Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, publisher, painter, social activist and bookstore owner, has been San Francisco’s honored poet. He turns 100 this month, and the city is making preparations to celebrate him in style. Readings and performances and an open house will take place at City Lights, the sacred bookstore he co-founded in 1953.
On March 24, 1919, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York. After spending his early childhood in France, he received his BA from the University of North Carolina, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD from the Sorbonne.
He is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including Poetry as Insurgent Art; A Coney Island of the Mind. He has translated the works of a number of poets, including Nicanor Parra, Jacques Prevert, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. In addition to poetry, he is also the author of more than eight plays and three novels, including Little Boy: A Novel, Love in the Days of Rage and Her.
In 1953, Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin opened the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, California. It became a nerve center for the Beats and other writers. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and other writers from that era were Easterners who dropped into San Francisco for a spell. In 2001 it was made an official historic landmark. Now City Lights is almost certainly the best bookstore in the United States. It’s filled with serious world literature of all kinds.
If City Lights is a San Francisco institution, Ferlinghetti himself is as much of one. He has loomed over the city’s literary life. As a poet, he’s never been a critical favorite. But his flexible and plain-spoken and often powerful work — he has published more than 50 volumes — has found a wide audience. His collection “A Coney Island of the Mind” has sold more than 1 million copies, making it one of the best-selling American poetry books ever published.
1. What can we learn about Ferlinghetti from Paragraph 2?| A．He had a happy childhood. |
| B．He received normal education. |
| C．He had a gift for writing novels. |
| D．He had written lots of poetry. |
| A．Flexible. | B．Optimistic. | C．Outspoken. | D．Productive. |
| A．Because it is a nerve center for the youth. |
| B．Because its collections have a long history. |
| C．Because it is an official historic landmark. |
| D．Because it has many modern world literature. |
| A．To speak highly of a great poet. |
| B．To introduce some English poetry. |
| C．To promote values of City Lights. |
| D．To celebrate the birthday of Ferlinghetti. |
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【推荐1】In 1982, I had responsibility for Stephen Hawking’s third academic book for the Press, Superspace and Supergravity. This was a messy collection of papers from a technical workshop on how to devise a new theory of gravity. While that book was in production, I suggested he try something easier: a popular book about the nature of the Universe, suitable for the general market.
Stephen hesitated over my suggestion. He already had an international reputation as a brilliant theoretical physicist working on rotating black holes and theories of gravity. And he had concerns about financial matters: importantly, it was impossible for him to obtain any form of life insurance to protect his family in the event of his death or becoming totally dependent on nursing care. So, he took precious time out from his research to prepare the rough draft of a book.
At the time, several bestselling physics authors had already published non-technical books on the early Universe and black holes. Stephen decided to write a more personal approach, by explaining his own research in cosmology and quantum theory.
One afternoon, in the 1980s, he invited me to take a look at the first draft, but first he wanted to discuss cash. He told me he had spent considerable time away from his research, and that he expected advances and royalties (定金和版税) to be large. When I pressed him on the market that he foresaw, he insisted that it be on sale, up front, at all airport bookshops in the UK and the US. I told that was a tough call for a university press. Then I thumbed the typescript. To my dismay, the text was far too technical for a general reader.
A few weeks later he showed me a revision, much improved. Eventually, he decided to place it with a mass market publisher rather than a university press. Bantam published A Brief History of Time in March 1988. Sales took off like a rocket, and it ranked as a bestseller for at least five years. The book’s impact on the popularization of science has been incalculable.
1. What suggestion did the writer give to Stephen Hawking?| A．Simplifying Superspace and Supergravity. |
| B．Formulating a new theory of gravity. |
| C．Writing a popular book on the nature of the universe. |
| D．Revising a book based on a new theory. |
| A．Financial returns. |
| B．Other competitors. |
| C．Publishing houses. |
| D．His family’s life insurance. |
| A．praised |
| B．typed |
| C．confirmed |
| D．browsed |
| A．bringing him overnight fame in the scientific world |
| B．keeping up the living standard of his family |
| C．making popular science available to the general public |
| D．creating the rocketing sales of a technical book |
【推荐2】The British accent of Cary Gran has finally been revealed after a fellow actor tracked down a secretly tape recording of the Bristol-born big screen superstar.
