In the past ten years, America’s National Basketball Association (NBA) has grown
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In the past ten years, America’s National Basketball Association (NBA) has grown increasingly dependent on the rest of the world to supply players.
When Michael Jordan and Larry Bird won gold in Barcelona in 1992, the Americans were praised for teaching the world how to play basketball. This season, however, 20 percent of NBA rosters① will be filled by non-Americans. NBA commissioner David Stem happily embraces the trend. On a visit to Paris in October, Stern outlined his vision for the future, which is likely to see Europe hosting NBA games by 2010.
The NBA is now planning to take China by storm.
“Our experience in China has been that it is going to be explosive in its growth,” said Stern. The strategy② in China is television. “We’ve made 14 deals in China with local and national networks on cable and satellite.” The success of Chinese centre Yao Ming has paved the way for the NBA marketing blitz in China. The NBA, which is broadcasted in more than 200 countries in 42 languages, will put that to the test in October 2004 when the Houston Rockets play two pre-season games against the Sacramento Kings in Beijing and Shanghai. The NBA knows that it needs a global market to compensate for tough times on home soil.
“It doesn’t matter where the players come from, all the NBA teams now know that they have to scout③ internationally,” said Terry Lyons, the NBA’s vice-president of international public relations. “It has increased the level of competition here.” As Frenchman Tony Parker and Argentine Emanuel Ginobili showed in winning championship rings with the San Antonio Spurs last season, many people can earn the respect of their American peers. Others, such as the Houston Rockets’ Chinese centre Yao Ming — number one draft pick in 2002 —and the Detroit Pistons’ 18-year-old Serb Darko Milicic —number two overall in this year’s draft —are icons④in-waiting. It is the ultimate⑤ revolution — the rest of the world teaching the US how to play basketball.
Notes:
① roster n. 花名册
② strategy n. 战略，策略
③ scout vt. 寻找，觅得
④ icon n. 偶像
⑤ ultimate adj. 最后的，根本的
Choose the best answers according to the above:
小题1: According to the report, ___.| A．Michael Jordan is still playing a very important role in NBA | | B．the part played by the foreign players in NBA will be great | | C．Yao Ming is to play two pre-season games in NBA | | D．European countries will host the 2004 NBA games |
小题2: The underlined phrase “take China by storm” has the meaning of ___. | A．NBA intends to make China its “marketing center” | | B．NBA is planning to set up some training centers in China | | C．there’ll be a big storm when NBA comes to China to play against the Sacramento Kings | | D．the NBA’s live basket games will be broadcasted on all the TVs in China |
小题3:. What seems to be the biggest change that is happening to NBA?
A. NBA is expecting more foreign players to join the league.
B. China’s rapid development in sports affects NBA.
C. Yao Ming has taken the place of Michael Jordan.
D. The NBA will stop teaching the world how to play basketball.
小题4: When the writer talked of “home soil”, he was referring to __.| A．farms in the States | B．native Americans | | C．the NBA training center | D．the USA |
小题5: Which of the following can be used as the best title for the passage?| A．The Non-American Basketball Players | B．NBA Is Coming to China | | C．The Foreign Ties That Bind the NBA | D．NBA Is Making Big Progress |
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答案
小题1:B
小题2:A
小题3:A
小题4:D
小题5:C |
解析
小题1:推理判断题。根据第二段20 percent of NBA rosters will be filled by non-Americans，以及文章后半部分Terry说的话it has increased the level of competition here可判断出外国球员将在NBA起到举足轻重的作用。
小题2:词义猜测题。根据文章中间Stern所说的话，及下一段The success of Chinese centre Yao Ming has paved the way for the NBA marketing blitz in China可判断出NBA将把中国看作是一个重要的市场。
小题3:推理判断题。通读全文，可得出这个结论：NBA的球员组成将发生重大改变，外国球员将占相当的比例。
小题4: 词义猜测题。从文章后半部The NBA knows that it needs a global market及It doesn’t matter where the players come from可判断出home soil指的是美国本土。
小题5:主旨大意题。tie在这儿被用来比喻外籍球员，意思是说NBA需借助外籍球员的力量来维持其地位。 |
举一反三
Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad has been retired. But he didn’t go quietly. In his final speech, he blamed the Jewish people for the problems between Israel and the Palestinians.
“The Jews have taken land of the Muslims,” he said. “What if part of America was given to the Jews as Israel? Would the Americans let it happen? Of course not.”
His words angered many western governments, but Mahathir doesn’t care. “I like to speak my mind,” the 77-year-old explained. “Sometimes people don’t like it. But that is what leadership is all about.”
Loved by some and disliked by others, his 22 years in power have seen great changes in Malaysia. He has taken it from being one of Asia’s poorest countries to the world’s 18th largest trading nation. It is also a peaceful country with native Malaysians living alongside minority groups. Chinese make up a quarter of the population, while a further 7.4 percent are of Indian origin. Teenage girls wearing Muslim① headscarves happily walk around large stores as ethnic Chinese play mah-jong② in nearby cafes.
