*中外名胜*
The Lugou Bridge, One of the Best-known Arched Bridges in China
卢沟桥——中国著名拱桥
1937年7月7日，日本帝国主义者发动全面侵华战争的第一枪在卢沟桥畔打响，这就是震惊中外的“七·七事变”。

从此，在中华大地上抗日战争全面爆发。

往事岂能如烟，卢沟桥已成为历史的见证。

The Lugou Bridge, also known as the Marco Polo Bridge, was built in 1189 on the southwestern outskirts of Beijing.
Considered to be one of the best-known arched bridges in China, the bridge is 266.5 metres
long, 7.5 metres wide and it has 11 arches and 140 stone
columns. “It is indeed the most wonderful and unique
bridge in the world,” wrote the Italian traveler Marco Polo
in his book Travels of Marco Polo. So the Lugou Bridge is
one of the city’s famous historic sites.
Besides the outstanding architecture, what interests
people most about the Lugou Bridge is the stone lions
carved on the columns. The lions are extremely lifelike.
Each column is topped with a big lion surrounded by many
smaller ones, and the smallest is only a few centimeters
high. Some of them stand on the heads or backs of the
bigger ones, some lie under their feet or in their embrace,
and others show only half a head, only a mouth. Vivid and lively, they are depicted in different postures—sitting, lying, standing and crouching.
As the natives of Beijing put it, the stone lions on the Lugou Bridge are too many to be counted. The stories about them are also most interesting. One says that one of the lions is always swimming so that it is impossible to count the lions exactly because some are hidden and can’t be seen, and that if an exact count were really made all the lions would run away.
True, nobody could have kept count of them. It was not until 1961 that the cultural offices discovered their exact number as altogether four hundred and eighty-five.
Questions:
1. The most interesting thing about the bridge is ______
A. that it’s 266.5 metres long with 11 arches and 140 stone columns.
B. its stone lions carved on the columns.
C. that Marco Polo once visited it.
D. that one of the stone lions is always swimming.
2. During the hundreds of years before 1961, ______
A. no one tried to tell the exact number of the stone lions.
B. few people could tell the exact number of the stone lions.
C. people knew the exact number of the stone lions there.
D. the bridge was not repaired.
（山东省潍坊第七中学刘永科）。