Jason Isaacs, who plays Cary Grant in a coming ITV biopic (传记片), said that although setting his mind on figuring out the actor’s real accent, he had become upset by the absence of interviews with Cary Grant.
The star, whose death aged 82 in 1986 brought to an end one of the 20th century’s greatest screen careers, rarely spoke in public and would always adopt a mid-American accent for the cameras
Isaacs, 60, said this week that after some “detective work”, he found out about an interview Cary Grant gave to a student from the University of Iowa months before his death. The student’s classmate secretly recorded the interview in which Cary Grant spoke about his hatred (厌恶) of being approached by fans. The secret recording reveals Cary Grant’s true accent.
At the launch of the ITV drama Archie-after Cary Grant’s birth name Archibald Leach — Isaacs said that when he landed the role, “the first thing I did was look for interviews of Cary Grant.” Isaacs added; “He didn’t want to be seen and he didn’t want to be known. There was nothing at all. Only the films. And that’s not what he spoke like. His accent changed a lot in the films.
Isaacs said of listening to the tape: “I felt like I’d finally made a real connection with him and that’s the voice you hear on screen in Archie. It’s more English than he is in the movies. People think they remember Cary Grant’s voice but what they remember is Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot.”
The ITV biopic focuses on Grant’s troubled family relationships. Jennifer Grant, Grant’s daughter, said her father had rarely spoken about his childhood. “Sadly I think there was so much shame wrapped up in it,” Jennifer Grant said.
1. Why did Jason Isaacs attempt to get a recording of Cary Grant?| A．To recreate his accent for real. |
| B．To show sincere respect to him. |
| C．To get the role of Cary Grant easily. |
| D．To make the film more profitable. |
| A．He acted as a detective. |
| B．He worked in a university. |
| C．He hated being recorded secretly. |
| D．He disliked having his life disturbed. |
| A．Cary Grant. | B．Tony Curtis. | C．Jason Isaacs. | D．Jennifer Grant. |
| A．Generous. | B．Ambitious. | C．Determined. | D．Knowledgeable. |
【推荐3】I go to a gym in west London, always unwillingly. Exercise is too exhausting and boring. Always was. At school I made believe that I had headaches and parental notes too, to get out of PE classes and compulsory games. Now, twice a week, I dutifully get on cycling machines and other equipment and make myself work out for an hour. To get through the difficult hour, I people-watched: young and old, fit and unfit and Clayton Rose, one of the instructors.
Clayton is a personal trainer not only to body perfectionists, but to people who are mentally and physically disabled, the obese and hopeless. He treats them all the same. I have witnessed him listening keenly to a middle-aged working-class woman who goes on and on about her life, holidays, everything. Slim and attractive now, she was once so heavy that she was in a wheelchair. I have seen him calm down a young man with Tourette's syndrome(抽动症)and get him on a treadmill. I have also watched him pushing and coaching strong, cool men.
Clayton was shocked when I said I wanted to write about him. “Why? You know I'm not educated? I'm not clued up about politics and all that. Just an ordinary guy.”
He grew up in Twickenham, where his dad worked in a timber yard, his mum in an office. After college, the young man got into personal training and found his work. One of his best friends got seriously ill and was given months to live. Clayton put him on a program that kept him alive for almost five years: “I don't earn much, but I love my work; training and talking really helps people who don't have confidence, who are lonely, afraid, sick. Lots of people can't step into a gym. They need someone they can trust, someone who will be on their side.
The gym recently updated its equipment. The flashy new stuff confuses and upsets disabled customers. Me too. The private firm running these centers made decisions without considering these needs. Clayton is managing the chaos with grace and strength. Last week, when a young woman in a wheelchair started sobbing loudly, he calmed her down, restored her dignity, superhumanly contained his anger.
One of his colleagues thinks Clayton's “a legend”. He is, and doesn't know it—a rare thing in this age of extreme narcissism(自恋)and monetized(货币化) everything.
