Charlie Chaplin, British comedian (喜剧演员), producer, writer, director and composer, is widely regarded as the greatest comic artist of the screen and one of the most important figures in the film history.
Chaplin was named after his father, a British entertainer. He spent his early childhood with his mother, the singer Hannah Hall, after she and his father separated, and he took the place of his mentally unstable mother to appear on the stage. However, he and his mother were soon separated from each other because the sick Hall was sent to a hospital. Then, Charlie was sent to a series of boarding schools.
Using his mother’s show-business contacts, Charlie became a professional entertainer in 1897 when he became a member of the Eight Lancashire Lads, a dancing group.
His early stage characters include a small role in William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes (1899). While touring America with the Karno company in 1913, Chaplin was signed to appear in Mack Sennett’s Keystone comedy films. Though Making a Living (1914) was not the failure that historians have claimed, Chaplin’s first screen character did not show him to the best advantage.
To come up with a more workable screen image, Chaplin created an outfit consisting of a too-small coat, too-large pants and a walking stick. As a finishing touch, he put on a mustache (胡子). It was in his second Keystone film, Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), that Chaplin’s classic screen character, “the Little Tramp (流浪汉)”, was born.
In truth, Chaplin did not always portray a tramp; in many of his films his character was employed as a waiter, store clerk, fireman, and the like. But the Tramp’s attraction was universal: audiences loved his cheekiness (厚脸皮), unexpected bravery and especially his recovery in the face of difficulties which moved the audience most.
Some historians have traced the Tramp’s origins to Chaplin’s Dickensian childhood, while others have suggested that the character had its roots in the motto of Chaplin’s teacher, Fred Karno, “Keep it eager, gentlemen, keep it eager”. Whatever the case, within months after his no view as on, Chaplin was the screen’s biggest star.
1. What can we learn about Chaplin’s mother?| A．She had a mental disease. |
| B．She was sent to a hospital due to an injury. |
| C．She accidentally lost her show-business contacts. |
| D．She earned a large amount of money by singing songs. |
| A．In 1897. | B．In 1899. | C．In 1913. | D．In 1914. |
| A．His ability to recover from difficulties. |
| B．His unique and serious appearance. |
| C．His action with a walking stick. |
| D．His special learning experience. |
| A．The value of the Tramp. | B．The sources of the Tramp. |
| C．The experiences of the Tramp. | D．The characteristics of the Tramp. |
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【推荐1】I was driving 80 miles per hour along the road Wednesday. I knew I was going too fast, but it was the only hope I had. My dog, Jett, was dying in the backseat.
About half an hour earlier I received a call from my daughter. A ball got stuck in Jett's throat. He was struggling to breathe. I raced home to see if I could help, but the dog's mouth water had made the ball too slippery to pull out by hand. So my daughter and I began our race to the vet's(兽医诊所).
About halfway there, we got caught in traffic jams due to construction. I began wildly sounding my horn(喇叭), hoping to attract help, and ended up catching the eye of several construction workers. In an anxious voice, I told them what had happened to my dog. By then Jett was lying in the backseat, not moving. Cavaja Holt was one of the workers standing there. He stuck his hand down the dog's throat and pulled out the ball, but Jett still wasn't breathing.
And the guy behind Holt shouted out, “Breathe into his mouth! Breathe into his mouth!” And Holt did. It worked! Jett soon began breathing again. After may dog was saved, I continued my trip to the vet's to make sure Jett was OK, and by the time I arrived the dog seemed to be doing much better. The staff there checked the dog over and said Jett was in good health.
Later on, I realized I was so anxious that I forgot to ask the man's name and thank him on the spot. My daughter posted the story on the Internet, asking to locate him. Meanwhile, Holt posted the story too, hoping to find out how the dog was doing. Within minutes, someone connected the two. On Thursday morning, I drove back to the construction site and thanked Holt in person. He is truly a hero.
1. How did the author feel after she received the call?| A．Ashamed. | B．Confused. | C．Annoyed. | D．Panicked. |
| A．The vet's advice. | B．The author's request. |
| C．His fellow worker's advice. | D．The author's wrong rescue. |
| A．To get the address of Holt. | B．To make contact with Holt. |
| C．To spread the moving story. | D．To praise Holt for his deeds. |
| A．Race against death | B．Find hero through the Internet |
| C．Stranger saves dog's life | D．Heart-stopping rush to the vet's |
【推荐2】Originally from Binghamton, Senior Jonathan Shapiro, the Business major decided to pursue his degree to further his music career. “The reason I came here was because in my senior year, I had a manager who was the owner of 105.5 The Beat, a radio station here in Rochester, and he invited me to come to this Kevin Gates concert,” Shapiro said. “I worked with him for months, and I never ended up signing … but this school was close to him.”
The majority of fellow rappers that Shapiro has encountered in Rochester live different lives than he does—they don’t go to college, and they’re born-and-bred inner-city Rochester residents. They have, according to Shapiro, “a lot of real-life experiences” that come through in their work, which he admires. “I’ve met kids as young as 15 and people as old as 30 in the studios.”
