seems to have been an obvious choice for the second stretch，which crosses the rugged(崎岖的)remains of extinct volcanoes.

　　The clean，straight edges to the blocks indicate that the stone was quarried(开采)，which would have required a large，organized work.force and an efficient transport system，the team said.

　　Rewriting History

　　Ancient Mongolian texts suggest that the so-called Wall of Genghis Khan was built as an animal fence by Khan's son Ogedei to keep wild gazelle (羚羊) on his land.

　　But the recently explored Gobi Desert wall segment isn't in a region where large herds of gazelle occur.

　　"There would be no reason to build an animal wall in the Gobi," said anthropologist (人类学家) and Mongolia historian Jack Weathefford, formerly of Macalester College, Minnesota.

　　Chinese researchers, perhaps not surprisingly, have speculated that China's Han dynasty had erected these little-studied stretches in about 115 B.C.

　　But radiocarbon (放射性碳) dating of partly exposed wood and rope remains extracted from the wall indicates that the saxaul-segment construction occurred about a thousand years later than thought, from A.D. 1040 to 1160.

　　Those dates hint that the Western Xia dynasty built the walls--or at least rebuilt old Han walls on the sites.

　　Holding Back the Mongol Tide

　　This northwestern Chinese dynasty isn't known to have contributed to the Great Wall system, but in at least one aspect, a Western Xia origin makes sense.

　　During the Western Xia period, Mongol tribes were rising in strength and making forays ( 侵略 ) south,

　　Lindesay noted.

　　"If one imagines the wall as a platform, with some kind of battlement--perhaps of wooden stakes, functioning as a shield to those manning its top---then it would have been an effective defense installation ( 防护驻地)," he said.

　　But, mysteriously, the expedition team found no pottery, no trash, no coins, no weapons--nothing to prove the wall was ever actually manned. Nor did they find any of the watchtowers that mark surviving sections of the

　　Great Wall within China.

　　"The wall system was incomplete," Lindesay said. "It not only lacked the signaling capability to make smoke signals--it didn't appear to be capable of accommodating troops."

　　Unfinished Business

　　"I believe the wall here is only half built and that there was, for some reason, a rethink on locating the wall here," Lindesay said.

　　It isn't difficult to imagine how the purported (传说中的) Great Wall segment's harsh desert location might have led to the remote frontier defense being abandoned, he added.

　　Weatherford, the Minnesota-based anthropologist, agrees with Lindesay's conclusion that the newfound remains were Chinese constructions.

　　There's a good reason, Weatherford added, that the stretch nevertheless carries Genghis Khan's name.

　　Mongolians, he said, are sensitive to the idea of "Chinese structures built on their land", since it carries the

　　possible claim that the land was once Chinese.

　　"By calling it the Genghis Khan Wall, the name makes the place Mongolian and rejects foreign influence,"

　　Weatherford said.

　　He also describes the expedition new findings as"very important, because to my knowledge this wall has not been studied."

　　"I would risk saying that it is the largest human-made structure or artifact in all of Mongolia," he added. "It is amazing to me that it is not already much better analyzed."

　　1. According to this passage, the purpose of building the Great Wall system is to __________.

　　A) avoid the trouble of sending an army to defend the area

　　B) repel Mongol invaders from the north

　　C) indicate where the b. order line between Mongol and China is

　　D) rival with the Wall of Genghis Khan

　　2. Who is William Lindesay?

　　A) An expert on Great Wall.

　　B) An editor with National Geographic magazine.

　　C) A scientist who named the section the Wall of Genghis Khan.

　　D) An expert on this forgotten section of the Great Wall

　　3. According to this passage, the newly discovered section of the Great Wall is

　　A) the work of Genghis Khan

　　B) the work of Genghis Khan's heirs

　　C) a part of the Great Wall of China

　　D) a part of the City Wall of the capital of Mongolia

　　4. Lindesay and his expedition team was the first group to

　　A) investigate the remaining walls

　　B) discover the wall ruins

　　C) approach the Wall of Genghis Khan

　　D) notice the forgotten Great Wall in Google Earth

　　5. Lindesay assumes that the original height of the wall was about __________.

　　A) 2 meters

　　B) 6.5 feet

　　C) 9 meters

　　D) 15.5 feet

　　6. According to Jack Weatherford, why is it not possible that the so-called Wall of Genghis Khan was built to keep wild gazelle on the land?

　　A) Because Mongol tribes hate gazelle.

　　B) Because gazelle herds are rarely seen in that area.

　　C) Because people would never build an animal fence like that.

　　D) Because gazelle would jump over the fence.

　　7. According to this passage, the walls were very likely built by__________.

　　A) the Han Dynasty

　　B) the Mongol tribes

　　C) the Western Xia Dynasty

　　D) an unknown tribe

　　8. Compared with the Great wall within China, the newly found wall does not have watchtowers, which could be used to__________ during the wars.

　　9. According to this passage, the reason why the wall is called the Genghis Khan Wall is that__________.

　　10. Weatherford also thinks it is amazing that this section of wall, being such a large human-made structure, is not__________.