1. Why was I unwilling to go to a gym?| A．Because I suffered from headaches. |
| B．Because I had bad memories of PE classes. |
| C．Because I had to watch a large crowd exercising |
| D．Because I felt it tiring and no fun |
| A．He brings out the best in them. | B．He helps them with illness advice |
| C．He treats them differently. | D．He focuses on body perfection. |
| A．Reasons to go to a gym. | B．An instructor inspiring confidence. |
| C．Exercise with push and inspiration. | D．Rays of hope in the age of narcissism. |
【推荐1】The government of India has announced that it will replace the single-use plastic cups used for tea in 7,000 train stations around the country with traditional clay cups called kulhads. This will reduce the amount of waste thrown away every day, thus helping further the government's goal of making India free from single-use plastics, and it will provide much-needed employment for two million potters.
Jaya Jaitly, a politician and handicrafts expert, has advocated since the early 1990s for clay cups to be reintroduced in train stations. She explained that employing potters to provide these cups was a way to support them at a time when they lost jobs due to "new Internet technology."
It is reported that a potter's average monthly income will increase from $34 to $135 a month. The government is distributing electric wheels to those who do not have them and funding a switch from wood-fueled to gas-fueled kilns(窑炉)in villages that already have gas devices for cooking. Jaitly said this would reduce smoke pollution.
She also said that one reason why earlier efforts to reintroduce kulhads failed was that the government was unwilling to accept non-standardized sizes and shapes of cups. This time they will have to accept it because the handmade pieces cannot possibly be the same, particularly with production being so scattered(分散). Variation in appearance is a small price to pay for the environmental benefits.
This is happy, hopeful news from India, a country that has long struggled to deal with plastic waste, partly because of its huge population and inadequate waste processing infrastructure across vast rural regions. This policy is an excellent example of getting at the root cause of a problem and fixing it, rather than just trying to clean up the mess afterward. To use the bathtub metaphor(比喻) that's commonly cited when talking about plastic pollution, this is like turning off the plastic-producing tap, instead of wasting time trying to mop up the overflow, wishing it would go away.
1. What is special about the policy announced by Indian government?| A．It promotes awareness of traffic issues. |
| B．It collects enough revenue to fight poverty. |
| C．It promises to be eco-friendly and favorable. |
| D．It rids India of the long-term unemployment. |
| A．Jaya Jaitly is a short-sighted politician and economist. |
| B．Advances in Internet technology cost potters their jobs. |
| C．Clay cups were first introduced in Indian railway stations. |
| D．Potters were employed at stations to get financial support. |
| A．It raises their monthly income. |
| B．It offers new cooking devices to them. |
| C．It standardizes the size of clay cups for them. |
| D．It provides funds for them to upgrade their devices. |
| A．Put the cart before the horse. |
| B．Treat the foot when the foot hurts. |
| C．Stop the boiling by taking off the fire. |
| D．Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. |
【推荐2】Today I would like to give you a powerful technique that you can use to become outstanding.
This technique is called anchoring, which has its roots in Pavlovian behavior modification. You remember Pavlov. He was the Russian scientist who made dogs salivate (分泌唾液) by ringing a bell.
Here's how he did it: He would start by ringing a bell while letting dogs smell meat powder. They would salivate from smelling the meat powder. Eventually, he only needed to ring a bell and this alone caused the dogs to salivate. The dogs had associated the bell with hunger. The bell was an anchor for salivation. Pretty simple, huh?
It is possible to apply this same basic technique to almost any problem. Now let's take a look at how Pavlov's discovery can help you to feel powerful and confident.
Here is how positive anchoring works: Step l. Think of three times in your life when you felt very powerful and write them down; Step 2. Stand alone in a room and think of the first situation. Recall it in full color with sound and anything else that could make it real to you; Step 3. At the moment when you feel fully back in that moment, slap (拍击) your left shoulder with your right hand and say, “Power!”; Step 4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each of the three memories.
Remember, you want to anchor each feeling by slapping your shoulder when you feel the memory at its most intense moment.
Now that you have created an anchor, you can “fire it off” as needed. The next time you are in a situation requiring confidence, slap your left shoulder with your right hand and say, “Power!” Just as sure as Pavlov's dogs salivated when they heard that bell, you will gain full confidence because now your mind associates confidence with that slap and the word “power”!