Shapiro himself has been shifting into, in his own words, “a more hyperpop sound” in comparison to his earlier work. He started making his own music in seventh grade after breaking his back, which shattered his dream of becoming a professional soccer player, and never stopped.
In the future, Shapiro is planning a joint concert with some other Rochester musicians and rappers in the spring at Water Street Music Hall, as well as releasing further music across the course of the year. “It would be a mix of local artists and some UR artists, like a festival,” Shapiro said. “I want it to be a showcase of multiple artists if I can make that happen.”
When asked about advice that he would give to ambitious musicians and rappers here in Rochester, Shapiro had this to say: “Don’t get discouraged by results and don’t be results-oriented (导向). If you want to get out there, do it because you love it and because you want to make good art, and that will always have an impact.”
1. What can we learn about Shapiro in paragraph 1?| A．He became a staff of a radio station. |
| B．He went on with his music learning. |
| C．He worked as a manager in a concert. |
| D．He graduated from a business school. |
| A．Killed. | B．Fulfilled. | C．Continued. | D．Abandoned. |
| A．Adorable and reliable. | B．Positive and talented. |
| C．Cooperative and admirable. | D．Courageous and experienced. |
| A．Focusing on Results Always Matters |
| B．Setting Goals can Build a Life-long Career |
| C．Learning from Failure is the Key to Success |
| D．Following Your Heart can Make a Difference |
【推荐3】One of the world’s greatest conveniences was born in its greatest hardships. Sylvan Goldman, a grocer from Oklahoma City, invented the shopping cart.
Sylvan Goldman was born to an immigrant pioneer family on Nov. 15, 1898, in what was then the Chickasaw Nation. His birthplace is now part of Ardmore, Oklahoma, about 100 miles south of Oklahoma City. His father, Michael Goldman, was born in Latvia. His mother, Hortense Goldman, came from Alsace-Lorraine.
Goldman learned the retail store business from working in the family dry goods store in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where he spent most of his life. He introduced his unique invention at his chain of Humpty Dumpty grocery stores across the state in 1937. He came up with design by placing a basket on the seat of a folding chair, and attaching wheels to the legs. The baskets had to be removed when the cart was folded, so they took up very little space. A year later, Goldman added a baby seat to his design.
“I thought it would be an immediate success,” Goldman said. “I went down to the store the next morning about 10 o’clock, expecting to see people standing in line outside the store trying to get in.” But he was met by utter disappointment. “When I got there, there was a large room for me to get in. There were people shopping but not a one was using the carts.”
Undaunted, Goldman turned to a classic marketing strategy. He employed women of various ages to walk around near the entrance of each store, pretending to be shopping with their carts. When shoppers had seen the ones that were walking around using the carts, they started using them. And immediately the carts became a huge success.
The invention, the grocery shopping cart, made Goldman a millionaire. It became one of the most-used items on four wheels, second only to the car. Goldman gave part of his fortune, $1.5 million, to the Oklahoma Blood Institute, whose Sylvan N. Goldman Center does lifesaving work. Goldman and his wife funded buildings for the center and provided support for education there.
1. What does the second paragraph mainly tell us about Goldman?| A．His career plan. | B．His special experiences. |
| C．His family background. | D．His working surroundings. |
| A．It was designed for disabled shoppers. |
| B．It was convenient for people carrying babies. |
| C．It could change speed by adjusting the wheels. |
| D．It could be folded without removing the baskets. |
| A．By advertising the cart in newspapers. |
| B．By introducing the cart in the stores personally. |
| C．By inviting shop assistants to promote the cart. |
| D．By hiring some women to use the cart as shoppers. |
| A．Talented but modest. | B．Creative and generous. |
| C．Ambitious and humorous. | D．Wealthy but self-centered. |
【推荐1】Learning from Leonardo
Yes, Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius.
Be constantly curious.
Leonardo actually did have special talents, but his distinguishing and most inspiring quality was his strong curiosity. He wanted to know what causes people to yawn and how light is processed in the eye.
Seek knowledge itself.
Not all knowledge needs to be useful.
When Leonardo came up with an idea, he designed an experiment to test it. When his experiment showed that a theory was flawed (瑕疵的), he abandoned his theory and sought a new one. If we want to be more like Leonardo, we have to be fearless about changing our minds based on new and real information.
Take notes on paper.
Five hundred years later, Leonardo's notebooks are around to astonish and inspire us.
| A．Show respect to facts. |
| B．You'd better show interest in writing. |
| C．We may never be able to match his talents. |
| D．Work up the enthusiasm to start writing them. |
| E．Sometimes it should be learned for pure pleasure. |
| F．Merely a small part of knowledge can be applied to practice. |
| G．Also, he instructed himself to learn about the light of the moon. |
【推荐2】Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga，Spain in 1881.When he died in 1973，he was ninety-one years old. But he still took up his paints and brushes to start a new picture as if he were seeing things for the first time，which is why we have called him the youngest painter. Young people are always trying new things and new ways of doing things. They don't hesitate to attempt one thing after another. Eager to experiment, they welcome new ideas.
