( )1. A. character ( )2. A. act ( )3. A. possibility ( )4. A. generally ( )5. A. him ( )6. A. really ( )7. A. happiness ( )8. A. brother ( )9. A. taught ( )10. A. born ( )11. A. actor ( )12. A. ended ( )13. A. eight ( )14. A. which ( )15. A. then | B. behaviour B. shoot B. message B. widely B. them B. still B. luck B. teacher B. left B. young B. artist B. began B. seven B. what B. when | C. personality C. direct C. culture C. especially C. us C. always C. poverty C. mother C. loved C. ill C. dancer C. broke C. nine C. he C. before | D. gentleman D. edit D. promise D. totally D. it D. ever D. peace D. father D. expected D. old D. singer D. continued D. ten D. who D. until |
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Jia Sixie Jia Sixie,an outstanding agronomist and the author of China"s first agricultural encyclopedia (百科全书), was one of the leading agronomists in Chinese history. In the late years of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), he wrote Qimin Yaoshu(Important Arts for the People"s Welfare). It is the earliest and most complete agricultural encyclopedia still in existence in China. Jia Sixie was born in Yidu County (today"s Shouguang County)in China"s Shandong Province.He completed the book amid (在……之中) chaos (混乱) caused by wars during the years of 533 to 544. He saw the sufferings of the poor farmers in his hometown and other places while traveling through North China"s Hebei and Shanxi provinces and Central China"s Henan Province. With his profound knowledge on agriculture, he believed that the development of agriculture could help those farmers out. The book, which has 92 chapters in 10 volumes and nearly 120 000 characters, covers a wide range of topics and records on production experiences and methods. It includes advice on farming, forestry (林业), animal husbandry (农牧业), fishery and sideline occupations. Qimin Yaoshu was first distributed mainly among common people. In the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127),it became an official guiding book on agriculture. In the late Tang Dynasty (618-907),the book was introduced to Japan who now still has the earliest incomplete (不完全的) version of the Northern Song Dynasty. Now, the book has been translated into several languages. Qimin Yaoshu is considered as an important summary of farming knowledge. At present, it is still studied by Chinese farmers and students majoring in agriculture. | |||
【个性思考】 What do you think of Jia Sixie? In my view _____________________________________________________________________________. | |||
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Yuan Longping, China"s Most Famous"Farmer" It says every scientist cherishes a childhood dream indicating his or her future success, but for Yuan Longping, dubbed (授予称号) as "father of hybrid rice", the dream is that he cultivates rice as plump as peanuts, and farmers can relax in the cool shadow of big rice plants. Yuan,71,won a 5 million yuan State Supreme Science and Technology Award today, known as the Nobel Prize in China, for his outstanding achievements in breeding high yield-Hybrid rice, which has substantially increased China"s grain output. Yuan came up with the idea of hybridizing rice for the first time in the world in 1960s.Since then,50 percent of China"s total rice cultivation fields have grown such rice, which added some 300 billion kilograms to the country"s grain output. Furrows (皱纹) grown on his sunburnt face, a slim figure and coiled-up trousers legs would confuse foreign reporters who came to interview the most famous scientist in China, who would rather be called "a farmer". Indeed, like many Chinese farmers, Yuan in his 70s and has devoted most of his life growing rice in paddy fields, but unlike those farmers, he reaps the seed from experimental fields only for hybridizing rice. The urbanite-turned-farmer graduated from Southwest Agriculture College in 1953 has his name related to the world"s most advanced agricultural technology. Four minor planets, a listed seed company"s and a science college in China were named after him, which were the first time that a Chinese scientist"s name is valued for its intellectual assets. By lending his name to the Longping High-tech, a seed company, Yuan obtained a 5 per cent stake, or 2.5 million shares worth 2 million yuan, in the firm. However, Yuan said his research requires the lifestyle of a farmer, or rather a migrating farmer, as he has conducted extensive research related to the cultivation of new strains of hybrid rice"Super Hybrid Rice" in some 10 provinces. In the year 1999,more than 300 billion kilograms of grain were increased from about 240 million hectares (公顷) of hybrid rice, which signified the success of his research. And this made Yuan firmly believe that China can surely feed her 1.2 billion population with her limited cultivated land. The "Super Rice" yields are 30 percent higher than those of common rice. The record yield of 17 055 kilograms per hectare was registered in Yongsheng County in Yunnan in 1999.But even after that achievement Yuan won"t take a break. He has a dream, more realistic than that of his young age, that popularizing new strains of grain with higher yields around the world, can eliminate starvation on earth. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has vowed to get involved in the work of spreading the coverage of Yuan"s high-yield hybrid rice, which it considers the best way to increase the world"s grain output. The FAO"s 1991 statistics show that 20 percent of the world"s rice output was yielded from 10 percent of the world"s rice fields, which grow hybrid rice."If the new strain was sown in the rest of the rice acreage, the present grain output around the world can be more than doubled. This can be a solution to the grain shortage," the unselfish scientist. In 1980,Yuan went to the United States at the invitation of the International Rice Research Institute to share his knowledge about the cultivation technology of hybrid rice. He was also employed in 1991 as the chief consultant of FAO to bring his research methods to other countries. With the help of Chinese scientists, the acreage (面积) of hybrid rice in Viet Nam and India increased to 200 000 hectares and 150 000 hectares in 1999, respectively. The rice research costs time to prove its value. At the age of 43,Yuan cultivated the world"s first hybrid rice. At that time the country"s grain yield was about 4500 kilogram per hectare."The natural disaster and policy miscarriage further deteriorated starvation in China by then," Yuan recalled tearfully. This is his motivation to stimulate his research. Largely due to his scientific progress, China"s total rice output rose from 5.69 billion tons in 1950 to 19.47 billion tons last year. The growth rate of rice output far exceeded the population growth speed. Some people estimate Yuan"s actual fortune might amount to more than 100 million yuan (12 million U.S.dollars),making him one of the richest people in China. But he doesn"t know for sure himself, for he seems not to care about his own assets than the rice harvest. Some people asked him to move the focus of his research from improving amounts of hybrid rice to the quality and taste, which would be easier to do. But, the stubborn academician (学者) insisted that the amount of hybrid rice"s per unit yield still outweighs the quality, for his foremost task is to improve the grain reserve in developing countries. YUAN LONGPING | |||
