“Our aim is to take our art to the world and make people understand what it is to move,” said David Belle, the founder of parkour (跑酷).
Do you love running? It is a good exercise, yet many people find it boring. But what about making your morning jog a creative one? Like jumping from walls and over gaps, and ground rolls? Just like the James Bond in the movie Casino Royale? Bond jumps down from a roof to a windowsill and then runs several blocks over obstacles on the way. It is just because of Bond's wonderful performances that the sport has become popular worldwide.
Yes, that's parkour, an extreme street sport aimed at moving from one point to another as quickly as possible, getting over all the obstacles in the path using only the abilities of the human body. Parkour is considered an extreme sport. As its participants dash around a city, they may jump over fences, run up walls and even move from rooftop to rooftop.
Parkour can be just as exciting and charming as it sounds, but its participants see parkour much more than that.
Overcoming all the obstacles on the course and in life is part of the philosophy behind parkour. This is the same as life. You must determine your destination, go straight, jump over all the barriers as if in parkour and never fall back from them in your life, to reach the destination successfully. A parkour lover said, "I love parkour because its philosophy has become my life, my way to do everything."
Another philosophy we've learnt from parkour is freedom. It can be done by anyone, at any time, anywhere in the world. It is a kind of expression of trust in yourself that you earn energy and confidence. Parkour has become popular throughout the world because of________.
| A．its founder, David Belle | B．the film, Casino Royale |
| C．its risks and tricks | D．the varieties of participants |
The underlined word "obstacles" in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to “_______”.
| A．streets | B．objects | C．barriers | D．roofs |
Which of the following statements is TRUE of parkour?
| A．It challenges human abilities. | B．It is a good but boring sport. |
| C．It needs special training. | D．It is a team sport.. |
As its participants move around a city, they tend to __________.
| A．reach the destination as soon as possible |
| B．choose the easiest way |
| C．challenge extremes |
| D．consider safety first |
Jane was running late. Jane, 25, had a lot to do at work, plus visitors on the way: her parents were coming in for Thanksgiving from her hometown. But as she hurried down the subway stairs, she started to feel uncomfortably warm. By the time she got to the platform, Jane felt weak and tired---maybe it hadn't been a good idea to give blood the night before, she thought. She rested herself against a post close to the tracks.
Several yards away, Tom, 43, and his girlfriend, Jennifer, found a spot close to where the front of the train would stop. They were deep in discussion about a house they were thinking of buying.
But when he heard the scream, followed by someone yelling, "Oh, my God, she fell in!" Tom didn't hesitate. He jumped down to the tracks and ran some 40 feet toward the body lying on the rails. "No! Not you!" his girlfriend screamed after him.
She was right to be alarmed. By the time Tom reached Jane, he could feel the tracks shaking and see the light coming. The train was about 20 seconds from the station.
It was hard to lift her. She was just out. But he managed to raise her the four feet to the platform so that bystanders could hold her by the grins and drag her away from the edge. That was where Jane briefly regained consciousness, felt herself being pulled along the ground, and saw someone else holding her purse.
Jane thought she'd been robbed. A woman held her hand and a man gave his shirt to help stop the blood pouring from her head. And she tried to talk but she couldn't, and that was when she realized how much pain she was in.
Police and fire officials soon arrived, and Tom told the story to an officer. Jennifer said her boyfriend was calm on their 40-minute train ride downtown-just as he had been seconds after the rescue, which made her think about her reaction at the time. "I saw the train coming and I was thinking he was going to die," she explained.Why did Jennifer try to stop her boyfriend?
| A．Because they would miss their train. |
| B．Because he didn't see the train coming. |
| C．Because she was sure Jane was hard to lift. |
| D．Because she was afraid the train would kill him. |
How did Tom save Jane?
| A．By lifting her to the platform. |
| B．By helping her rise to her feet. |
| C．By pulling her along the ground. |
| D．By dragging her away from the edge. |
When did Jane become conscious again?
| A．When the train was leaving. |
| B．After she was back on the platform. |
| C．After the police and fire officials came. |
| D．When a man was cleaning the blood from her head. |
The passage is intended to _____.
| A．warn us of the danger in the subway |
| B．show US how to save people in the subway |
| C．tell US about a subway rescue |
| D．report a traffic accident |
Since 1989, Dave Thomas, who died at the age of 69, was one of the most recognizable faces on TV. He appeared in more than 800 commercials for the hamburger chain named for his daughter. “As long as it works”, he said in 1991, “I’ll continue to do those commercials.”
