J.K. Rowling is the pen name she uses as a writer. The J is for Joanne, her real first name, but she prefers to be called Jo. Apparently, people only call her Joanne when they’re angry with her. The K is made up. Her publisher asked her to write using a name with two initials, but she didn’t have a middle name.
Jo did a few different things before she struck upon the idea of writing children’s books. She worked as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International and as an English teacher in Portugal. The idea for the Harry Potter novels came from nowhere while she was on a train to London. She said, “The characters and situations came flooding into my head.”
Having written seven Potter novels, Rowling is one of the richest women in the world. In fact, she is the first novelist ever to become a billionaire from writing. Her rags to riches story is a fantasy story in itself. She was on government handouts while writing her first novel. Her last four books broke records for the fastest sellers in literary history.
Today she devotes much of her time to many charitable causes. The future? She has signed a publishing deal with Little Brown, to release her first ever novel for adults, in what is set to become one of the most anticipated book launches in years. Rowling, who is worth an estimated £530 million, said that the new novel will be nothing like the Harry Potter series, which sold over 30 million copies in the UK alone. She said that with the move from children’s to adult fiction, a move to a new publisher seemed like a logical step. She said, “Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that the success of the series has brought me.”
1. The underlined phrase “rags to riches” probably means ________.| A．leaving the places where poor people lived for the places where rich people were |
| B．turning from being poor to being rich |
| C．getting away from poor people and searching for fortune |
| D．throwing away old clothes and buying new ones |
| A．The idea of creating Harry Potter novels had been on her mind for a long time. |
| B．She found it hard to create the characters in Harry Potter novels. |
| C．Harry Potter novels are the most well-received novels of all her works. |
| D．There is no writer like her who can become a millionaire just by writing novels. |
| A．She will write a children’s story about adventure. |
| B．She will become an editor for a famous magazine. |
| C．She will write a novel of a new type. |
| D．She will found her own charity organization. |
| A．Responsible. | B．Devoted. | C．Sympathetic. | D．Creative. |
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【推荐1】When Liam Pope-Lau fell into the ocean during a sailing lesson, he had no idea what he was in for. “I just remember how cold it was,” Liam recalls. “It really scared me and shook me up.” Thankfully, he was wearing a life jacket, but the water was freezing.
Liam’s scary experience inspired him to team up with his friend, Fraser Tuck, in his Grade 6 science class at the time. Together they came up with the idea of “LifeHeat” — a self-heating life jacket that could one day help someone in a similar situation. During the first phase, they concentrated on finding a chemical that creates heat upon contact with water. After a series of investigations, Liam and Fraser came across calcium chloride (氯化钙). It soon became LifeHeat’s primary chemical component, which allowed the life jacket to remain warm underwater.
Over the next two years, Fraser and Liam built 13 prototypes (模型) of LifeHeat. But instead of building multiple life jackets from scratch (从零开始), the two focused on creating an attachable pouch (荷包). When the pouch came in contact with water, it could heat the body’s core. For each prototype, Liam and Fraser experimented with different materials that could contain calcium chloride while still allowing its heat to escape. In the process, they experienced countless failures which, however, led them to be more creative.
The two have entered their many prototypes into several science competitions over the last two years. In November last year, Liam and Fraser won two awards at a big science fair. They are now taking the feedback they received from experts and applying it to their next prototype. Liam and Fraser anticipate turning their invention into a business.
As for future inventors, Fraser and Liam have advice for kids who want to create their own new technology. “Don’t be afraid to try it out because you never know where it could end up,” said Liam. “Go for it before someone else can steal your idea,” added Fraser with a laugh.
1. What gives Liam the desire to invent the “LifeHeat”?| A．A science class. | B．An amusing experience. |
| C．A special life jacket. | D．A cold struggle in water. |
| A．Finding a suitable chemical. | B．Building multiple life jackets. |
| C．Creating an attachable pouch. | D．Testing the prototypes of LifeHeat. |
| A．It has been put on the market. |
| B．It is invented through trial and error. |
| C．Two of its prototypes won awards at a science fair. |
| D．The attachable pouch is the most important part of it. |
| A．Humorous and ambitious. | B．Courageous and competitive. |
| C．Creative and determined. | D．Humble and intelligent. |
【推荐2】When Lucy was ten, she went to the theatre to see a play The House at Pooh Corner with her parents. Immediately, Lucy fell in love. But although she took part in school and college plays, she never thought it could lead to a career. Instead, she studied business at university, working for the Land Register of Scotland until she retired in 2012. Her newly free time reignited (重新，点燃) a decades-old spark. “I still wanted to do something with my brain so I went back to university to study theatre and performance,” says Lucy.
That year, she took part in a folk drama workshop and discovered mumming, an ancient masked form, in which male actors travel through villages, performing simple plays, often in exchange for food or shelter. “It’s a simpler story than conventional plays. It has one central conflict rather than slow character development. It’s rooted in history and involves more improvisation (即席创作) because the play is always tailored to a local audience,” says Lucy.
