21世纪,英语已经走进了我们每个人的生活,学好英语成了我们共同的目标,为了帮助大学生更好地掌握英语,特提供以下文章:
As many as one thousand years ago in the Southwest, the Hopi and Zuni Indians of North America were building with adobe-sun baked brick plastered with mud. Their homes looked remarkably like modern apartment houses. Some were four stories high and contained quarters for perhaps a thousand people, along with store rooms for grain and other goods. These buildings were usually put up against cliffs, both to make construction easier and for defense against enemies. They were really villages in themselves, as later Spanish explorers must have realized since they called them “pueblos”, which is Spanish for town.
The people of the pueblos raised what are called“the three sisters” - corn, beans, and squash. They made excellent pottery and wove marvelous baskets, some so fine that they could hold water. The Southwest has always been a dry country, where water is scarce. The Hopi and Zuni brought water from streams to their fields and gardens through irrigation ditches. Water was so important that it played a major role in their religion. They developed elaborate ceremonies and religious rituals to bring rain.
The way of life of less settled groups was simpler and more strongly influenced by nature. Small tribes such as the Shoshone and Ute wandered the dry and mountainous lands between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. They gathered seeds and hunted small animals such as small rabbits and snakes. In the Far North the ancestors of today's Inuit hunted seals, walruses, and the great whales. They lived right on the frozen seas in shelters called igloos built of blocks of packed snow. When summer came, they fished for salmon and hunted the lordly caribou.
The Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Sioux tribes, known as the Plains Indians, lived on the grasslands between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. They hunted bison, commonly called the buffalo. Its meat was the chief food of these tribes, and its hide was used to make their clothing and covering of their tents and tipis.
1. What does the passage mainly discuss?
A. The architecture of early American Indian buildings.
B. The movement of American Indians across North America.
C. Ceremonies and rituals of American Indians.
D. The way of life of American Indian tribes in early North America.
2. It can be inferred from the passage that the dwellings of the Hopi and Zuni were______.
A. very small
B. highly advanced
C. difficult to defend
D. quickly constructed
参考谜底及解析:
1. D) 按照阅读短文可知,作者首要描述了北美地域分歧印第安部落的分歧的糊口体例 。故选项D为正确谜底。
2. B) 此题为揣度题。按照文章第一段可知,早在一千年前Hopi和Zuni两支北美印第安部落就用一种砖坯“adobe”来建造衡宇,高可达四层楼高,有栖身室还有储藏室,颇像现代的公寓,故选项B(高度发家)为正确谜底。