Even though he was successful, Thomas remained troubled by his childhood. “He still won’t let anyone see his feet, which are out of shape because he never had proper fitting shoes,” Wendy said in 1993. Born to a single mother, he was adopted as a baby by Rex and Auleva Thomas of Kalamazoo in Michigan. After Auleva died when he was 5, Thomas spent years on the road as Rex traveled around seeking construction work. “He fed me,” Thomas said, “and if I got out of line, he’d beat me.”
Moving out on his own at 15, Thomas worked, first as a waiter, in many restaurants. But he had something much better in mind. “I thought if I owned a restaurant,” he said, “I could eat for free.” A 1956 meeting with Harland Sanders led Thomas to a career as the manager of a Kentucky Chicken restaurant that made him a millionaire in 1968.
In 1969, after breaking with Sanders, Thomas started the first Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, in Columbus, Ohio, which set itself apart by serving made-to-order burgers. With 6,000 restaurants worldwide, the chain now makes $ 6 billion a year in sales.
Although troubled by his own experience with adoption, Thomas, married since 1954 to Lorraine, 66, and with four grown kids besides Wendy, felt it could offer a future for other children. He started the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in 1992.
In 1993, Thomas, who had left school at 15, graduated from Coconut Creek High School in Florida. He even took Lorraine to the graduation dance party. The kids voted him Most Likely to Succeed.
“The Dave you saw on TV was the real Dave,” says friend Pat Williams. “He wasn’t a great actor or a great speaker .He was just Joe Everybody.”What is the article mainly about?
| A．The life of Dave Thomas. |
| B．The dream of Dave Thomas . |
| C．The schooling of Dave Thomas. |
| D．The growth of Dave Thomas’s business |
What do we know about his childhood?
| A．He lived a poor life | B．He had caring parents. |
| C．He stayed in one place | D．He didn’t go to school |
Choose the right time order of the following events in Thomas’s life.
a. graduated from high school b. started his own business
c. became a millionaire d. started a foundation
e. met Harland Sanders
| A．e, b, c, d, a | B．a, e, c, b, d |
| C．e, c, b, d, a | D．a, e, b, c, d |
. “He was just Joe Everybody”. (in the last paragraph) means_________.
| A．Dave was famous | B．Dave was ordinary |
| C．Dave was showy | D．Dave was shy |
阅读下面短文，从短文后各题的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出适合填入
对应空白处的最佳选项。并在答题卡上将该选项涂黑。
I was a ten-year-old girl living with my parents and four-year-old brother in Madrid, Spain. We had our country Cuba just a few months before. The Christmas season arrived.
The Corte Ingles Department store had a shiny red that circled the town, its horn (喇叭) at every turn. My younger brother, Santiago, had never seen it. However, were considered a luxury(奢侈)then for my family and were very hard to . My brother fell in love with it. Every day he would push his nose the glass in the window. My parents’ pain was as they looked at their son’s face. But I didn’t want to the innocence of a four-year-old. So next time, I pulled him aside.
“Santiago, you know that we left our country and we are in a strange land” I said. “35 we are only here in Madrid for a little while, Santa probably doesn’t have our .”
I also told him that once we in the United States, Santa would find us once again. Much to my surprise, he accepted my without question. A year later, we lived in Union City, New Jersey. Both my parents were working in factories to make ends meet. Santiago and I were a new school and quickly learning English.
That Christmas was , but my parents bought a silver-colored Christmas tree. On Christmas Day, I woke up early, and to my surprise and , I found several presents under the tree. My brother
a square box. Inside was a shiny, brand-new train! It the one that had so attracted my brother a year before. Santiago’s face like the Christmas tree. He looked at my parents and me, happy and surprised.
“You were !” my brother told me eagerly, “Santa found our address.”
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An 11-year-old boy who has been compared to Spanish Impressionist (印象派画家), the great Pablo Picasso, is holding his first exhibition at Llangollen’s Gardening Show this weekend.
Hamad al-Humaidhan, who was born in Kuwait but now lives in Bath, Britain, had no previous knowledge of art history when he first picked up a brush.
But he began to paint his favourite football player, Cristiano Ronaldo, using Picasso’s trademarks (标志) —bright colours and impressionistic forms.