Interest grew and Lucy set up her group — the Meadows Mummers — as a charity, to attract wider support and donations. Its first performance was in 2015, at the Meadows festival in Edinburgh. Things snowballed from there. As well as touring central Scotland, the group went to the International Mumming Symposium and Unconvention in Gloucestershire in 2016, and learned more about the history of folk drama.
More recently, life circumstances have made performing difficult. “I’ve had health problems.” She says that, at times, she has considered giving up, but gets too much joy from doing it to stop. “We’ve just done one performance this year but I’m really excited that we’re getting ready for more festivals next year.”
The drive to keep going is inspired by an experience more than 30 years ago. “I was in a national park in Yugoslavia when I saw a woman staring attentively at this green river,” she says. “She told me she was going blind and wanted the river to be the last beautiful thing she ever saw.” Whenever doubt creeps in (不知不觉产生), Lucy recalls that encounter and feels forced to continue grasping life with both hands. “Just because you’ve reached 60, it doesn’t mean the drawbridge has been pulled up,” says Lucy.
1. Why did Lucy study theatre and performance after retirement?| A．To further her study. | B．To please her parents. |
| C．To recollect her interest. | D．To find a better job. |
| A．Its history. | B．Its characteristics. | C．Its importance. | D．Its prospect. |
| A．Stuck. | B．Collapsed. | C．Developed. | D．Froze. |
| A．We should try to live in the moment. | B．Roman was not built in a day. |
| C．Where there’s a will, there is a way. | D．Art is long, life is short. |
【推荐3】Grey clouds move as low as smoke over the treetops at Lolo Pass. The ground is white. The day is June 10.It has been snowing for the past four days in the Bitterroot Mountains. Wayne Fairchild is getting worried about our trek over the Lolo Trail-95 miles from Lolo Montana to Weippe in Idaho, across the roughest country in the West. Lewis and Clark were nearly defeated 200 years ago by snowstorms on the Lolo. Today Fairchild is nervously checking the weather reports. He has agreed to take me across the toughest, middle section of the trail.
When Lewis climbed on top of Lemhi Pass, 140 miles south of Missoula, on Aug.12, 1805, he was astonished by what was in front of him; “high mountain chains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow.” Nobody in what was then the US knew the Rocky Mountains existed, with peaks twice as high as anything in the Appalachians back East.
Today their pathway through those mountains holds more attraction than any other ground over which they traveled, for its raw wilderness is an evidence to the character of two cultures: the explorers who braved its hardships and the Native Americans who prize and conserve the path as a sacred (神圣的)gift. It remains today the same condition as when Lewis and Clark walked it.
The Lolo is passable only from July to mid-September. Our luck is holding with the weather, although the snow keeps getting deeper. As we climb to Indian Post Office, the highest point on the trail at 7,033 ft, we have covered 13 miles in soft snow, and we hardly have enough energy to make dinner. After a meal of chicken, I sit on a rock on top of the ridge. There is no light visible in any direction, not even another campfire. For four days we do not see another human being. We are occupied with the things that mix fear with joy. In our imagination we have finally caught up with Lewis and Clark.
1. We learn from the text that before 1805_______________ .| A．The Rocky Mountains were wholly covered with snow |
| B．There were no people living in the western part of America |
| C．No Americans knew of the existence of the Rocky Mountains |
| D．The Appalachians were the western frontier of the United States |
| A．has changed a lot since 1805 |
| B．is the meeting point of three cultures |
| C．remains much the same as it was 200 years ago |
| D．now attracts a large number of tourists to visit |
| A．two native Indians |
| B．explorers of the early 19th century |
| C．merchants who did business with the Indians |
| D．travelers whose curiosity took them over the Lolo Pass |
| A．was attempting the impossible |
| B．was trying to set a world record |
| C．was following the trail of Lewis and Clark |
| D．was fighting with weather and taking unnecessary risks |
【推荐1】Arthur Miller (1915—2005) is universally recognized as one of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century.Miller’s father had moved to the USA from Austria—Hungary，drawn like so many others by the“Great American Dream”.However，he experienced severe financial hardship when his family business was ruined in the Great Depression of the early 1930s.
Miller’s most famous play，Death of a Salesman，is a powerful attack on the American system，with its aggressive way of doing business and its insistence on money and social status as indicators of worth.In Willy Loman，the hero of the play，we see a man who has got into trouble with this system.Willy is “burnt out” and in the cruel world of business there is no room for sentiment：if he can’t do the work，then he is no good to his employer，the Wagner Company，and he must go.Willy is painfully aware of this，and at a loss as to what to do with his lack of success.He refuses to face the fact that he has failed and kills himself in the end.
When it was first staged in 1949，the play was greeted with enthusiastic reviews，and it won the Tony Award for Best Play，the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award，and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.It was the first play to win all three of these major awards.
