People have been painting pictures for at least 30,000 years. The earliest pictures were painted by people who hun??ted animals. They used to paint pictures of the animals they wanted to catch and kill. Pictures of this kind have been found on the walls of caves in France and Spain. No one knows why they were painted there. Perhaps the painters thought that their pictures would help them to catch these animals. Or per??haps human beings have always wanted to tell stories accord??ing to pictures.

About 5,000 years ago the Egyptians and other people in the Near East began to use pictures as a kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs to represent things and ideas, and also to represent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kind of alphabet(字母表).

The Egyptians used to record information and to tell sto??ries by putting picture-writing and pictures together. When an important person died, scenes and stories from his life were painted and carved on the walls of the place where he was bur??ied. Some of these pictures are like modem comic-strip sto??ries. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the comic-strip. But, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their way of writing simple. The ordinary people could not understand it.  

By the year 1,000 BC, people who lived in the area a-round the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they used were very easy to write, and there were fewer of them than in the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter, represented only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this system and formed the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied the idea, and the Roman alphabet is now used all over the world.

These days we can write down a story, or record informa??tion, without using pictures. But we still need pictures of all kinds: drawings, photographs, signs and diagrams. We find them everywhere: in books and newspapers, in the streets, and on the walls of the places where we live and work. Pic??tures help us to understand and remember things more easily, and they can make a story much more interesting.

6. Pictures of animals were painted on the walls of caves in France and Spain because ________.

A. the hunters wanted to see the pictures  B. the painters were animal lovers

C. the painters wanted to show imagination D. the pictures were thought to be helpful

7.The Greek alphabet was simpler than the Egyptian system for all the following reasons EXCEPT that ________.  

A. the former was easy to write         B. there were fewer signs in the former

C. the former was easy to pronounce    D. each sign stood for only one sound

8. Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A. The Egyptian signs later became a particular alphabet.

B. The Egyptians liked to write comic-strip stories.

C. The Roman alphabet was developed from the Egyptian one.

D. The Greeks copied their writing system from the Egyp??tians.

9. In the last paragraph, the author thinks that pictures　__________.

A. should be made comprehensible         B. should be made interesting

C. are of much use in our life             D. are disappearing from our life

为探究“废电池对生物的影响”，某研究小组设计了如下实验步骤：
①将一节用过的五号电池破碎，浸泡在1000mL清水中3天，过滤得到滤液。②四只鱼缸分别贴上A、B、C、D标签，并在鱼缸中都加入5000mL清洁无污染的河水。③在A、B、C、D四只鱼缸中，依次加入50mL、100mL、200mL、400mL的电池浸出液。④再向各鱼缸中分别加入三条大小和生活状态差不多的小金鱼，定时喂等量同种饲料，观察并记录情况。

结果如下表： 

                      A    B    C    D
所加浸出液的体积(mL)  50  100  200  400
小鱼存活的时间(天)    15   12   7    1
根据以上设计，请回答下列问题：

（1）该小组同学提出的问题是：__________________________________________________。

（2）根据表中的数据可知，水中电池浸出液的浓度越大，金鱼存活的时间就越_______。

（3）由此，该小组同学得出结论：废电池对生物有影响。你认为他们这样得出结论严谨？
答：__________。为什么？_________________________________________。

（4）请你对使用过的电池如何处理作出合理化的建议：_______________________。

写作训练

根据句意，在不改变原句意思的情况下，用另一种形式改写所给的句子。每条横线上不多于5个词。

There are only a few squash courts in this town．

There aren't very ________________________________squash courts in this town．