When he was over ninety this great painter still lived his life like a young man. He was still restlessly looking new ideas and new ways to use his artistic materials. No one knew what to expect from him next. No one could be sure what kind of picture he would produce. If he had painted a picture of you, it might have looked exactly like you. Or it might have been all lines, squares, circles and strange-colored shapes. It might not have looked like human at all.
At such times Picasso was trying to paint what he saw with his mind as well as with his eyes. He put in the side of the face as well as the front. He may have painted it flat, as though it had no depth. Sometimes he seemed to paint just as a child painted, simply for his own pleasure. He didn't imitate others.
Most painters discover a style of painting that suits themselves and stick to that, especially if people admire their pictures. But Picasso was like a man who had not yet found his own particular style of painting. He was still struggling to find perfect expression for his own uneasy spirit.
The first thing one noticed about him was the look of his large, wide-open eyes. Gertrude Stein, a famous American writer who knew him in his youth, mentioned this hungry look, and one can still see it in pictures of him today.
Picasso painted a picture of Gertrude Stein in 1906. She visited the painter's studio eighty or ninety times while he painted her picture. While Picasso painted they talked about everything in the world that interested them. Then one day Picasso wiped out the painted head on which he had worked for so long. "When I look at you I can't see you any more!" he said.
Picasso went away for the summer. When he returned he went at once to the unfinished picture in the corner of his studio. Quickly he finished the face from memory. He could see the woman's face more clearly in his mind than he could see it when she sat in the studio in front of him.
Picasso was often attacked for this new, sometimes frightening style. It produced pictures like some of our worst dreams. The camera has made it unnecessary for painters to make exact representations of what they see. A camera can reflect real life more exactly. What great paintings give us is a view of life through one man's eyes, and every man's view is different.
1. The example of the picture of Gertrude Stein is raised mainly to indicate Picasso ________.| A．was particular about his works |
| B．used more of his mind to paint |
| C．was a man of responsibility |
| D．was not appreciated at his time |
| A．Picasso's paintings are beyond some people's comprehension |
| B．Picasso's paintings are too frightening |
| C．Picasso paints from his unique perspective |
| D．cameras are better at presenting real life |
| A．Frightening and unpredictable. |
| B．Concrete and straightforward. |
| C．Abstract and unconventional. |
| D．Rigid and unusual. |
| A．The youngest painter in the world |
| B．What to expect from Picasso |
| C．How Picasso developed his way of painting |
| D．The greatest painter the world has ever seen |
【推荐3】“Today, at 28, the young German Violinist Anner Sophie Mutter is at the top. She gives radiance (光辉) to the music,” wrote Geoffrey Norris in The Daily Telegraph, London. Mutter was also one of the world’s youngest professors.
Born in Rhweinfelden on June 29, 1963, Anner Sophie grew up in Wehr, a small town just five kilometers from the Swiss border. Her father, Karl Wilhelm Mutter, and her mother, Gerlinde, considered music lessons part of a good education. Thus, their first son, Andreas, began practicing the violin at eight, and his younger brother, Christoph, had piano lessons. It came as no surprise when Anner Sophie said she wanted a violin for her fifth birthday.
Her parents thought she was too young for the violin, and persuaded her to start on the piano. But Anner Sophie has always had a mind of her own. “I longed to play the violin,” she said. “It seemed to me a much more interesting instrument.” After six months, her parents gave in.
The famous violin teacher Ema Honigberger, who lived nearby, became Anner Sophie’s tutor (家庭教师). After only nine months of lessons, she entered the six-year-old in a nationwide competition for young musicians. With Christoph accompanying her on the piano, Anner-Sophie won first prize.
In 1974, Ema Honigberger died. Anner Sophie’s new teacher was Aida Stucki. She taught Anner Sophe to develop her own ideas on how a piece should be played, not just to imitate (模仿) others. This is one of the violinist’s strongest, most distinctive (与众不同的) characteristics today.
Though the Mutters were short of money at times, they limited their daughter’s performances to one or two a year. “We are glad we went the family road,” said her father. “No outsider (外人) can ever have an effect on our daughter’s career or push her into playing more concerts than she wants to.” Later she was allowed to give six to eight concerts a year and make some recordings. Only when she turned 18 did she begin her professional career.
1. Anner Sophie’s career dates back to______.| A．the late 1960s | B．her family education |
| C．the late 1970s | D．her fifth birthday |
| A．limited to one or two a year | B．accompanied at the piano by Christoph |
| C．highly praised throughout the world | D．appreciated by professors in London |
| A．She wanted a violin for her fifth birthday. |
| B．She has always had a mind of her own. |
| C．She had two famous violin teachers. |
| D．Violin seemed to her a much more interesting instrument. |
| A．children should learn music |
| B．money is not everything |
| C．Anner Sophie was too young to give concerts |
| D．parents have a great effect upon their children |