【个性思考】 Why do you think Yuan Longping can achieve so much? In my view___________________________________________________________________________ . | |||
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Walt Disney: A Short Biography Walt Disney was born on December 5,1901 in Chicago Illinois, to his father Elias Disney, and mother Flora Call Disney. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl. After Walt"s birth, the Disney family moved to Marceline Missouri, Walt lived most of his childhood here. Walt had very early interests in art, he would often sell drawings to neighbors to make extra money. He pursued his art career, by studying art and photography by going to McKinley High School in Chicago. Walt began to love, and appreciate nature and wildlife, and family and community (社区), which were a large part of agrarian (农业的) living. Though his father could be quite stern (严格的), and often there was little money, Walt was encouraged by his mother, and older brother, Roy to pursue his talents. During the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist (入伍) for military service. Rejected because he was under age, only sixteen years old at the time. Instead, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas to France, where he spent a year driving an ambulance (救护车) and chauffeuring (驾驶) Red Cross officials. Once Walt returned from France, he began to pursue a career in commercial (商业的) art. He started a small company called Laugh-O-Grams, which eventually fell bankrupt (***). With his suitcase and twenty dollars, Walt headed to Hollywood to start anew. After making a success of his "Alice Comedies", Walt became a recognized Hollywood figure. OnJuly13, 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. Later on they would be blessed with two daughters, Diane and Sharon. In 1932, the production entitled Flowers and Trees (the first color cartoon) won Walt the first of his studio"s Academy Awards. On December 21, 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated (有生命的) musical feature, premiered (最初的) at the Cathay Theater in Los Angeles. The film produced at the unheard cost of $1 499 000 during the depths of the Depression (不景气). Walt Disney"s dream of a clean, and organized amusement park, came true, as Disneyland Park opened in 1955.Walt also became a television pioneer, Disney began television production in 1954,and was among the first to present full-color programming with his Wonderful World of Color in 1961. Walt Disney is a legend (传奇); a folk (民间的) hero of the 20th century. His worldwide popularity was based upon the ideals (理想) which his name represents: imagination, optimism, creation, and self-made success in the American tradition. He brought us closer to the future, while telling us of the past, it is certain, that there will never be such as great a man, as Walt Disney. | |||
【个性思考】 Walt Disney"s bases on his imagination, optimism, creation as mentioned above. If you want make your career in the future, what experience can you learn from him? In my view ___________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ | |||
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The influential Charlie Chaplin Charlie Chaplin is irresistible (无法抵御) because he is one of the first and most enduring (持久的) movie stars, because he quickly gained creative and financial control (创作权和财政权) of his movies, because he invented such a fascinating (引人入胜的) series of comic (喜剧的) films, because he experienced such a stormy personal life, and because his 40-year filmmaking career in the United States was such a rollercoaster ride of boom and bust. Every few weeks outside the movie theater in virtually any American town in the late 1910s,stood the life- size card board figure of small tramp-outfitted in tattered (破旧的), baggy (肥大的) pants, a cutaway coat and vest(背心), impossibly large, worn-out shoes, and a battered derby (扁顶) hat-bearing the inscription (印 象) "I am here today." An advertisement for a Charlie Chaplin film was a promise of happiness, of that precious, almost shocking moment when art delivers what life cannot. In a 1995 worldwide survey (调查) of film critics, Chaplin was voted the greatest actor in movie history. He was the first, and to date the last, person to control every aspect of the filmmaking process-founding his own studio, United Artists, with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and D.W. Griffith, and producing, casting (演员挑选人), directing, writing, and editing the movies he starred in. In the first decade of the twentieth century, when weekly movie going was a national habit, Chaplin more or less invented global recognizability (世人的赞扬) and helped turn an industry into an art. In 1916, his third year in films, his salary of $10 000 a week made him the highest paid actor-possibly the highest paid person-in the world. By 1920, "Chaplinitis" accompanied (伴随) by a flood of Chaplin dances, songs, dolls, comic books and cocktails, was rampant. Filmmakers Mack Sennett thought him "just the greatest artist who ever lived". Other early admirers included George Bernard Shaw, Marcel Proust, and Sigmund Freud. In 1923 Hart Crane, who wrote a poem about Chaplin, said his pantomime"represents the futile gesture (无用的) of the poet today". Later in the 1950s, Chaplin was one of the icons of the Beat Generation. From 1981 to 1987, IBM used the Tramp as the logo to advertise its venture (冒险精神) into personal computers. He has been called the single most influential artist in the history of motion pictures; certainly no other movie star enjoyed the international, iconographic (象征性的) status (地位) he attained early in the silent era and maintained (保持) well past the coming of sound. And certainly no other creative talent did as much as he to elevate (提高) screen comedy to a high art. | |||
【个性思考】 Do you know why Charlie Chaplin can be called the single most influential artist in the history of motion pictures? In my view ____________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ |