Ⅰ.阅读理解
The Chinese were the real inventor of printing.Centuries ago they carved messages on the stone and then sprinkled(撒) sooty(炭黑色的) dust over the stone carving.When they put a small piece of paper over the stone and rubbed the paper, the sooty lines were reproduced on it.Some of these first printed papers have been preserved.The oldest ones known to exist are more than one thousand years old.
Printing with carved stone blocks was the only kind of printing known for centuries.Then, about eight hundred years ago, a Chinese printer, Bi Sheng, had a clever idea.Instead of carving a whole message on a single big block of wood or stone, he formed separate Chinese words or characters out of bits of clay(黏土)．By fitting the clay pieces together in rows in a box, he could print just as before.But when he finished，he could keep all the separate pieces of clay and use them again.
Bi Sheng's movable type was a great step forward，but his method was not generally adopted.The movable type did not come into use in Europe until it was invented there centuries later.The Europeans had been totally ignorant (不知道的) of the printing traditions of the Chinese.
1．The oldest pieces of printed paper in existence date back ________.
A．800 years B．more than 1,000 years
C．more than 2,000 years D．500 years
答案：B
解析：细节理解题。由第一段最后一句话可知答案。
2．Bi Sheng used clay to form ________.
A．large tablets for writing
B．small statues
C．individual words or characters
D．messages
答案：C
解析：细节理解题。 由第二段第三句“Instead of carving a whole message on a single big block of wood or stone，he formed separate Chinese words or characters out of bits of clay(黏土)．”可知答案。
3．These pieces of clay were ________.
A．easily lost B．less used
C．reusable D．thrown away after use
答案：C
解析：细节理解题。由第二段最后一句话可知答案。
4．Europeans adopted printing after they ________.
A．realised the stone carving was not good enough
B．had learned about it from the Chinese
C．had copied Chinese printing
D．had invented it themselves
答案：D
解析：推理判断题。由最后一段第二、三句话可推知答案。
