Attending a university is an important part of a person’s life. Today, many people go to a university to study and train for a future job in subjects like law, medicine, or education. But the university is not a modern invention. It has a history that is over a thousand years old.
The world’s oldest university, Al-Azhar, is in Cairo, Egypt. It was first built as a mosque in A.D. 972. A few years later, learners and teachers began meeting in the mosque in “tutoring circles”. They read and talked about the subject of law. Around 988, leaders in the city of Cairo decided to create a school for higher learning and the University of Al-Azhar was founded.
At Al-Azhar, there were many university ‘firsts.’ Courses were created. The earliest ones taught at Al-Azhar were in law and religion. In a course, students read and studied with the teacher, but there was also free discussion. Often, students and teachers talked about a topic, and there was no ‘right’ answer. Finally, scholars from around the world came to Al-Azhar to teach and do research. At the university, people studied the past, but it was also a place for sharing new ideas.
Over a thousand years later, Al-Azhar is still an important university in the world. Its library contains more than 250,000 of the world’s oldest and most valuable books. Today, many of the world’s most important universities such as Oxford and Harvard still follow the traditions started at Al-Azhar.
小题1:What’s this passage mainly about?
A．The history of the world’s oldest university.
B．The importance of attending a university.
C．The relationship between university and future job.
D．The invention of a modern university.小题2: The first university was founded over _____ years ago.
A．a hundrend
B．hundreds of
C．a thousand
D．thousands of小题3:The oldest university in the world is _____.
A．Oxford
B．Cambridge
C．Harvard
D．Al-Azhar小题4: What does the underlined word “course” mean in this passage?
A. A series of lessons. C. A period of time.
C. A series of actions. D. A group of professors.
小题5:What’s the main idea of the last paragraph?
A．How many books are in the Al-Azhar’s library.
B．How valuable the Al-Azhar’s books are.
C．Why Oxford and Harvard still follow Al-Azhar’s pattern.
D．How Al-Azhar still holds an important role in the world.
