People use money to buy food, furniture, books, bicycles and hundreds of other things they need or want. Most of the money today is made of metal or paper. But people used to use all kinds of things as money. One of the first kinds of money was shells. Shells were not the only things used as money. In China, cloth and knives were used. In the Philippine Islands, rice was used as money for a long time. Elephant tusks, monkey tails, and salt were used as money in parts of Africa.

    Some animals were used as money too. The first metal coins were made in China. They were round and had a square hole in the center. People strung them together and carried them from place to place. The first coins in England were made of tin (锡). Sweden and Russia used copper (铜) to make their money. Later countries began to make coins of gold and silver.

    Later the Chinese thought of a way to improve money. They began to use paper money. Money has had an interesting history from the days of shell money until today.

People used different kinds of things as          .

A. gold      B. metal     C. money      D. silver

Tin was first made as money in         .

A. China      B. Philippine Islands     C. England      D. Russia

The word "strung" in the passage probably means         ."

A. came    B. tied    C. put    D. made

The best topic of the article is”         .”

A. How Many Kinds of Money Are There in the World    B. The History of Money

C. Money in Different Countries                      D. The Use of Money


第二部分:语言知识及应用(共两节,满分35分)
第一节:完形填空(共10小题;每小题2分,满分20分)
阅读下列短文,掌握其大意,然后从21—30各题所给的A, B, C和D四个选项中,选出最佳选项,并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
I was a single parent of four small children, working at a low-paid job. Money was always tight, but we had a    21    over our head, food on the table, clothes on our backs, and if not a lot, always    22  . Not knowing we were poor, my kids just thought I was strict. I’ve always been glad about that.
It was Christmas time, and although there wasn’t money for a lot of gifts, we planned to celebrate with a family party. But the big   23   for the kids was the fun of Christmas. Fortunately, I had saved $120 for    24   to share by all five of us.
The big    25   arrived. I gave each kid a twenty – dollar bill and    26    them to look for gifts of about four dollars each. Then everyone scattered. We had two hours to shop; then we would meet back at the “Santa’s Workshop”.
Driving home, everyone was in high Christmas spirits, except my younger daughter, Ginger, who was unusually    27   . She had only one small, flat bag with a few candies - fifty – cent candies! I was so angry, but I didn’t say anything until we got home. I called her into my bedroom and closed as the door, ready to be angry again. This is what she told me.
“ I was looking around    28   of what to buy, and I stopped to read the little cards on the ‘Giving Trees’. One was for a little girl, four years old, and all she wanted for Christmas was a doll. So I took the card off the tree and    29   the doll for her. We have so much and she doesn’t have anything.”
I never felt so   30   as I did that day.
21.    A. roof                  B. hat                    C. sky                   D. star
22.    A. little                  B. less                   C. enough              D. more
23.    A. improvement     B. problem            C. surprise             D. excitement
24.    A. toys                  B. clothes              C. presents             D. bills
25.   A. day                   B. chance               C. cheque              D. tree
26.    A. forced               B. reminded           C. invited              D. begged
27.    A. quiet                 B. excited              C. happy                D. ashamed
28.   A. learning             B. thinking            C. knowing            D. telling
29.    A. made                 B. searched            C. bought              D. fetched
30.    A. angry                B. rich                   C. patient               D. Bitter

There were red faces at one of Britain’s biggest banks recently. They had accepted a telephone order to buy £100,000 worth of shares from a 15-year-old schoolboy (they thought he was 21). The shares fell in value and the schoolboy was unable to pay up. The bank lost £20,000 on the deal which it cannot get back, because, for one thing, the young boy does not have the money, for another, being under 18, he is not legally liable for his debts. If the shares had risen in value by the same amount that they fell, he would have pocketed £20,000 profit. It certainly is better than delivering the morning newspaper. In another case, a boy of 14 found, in his grandmother’s house, a suitcase full of foreign banknotes. But they were now not used in their country of origin or anywhere else. This young boy headed straight to the nearest bank with his pockets filled with notes. The cashiers did not realize the country in question had reduced the value of its currency by 90%. They exchanged the notes at their face value at the current exchange rate. In three days, before he was found out, he took £200,000 from nine different banks. Amazingly, he had already spent more than half of this before the police caught up with him. Because he is also under 18 the banks have kissed goodbye to a lot of money, and several cashiers have lost their jobs.

Should we admire these youngsters for being enterprising and showing initiative or condemn them for their dishonesty? Maybe they had managed for years with tiny amounts of pocket money that they got from tight-fisted parents. Maybe they had done Saturday jobs for peanuts. It is hardly surprising, given the expensive things that young people want to buy, such as fashionable running shoes and computer games, if they sometimes think up more imaginative ways of making money than delivering newspapers. These youngsters saw the chance to make a lot of money and took it.

Another recent story which should give us food for thought is the case of the man who paid his six-year-old daughter£300 a week pocket money. He then charged her for the food she ate a few coins for her piggy bank(存钱灌)“She will soon learn the value of money, ” he said. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Everything has to be paid for and the sooner she learns that the better.” At the other extreme there are fond parents who provide free bed and board for their grown-up children, While even the most hard-hearted parents might hesitate to throw their children out on the streets, we all know of people in their twenties who still shamelessly live off their parents. Surely there comes a time when everyone has to leave the parental nest, look after themselves and pay their own way in life. But when is it?

1..

 Recently one of Britain’s biggest banks _____.

   A. bought a lot of shares for a customer and brought him a great loss

   B. lost money as its young customer had no money to pay his debts

   C. lost much money because the shares they bought fell in value

   D. received a telephone order to buy shares for a 21-year-old boy

2..

. The author’s attitude to the example of the two boys who cheated the banks is _____.

   A. objective     B. subjective       C. questioning      D. negative

3..

 The man paid his daughter £300 a week pocket money and then required her to pay for her living expenses because _____.

   A. he wanted her to know making money was not easy

   B. he wanted to save money for her future education

   C. he thought it useful for family members to bear life hardships together

   D. he wanted her to learn the value of money 

4..

It can be concluded from the passage that the author believes that _____.

   A. children should leave the parental nest as soon as possible

   B. grown-up children should live on their own

   C. children should be taught not to cheat others

   D. parents should give more pocket money to their children

 

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