But Mahathir has made enemies at home and abroad and some people will be glad he has gone. The US was unhappy when he often blamed it for globalization. Meanwhile, critics say that he has limited the freedom of the Malaysian people in order to stay in control of the country. Despite this, he is a hero to leaders in Southeast Asia as well as those in the Islamic③ world. “He marked out the path to success for developing nations in the region to follow,” said Thai President Thaksin Shinawatra.
Now he just wants to enjoy his retirement and insists that he will not take on a special role in government. “I’m a nobody,” he said. But many Malaysians do not agree with this.
Notes:
① Muslim adj. 穆斯林的
② mah-jong n. 麻将
③ Islamic adj. 伊斯兰教的
Choose the best answers according to the above:
小题1:What does Mahathir probably mean by saying “But that is what leadership is all about.”?| A．The Jews have taken land of the Muslines by strong power of their leadership. | | B．America should give part of its land to Israel though its leadership is powerful. | | C．Leadership has the obligation to speak up what you think is right or wrong. | | D．As a leader of a country, you have the right to teach those in other countries what to do and how. |
小题2:Which is NOT true about the following?| A．Malaysia was no longer poor after Mahathir came into power. | B．Malaysia is a country with natives and other minorities like Jews living alongside
peacefully. | C．Malaysia developed a lot within Mahathir’s power but freedom of Malaysians was
limited. | | D．Mahathir’s role in the world is both a hero to leaders in Southeast Asia but also a possible enemy of some countries. |
小题3:The best title of this passage would be _________.| A．A Religion Enthusiast | B．Mahathir’s Political Policy | | C．Mahathir Is Malaysia | D．Hero of the World |
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African-American talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is the world’s most powerful celebrity (名人), according to Forbes （福布斯） magazine. It placed Winfrey at the top of the annual ranking of the 100 people with the biggest pull （影响力）.
Winfrey, 51, draw 30 million viewers weekly in the United States. Her talk show reaches 112 countries. She earned US ＄225 million over the past 12 months to rank second in celebrity riches. The annual Forbes list gives most weight to annual earnings. But it also looks at the celebrity’s presence on the Internet and in the media. “After 21 years, her exciting chat show still rules the airwaves,” the magazine said.
Winfrey is most popular with her popular talk show “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. She can always attract the superstars and let them open up to her intimate interviewing style. Winfrey’s approach appears to be simple. She is in a pursuit （追求）of self-improvement and self-empowerment. This has proved to be just what people, especially women, want.
Winfrey often talks about her personal secrets on her show. That pulls in viewers. For example, she made it known that she had been sexually abused as a child, and has spoken freely of her struggle with her weight.
Her success has not just been on the screen. Her media group includes a women’s TV network and websites for women. Her work has extended to social change. In 1991, she did a lot of work for the National Child Protection Act. She testified before the US Senate to establish a national database （数据库）of dangerous child abusers. The then President Bill Clinton later signed the “Oprah Bill” into law.
小题1:The annual Forbes list selects its celebrities according to ____.| A．their names | B．their annual earnings | | C．their presence on the Internet and in the media | | D．their annual earnings and presence in the public |
小题2:Which of the following statements is WRONG?| A．Oprah Winfrey was the first of the 100 celebrities according to Forbes magazine. | | B．Oprah’s success has been only on the screen. | | C．Oprah can attract superstars and get them to open up to her interview. | | D．Oprah ranked second in celebrity riches that year. |
小题3:The underlined phrase “rules the airwaves” in the passage means ____.| A．attracts many readers’ attention | B．causes many people to take planes | | C．has a large number of viewers | D．measures the airwaves |
小题4:What’s the best title of the passage?| A．Oprah Winfrey Conquering the Americans. | B．Oprah Winfrey—the No 1 Celebrity. | | C．Forbes Ranking First. | D．The Oprah Winfrey Show. |
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The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photograph’s fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defence of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality, photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.
Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselves—anything but making works of art. They are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art, except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art. It shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.
Photographers’ disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or is not art. For example, those photographers who suppose that, by taking pictures, they are getting away from the pretensions of art as exemplified by painting remind us of those Abstract Expressionist painters who imagined they were getting away from the intellectual austerity of classical Modernist painting by concentrating on the physical act of painting. Much of photography’s prestige today derives from the convergence of its aims with those of recent art, particularly with the dismissal of abstract art implicit in the phenomenon of Pop painting during the 1960’s. Appreciating photographs is a relief to sensibilities tired of the mental exertions demanded by abstract art. Classical Modernist painting—that is, abstract art as developed in different ways by Picasso, Kandinsky, and Matisse—presupposes highly developed skills of looking and a familiarity with other paintings and the history of art. Photography, like Pop painting, reassures viewers that art is not hard; photography seems to be more about its subjects than about art.
Photography, however, has developed all the anxieties and self-consciousness of a classic Modernist art. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the promotion of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activity—in short, an art.
小题1:What is the author mainly concerned with? The author is concerned with
[A]. defining the Modernist attitude toward art.
