第九周　热考话题集训--历史与地理

　　阅读理解

　　A

　　The Museum of London is starting to unearth what might turn out to be as many as 3,000 human skeletons (遗骸) under a train station in the United Kingdom's capital. The bones were exposed when workers began building a new entrance to a train station in London, England.

　　As the first city burial (埋葬) ground in London, Bedlam was probably used between 1569 and 1738. Its name comes from the nearby Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, which people also called Bedlam. Often, the people buried in Bedlam could not afford to be buried anywhere else. The burial ground also served as an overflow cemetery (墓地). That means that if other cemeteries became full, a person would be buried in Bedlam instead. It is believed that there could be a total of 20,000 skeletons in the overall burial ground.

　　Experts think studying the skeletons may help them learn about London's past, including questions about the Black Death, a deadly disease that had a terrible influence on much of the world. It started in the mid­1300s and swept through Asia, Africa, and Europe. Historians believe almost 50 million people died of the disease, including many of those buried at Bedlam. "Sixteen sixty­five saw the very last recorded period of the disease，" says Jay Carver, the leading expert on the project. Carver and his team believe the Bedlam bodies may explain why the outbreak suddenly stopped.

　　The dig site also sits above an even older Roman road (between the 2nd and 3rd century A．D.). Archaeologists (考古学家) have already found a large number of objects from Roman times, including horseshoes and urns. Nick Elsden, the project manager for the site, says, "This is the UK's largest archaeology project, in what is one of the oldest areas of the city, so we stand to learn a great deal."

　　语篇解读：本文是一篇记叙文。文章主要介绍了伦敦修建车站时发现的一些遗骸。

　　1．The underlined word "exposed" in Paragraph 1 can best be replaced by "________"．

　　A．discovered　　　　　　　　 B．searched

　　C．returned D．studied

　　解析：选A　词义猜测题。由该词后的"when workers began building a new entrance to a train station"可知，当工人们开始修建通往一个火车站的新入口时发现了这些遗骸，故选A项。

2．According to Paragraph 3, the Black Death ________.