Miller died of heart failure at his home in Roxbury，Connecticut，on the evening of February 10,2005，the 56th anniversary of the first performance of Death of a Salesman on Broadway.
1. Why did Arthur Miller’s father move to the USA？| A．He suffered from severe hunger in his home country. |
| B．He was attracted by the “Great American Dream”. |
| C．He hoped to make his son a dramatist. |
| D．His family business failed. |
| A．exposes the cruelty of the American business world |
| B．discusses the ways to get promoted in a company |
| C．talks about the business career of Arthur Miller |
| D．focuses on the skills in doing business |
| A．achieved huge success |
| B．won the first Tony Award |
| C．was warmly welcomed by salesmen |
| D．was severely attacked by dramatists |
| A．Arthur Miller and his family. |
| B．The awards Arthur Miller won. |
| C．The hardship Arthur Miller experienced. |
| D．Arthur Miller and his bestknown play. |
【推荐2】9 days after he was born, Zig Ziglar stopped breathing. Sadly, the doctor laid the lifeless body on the bed and then his grandmother held his body close and began whispering in his ear. Surprisingly, he came back to life in her arms.
He was 5 when his father died and 2 days later, his baby sister died too. He was raised the 10th out of 12 children by his widowed (寡妇的) mother during The Great Depression. At 7 he was already helping to support his family by selling their vegetables and milk. When he was 20, he married a woman called Jean. In order to support his new family, he quit school and sold pots and pans.
Life as a salesman was unpredictable and so for years, the couple struggled financially. Sometimes he could only afford a few gallons of gas, so wherever his car rolled to a stop was where he would start working door-to-door. But he maintained a positive attitude about everything.
Refusing to accept defeat, he began travelling to churches, schools and clubs, sharing lessons about the power of positive thinking. When the company he worked for broke up, he turned to full-time motivational speaking, helping countless people achieve their dreams.
By 1975 he had written See you at the top, a book of his most inspiring thoughts and stories. It was rejected by 30 different publishers before it was finally printed. It has now sold more than
2 million copies worldwide.
Zig Ziglar passed away in 2012, two days after celebrating his 66th wedding anniversary. In his 30 books that have been translated into more than 36 languages, his optimism and enthusiasm have impacted more than 250 million people around the world and continues to inspire more every day.
1. How old was Zig Ziglar when he finished See you at the top?| A．49. | B．46. | C．37. | D．66. |
| A．He wrote a book which was popular with publishers in the beginning. |
| B．He sold vegetables and milk to support his new family. |
| C．He grew up in a large family. |
| D．To earn a living, he would go to churches and schools to sell pots and pans. |
| A．Writer, speechmaker and librarian. |
| B．Salesman, speechmaker and writer. |
| C．Salesman, writer and librarian. |
| D．Salesman, speechmaker and librarian. |
| A．Pitiful and positive. | B．Fortunate and motivational. |
| C．Ambitious and hard-working. | D．Energetic and generous. |
【推荐3】Robert Frost (1874—1963) was the statesman of American letters in the twentieth century, a rare national poet who was read and respected by both university professors and everyday citizens. In his life, Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for his works— more than any other poet in American history. His most famous poems include The Road Not Taken, Fire and Ice and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Though he is widely read, Frost is also one of the most misunderstood writers in the United States for the complexity of his poems.
Though born in California, Frost was brought up in New England, where he is inseparably linked. After dropping out of Dartmouth College to seek his literary dream, he remained upset for years, producing collections of works but failing to get enough of them published to make his efforts financially worthwhile. Finally, Frost left the United States in 1912 to see whether his works might be better received in London. It was, and in 1913 his first full collection was published in Great Britain. Fellow American poet Amy Lowell adored Frost’s work and brought it back to the United States, publicizing it insistently. Soon afterwards Frost’s collections became bestsellers, and he became a famous figure.
From then on, Frost was on his way to the lifelong respect and recognition for his achievements in poetry. In 1961, he was invited to read a poem for the presidential inauguration (总统就职典礼) of John F. Kennedy. He recited his poem, TheGiftOutright, from memory at the ceremony. This was perhaps his last poetry reading in front of a wide national audience before his death in 1963. More importantly, Frost became the first poet to read a poem at a presidential inauguration.
1. What makes Frost “the statesman of American letters”?| A．The comments of other writers. |
| B．His literary achievements. |
| C．The complexity of his poems. |
| D．His political activities. |
| A．He continued writing after his graduation from Dartmouth College. |
| B．He was well received in London for his first collection. |
| C．He failed to make much money with his publication. |
| D．He produced enough works to achieve literary success. |
| A．The literary value of his poetry. |
| B．The publication of his first collection. |
| C．The invitation from John F. Kennedy. |
| D．The recommendation by Amy Lowell. |
| A．The Literary Life of Robert Frost: An Overview |
| B．Robert Frost and the Twentieth Century |
| C．Robert Frost: A Historical Figure |
| D．The Popularity of Robert Frost |