His father said, "I’ve got lots of books about Picasso and I showed them to Hamad but he didn’t know anything about Picasso —it’s just naturally the way he sees it and he just loves to paint."
His first painting of Ronaldo, done when he was just nine, was sold at auction (拍卖) in Bath for ￡650, which drew the attention of local art businessman Steve Turner. "A colleague sent me some pictures of Hamad’s work and I just couldn’t believe the size of it and how the colours blended (融合) together," he said. "He had talent and I thought Picasso had been reborn.""I’ve shown his work to private art collectors. They liked them very much and everyone was eager to buy, so the first six paintings have been snapped up. I bought two of them myself. The next set of his works will go on show for the first time at Llangollen, which will be the first opportunity for the public to see his amazing talent."
Hamad enjoys maths at school but ranks painting higher. "I think I prefer painting! It makes me relaxed and when I feel tired I just pick up a paint brush," he said. "I just close my eyes and see how it’s going to look and then I just paint it —I paint every day. I just love the colours and I want people to enjoy my paintings."
Now Hamad is nervously waiting for the opening of his exhibition.What is the text mainly about?
| A．Hamad’s painting exhibition. |
| B．Hamad and his talent for painting. |
| C．The popularity of Hamad’s works. |
| D．The similarities between Hamad and Picasso. |
From the text, we can learn that Hamad ________.
| A．began to learn painting when he was a boy |
| B．has read many books about art history |
| C．likes Cristiano Ronaldo very much |
| D．knows a lot about Picasso |
According to the text, Hamad’s first painting of Ronal-do ________.
| A．has bright colours and impressionistic forms |
| B．was bought by Steve Turner |
| C．was completed five years ago |
| D．is his favourite work |
What does the underlined phrase "snapped up"in the fifth paragraph probably mean?
| A．Shown to the public. | B．Bought very quickly. |
| C．Cleaned up. | D．Hung up. |
What can we learn from the text?
| A．Steve Turner speaks very highly of Hamad. |
| B．Hamad prefers maths to painting. |
| C．Hamad’s works will be sold after the show. |
| D．The public can see all Hamad’s paintings at the show. |
My first full-time job after high school was selling vacation packages via the telephone for a well-known company. One day, I was put through to a man who sounded a bit out of breath. I started with my normal pitch (音高), expecting to hear the normal reply —"I don’t want any."
Instead, he spoke in a faint, weak voice and told me how he wished to take a vacation I was offering, but he couldn’t because he was dying of illness. He explained how he was lacking in oxygen then, and it took almost all his energy to answer the call. He asked if I smoked, which I did, and begged me to stop. He told me smoking was what was killing him. He told me to spend every day with my loved ones, and tell them how much I love them. At this point, I couldn’t control myself. We ended the call, but I held on my phone to prevent another call coming in so I could collect myself.
I wrote down his name and address, and sent him a card appreciating his advice and praying for him and his family. Shortly after, I received a letter from Frank, along with a picture of him and his wife. We continued to write back and forth over the next few months, and became very fond of each other. He was old enough to be my grandfather, and in many ways, I felt as if he was.
About a year later I received a letter from his wife. When I started to read, tears came to my eyes. She told me how Frank’s battle with the disease had finally come to an end, and he passed away shortly before the Christmas. She wanted to thank me for the letters to Frank, and explained how Frank touched many lives over the years. At his funeral, to show just that, they read the 1st letter I had written to Frank to show how he affected a 19-year-old he’d never met. The author was then probably working for ______.
| A．a travel agency | B．a cigarette company |
| C．an e-shopping store | D．a vacation school |
The underlined part "collect myself" in the second paragraph probably means "_______".
| A．gather together | B．comfort myself |
| C．relax myself | D．calm down |
What can we infer from the text?
| A．Frank was in hospital while answering the phone. |
| B．Frank is actually the author’s grandfather. |
| C．There was something wrong with Frank’s lung. |
| D．The author asked Frank to travel and he took his advice. |
We can learn from the text that the author ________.
| A．took down Frank’s name and address to visit him in person |
| B．was warmly welcomed by her customers when she called them |
| C．didn’t stop smoking even though Frank asked him to |
| D．kept in touch with Frank through letters until he died |
At Frank’s funeral the author’s 1st letter to Frank was read in order to ____.
| A．encourage people to fight against disease and live bravely |
| B．indicate that Frank touched many people’s hearts |
| C．show the good relationship between Frank and the author |
| D．praise Frank and give thanks to the author |