[B]. explaining how photography emerged as a fine art.
[C]. explaining the attitude of serious contemporary photographers toward photography as art and placing those attitudes in their historical context.
[D]. defining the various approaches that serious contemporary photographers take toward their art and assessing the value of each of those approaches.
小题2:Which of the following adjectives best describes “the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism” as the author represents it in lines 12—13?
[A]. Objective [B]. Mechanical. [C]. Superficial. [D]. Paradoxical.
小题3: Why does the author introduce Abstract Expressionist painter?
[A]. He wants to provide an example of artists who, like serious contemporary photographers, disavowed traditionally accepted aims of modern art.
[B]. He wants to set forth an analogy between the Abstract Expressionist painters and classical Modernist painters.
[C]. He wants to provide a contrast to Pop artist and others.
[D]. He wants to provide an explanation of why serious photography, like other contemporary visual forms, is not and should not pretend to be an art.
小题4: How did the nineteenth-century defenders of photography stress the photography?
[A]. They stressed photography was a means of making people happy.
[B]. It was art for recording the world.
[C]. It was a device for observing the world impartially.
[D]. It was an art comparable to painting. |
The word’s largest aircraft made its public debut last week at Europe’s biggest factory, a purpose built assembly line in Toulouse, souther, n France．The Airbus A380 will have 50 per cent more floor space than American rival Boeing’s 747 Jumbo, with room for duty-free shops, restaurants and even a sauna．This new arrival is expected to change the face of air travel．
The A380 will enter service in early 2006 with Singapore Airlines．
Airbus claims the A380 will burn less fuel, make less noise, create less pollution and cost 17 per cent less per seat than the 747．It will also reduce traffic problems in the skies．
The aircraft, which cost between ￡140 million(US$250m) and ￡157 million (US$280m) each compared with ￡84 million (US$150m) for Boeing’s new Dreamliner jet, is being built at 16 factories in Germany, France, Spain and the UK．
But activists have warned of more noise and pollution from the Superjumbo, while Boeing believes huge aircraft will not be in great demand over the next decade．
As a result, it is putting faith in the much smaller 7E7 Dreamliner．But Airbus is pinning its hopes on the “big is beautiful” theory, gambling on size being the key factor in the US-European battle for the skies．
Airbus said it was in talks with half a dozen global airlines about buying the A380. China Eastern Airlines, already an Airbus customer, is said to be targeted, while executives made it plain that they wanted to fight for the Japanese market, which had traditionally been controlled by Boeing．
Over the next 20 years, Airbus hopes to sell 750 of the new planes into a market worth ￡185billion (US$330bn)．The company already has129 firm orders for the A380, with 52 options．
小题1:According to Airbus, which of the following is not the advantage of A380 compared to Boeing 747?| A．Making less noise, causing less traffic problems | | B．Using less fuel, costing less money | | C．Creating less pollution, having less weight | | D．Having more floor space, creating less pollution |
小题2:From the passage, we can infer that _________| A．Airbus is not aiming at the Japanese market． | | B．Boeing is not a rival of Airbus． | | C．A380 hasn’t been used yet． | | D．Boeing is better than Airbus． |
小题3:In the Airbus A380, passengers cannot find ___________．| A．duty-free shops | B．restaurants | C．banks | D．a sauna |
小题4:According to the news, the prospect of A380 may be ___________．| A．not so good | B．cheerful | C．undesirable | D．gloomy |
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Greece today is a small country in southeastern Europe. The population is about nine million, and the capital city is Athens.
High mountains with rich, fertile land between them cover northern Greece. The hilly southern part is a peninsula called the Peloponnesus. Hundreds of islands surround the mainland. The largest island is Crete.
No part of the nation is far from water. The Ionian Sea and the Aegean Sea carved deep bays and gulfs into the long coastline. Greece has been a seafaring nation for centuries, and Greece is very well known for its shipping industry.
More than three thousand years ago, the Greek people developed a very sophisticated society. They have a great civilization, one of the greatest that the Western would have ever seen. Greek architecture, thinking and art influenced other languages, including English. For example, the English words alphabet, democracy, and arithmetic come from Greek.
Today Greece is one of the most popular nations with the tourists who visit Europe. Thousands of people are attracted to the country because of its beautiful scenery, magnificent ancient buildings, and its excellent summer weather.
小题1:A good title for this reading passage is _______ | A．The Earliest Civilizations | B．The Influence of the Sea on Greece. | | C．The Small but Important Nation of Greece | D．The Ionian Sea |
小题2:The underlined word “carved” means _______ | A．cut, made | B．said, told | C．lost, wasted | D．attracted |
小题3:We may conclude that most of the food is grown in the _______.| A．north | B．east | C．south | D．west |
小题4:Hills can be found _______.| A．in the southern part | B．on the Peloponnesus | | C．both A and B | D．in the Aegean Sea |
小题5:The Greeks had a great civilization around _______
A. 5000B.C. B. 3000B.C. C.1000B.C. D.2000B.C. |
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