学位英语真题2010年11月.docx

Part I. Reading Comprehension (30%)Passage 1Archaeology, like many academic words, comes from Greek and means, more or less, “the study of old things”. So, it is really a part of the study of history. However, most historians use paper evidence, such as letters, paintings and photographs, but archaeologists learn from the objects left behind by the humans of long ago. Normally, these are the hard materials that dont break down or disappear very quickly—things like human bones and objects made from stone and metal.It is very unusual to find anything more than the hard evidence of history—normally, the bacteria in the air eat away at soft materials, like bodies, clothes and things made of wood. Occasionally, things are different.In 1984, two men made an amazing discovery while working in a bog called Lindow Moss, in the north of England. A bog is a very wet area of earth, with a lot of plants growing in it. It can be like a very big and very thick vegetable soup—walk in the wrong place and you can sink and disappear forever. The men were working when one of them saw something sticking out—a human foot! Naturally, the men called the police, who then found the rest of the body. Was it a case of murder? Possibly—but it was a death nearly two thousand years old. The two men had found a body from the time of the Roman invasion of Britain. Despite being so old, this body had skin, muscles, hair and internal organs—the scientists who examined him were able to look inside the mans stomach and find the food that he had eaten for his last meal!Why was this man so well preserved? (76) It was because he was in a very watery environment, safe from the bacteria that need oxygen to live. Also, the water in the bog was very acidic. The acid preserved the mans skin in the way that animal skin is preserved for leather coats and shoes.How did he die? Understandably, archaeologists and other scientists wanted to know more about the person that they called,“Lindow Man”. (77) His hands and