名校高考英语阅读理解精读 William
If you ask people to name the one person who had the greatest effect on the English language，you will get answers like “Shakespeare”，“Samuel Johnson”，and “Webster”，but none of the men had any effect at all compared to a man who didn’t even speak English—William the Conqueror.
Before 1066，in the land we now call Great Britain lived peoples belonging to two major language groups.In the west central region lived the Welsh，who spoke a Celtic language，and in the north lived the Scots，who language，though not the same as Welsh，was also Celtic.In the rest of the country lived the Saxons，actually a mixture of Anglos，Saxons，and other Germanic and Nordic peoples，who spoke what we now call Anglo-Saxon(or Old English)，a Germanic language.If this state of affairs had lasted，English today would be clo to German.
But this state of affairs did not last.In 1066 the Normans led by William defeated the Saxons and began their rule over England.For about a century，French became the official langua
ge of England while Old English became the language of peasants.As a result，English words of politics and the law come from French rather than German.In some cas，modern English even shows a distinction(区别) between upper-class French and lower-class Anglo-Saxon in its words.They even have different words for some foods，meat in particular，depending on whether it is still out in the fields or at home ready to be cooked，which shows the fact that the Saxon peasants were doing the farming，while the upper-class Normans were doing most of the eating.
When Americans visit Europe for the first time，they usually find Germany more “foreign” than France becau the German they e on signs and advertiments ems much more different from English than French does.Few realize that the English language is actually Germanic in its beginning and that the French influences are all the result of one man’s ambition.
12．The two major languages spoken in what is now called Great Britain before 1066 were .
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A．Welsh and Scottish
了得是什么意思B．Nordic and Germanic柯石英
C．Celtic and Old English
D．Anglo-Saxon and Germanic
13．Which of the following groups of words are，by inference，rooted in French?
公正无私A．President，lawyer，beef.
B．President，bread，water.
C．Bread，field，sheep.
D．Folk，field，cow.
14．Why does France appear less foreign than Germany to Americans on their first visit to Europe?
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A．Most advertiments in France appear in English.
B．They know little of the history of the English language.
C．Many French words are similar to English ones.
D．They know French better than German.
15．What is the subject discusd in the text?
A．The history of Great Britain.
B．The similarity between English and French.
C．The rule of England by William the Conqueror.
D．The French influences on the English language.
Making a career out of building with Lego bricks sounds like a dream job.But it’s the real deal for Sean Kenney，who turned his childhood hobby into a full-time career.For more than 15 years Kenney has been creating masterpieces using Lego bricks.His creations have been displayed at muums and zoos around the world，inspiring people of all ages.
Like most kids，Kenney spent his free time playing with Legos.As he got older，he got trained in his artistic skills as a cartoonist，studying visual arts at Rutgers University.Upon graduation he worked as a graphic(平面的) designer，often including Lego bricks into his work.It wasn’t until a botanical garden in Iowa approached him about making replicas(复制品) of some of its flowers and plants that he made the natural world his subject.
“One of the biggest challenges is trying to get the softness of features and the expressiveness of the face right while using blocky Lego bricks，” Kenney says.