Occasionally feeling a lack of confidence is a normal part of being human. Having an effective strategy for immediately turning this into confidence is a normal part of being outstanding.
1. When did Pavlov ring a bell in the beginning of his experiment?| A．When the dogs stopped salivating. |
| B．When the dogs stopped smelling meat powder. |
| C．When the dogs were smelling meat powder. |
| D．When the dogs were salivating. |
| A．Any of the situations. | B．The first situation. |
| C．The time you say “Power!” | D．The time you stand alone in a room. |
| A．Repeat of steps 1-3. | B．The three memories. |
| C．Your right hand. | D．The slap and the word “power”. |
| A．To refresh memories. | B．To remain confident. |
| C．To solve a problem. | D．To get an anchor. |
The consumer electronics industry came unbuttoned in Las Vegas this week. At the annual Consumer Electronics Show, companies from around the world unveiled many devices boasting (以拥有…而自豪) touch – sensitive technology, rather than traditional push-button controls.
Motorola, Sony, and LG Electronics all showed off touch-screen phones this week. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates praised and offered a touch-screen computer, the Surface, related to a flat panel TV for a tabletop. Even camera makers, such as Kodak，included touch-screen LCDs in their devices. Touch-screen tech has been in use for years，but the push to develop and weave it into consumer electronics gathered steam with the June introduction of Apple’s iPhone. “The touch-screen industry is really getting hot,” says Jennifer Colegrove, a senior analyst at iSuppli. “Since the iPhone came out, there are a lot of companies that did not have a relationship with touch screens before that decided, ‘OK, I want to make a touch screen, too.’”
The touch－screen tech ecosystem now includes more than 100 companies specializing in everything from smudge-proof (防污的) screens to sensors (传感器) able to detect fingers before they even contact the screen. Sales of leading touch-screen technologies，such as those used in mobile phones and navigation (航行) devices，are expected to rise to $ 4.4 billion in 2012, up from $ 2.4 billion in 2006，according to iSuppli estimates.
1. What did the writer think about the Apple iPhone？
| A．The Apple iPhone was beautiful. |
| B．The Apple iPhone was popular. |
| C．The Apple iPhone was expensive. |
| D．The Apple iPhone was attractive. |
| A．Invented. | B．Unlocked. |
| C．Discovered. | D．Showed. |
| A．traditional push-button controls |
| B．Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates |
| C．the introduction of Apple’s iPhone |
| D．the touch-screen tech ecosystem |
| A．The touch-screen technology will disappear. |
| B．The touch-screen technology will be replaced by traditional push-button controls. |
| C．The touch-screen technology will be as important as traditional push-button controls. |
| D．The touch-screen technology will be more widely used in electronics devices. |
【推荐1】If a shopper clicks “buy” for a product that costs $1,000 or more, it’s twice as likely to be a man than a woman. That’s one of the results revealed in a new NPR/ Marist poll about online shopping.
The poll found that 27 percent of online shoppers —regardless of gender — have bought big-ticket items ($1,000 or more). It’s the evolution of digital commerce from the Webs early days in the 1990s, when people worried about giving out their credit card information and whether products would even arrive. Today, many shoppers are willing to make even their most cherished and expensive purchases online, such as musical instruments, a diamond engagement ring……
Speed and convenience are two factors why many men eagerly make major purchases online, said Americus Reed Il, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “What the research has shown is that men go to the store quickly, gather as much information as they can quickly and just buy it online, particularly because it’s just faster, Reed said. Other factors may also explain the discrepancy between men and women. On average, men have higher incomes. They also tend to be early adopters when it comes to technology, according to Sucharita Kodali, an e-commerce analyst with the research firm Forrester.
Bateman said that, early on, men lagged behind women in making fashion purchases online, but that’s changing. And the retailer’s analysis shows that click and buy is their customers’ method of choice. “We know that 65 percent of their fashion shopping is done online,” Bateman said. “That’s a phenomenal figure because that really defines them as being more digital creatures than physical in the shopping sense.”
1. What can we infer from the second paragraph?| A．The most expensive purchases occur online. |
| B．Online shopping was not popular in the 1990s. |
| C．Today the majority of the people tend to buy online. |
| D．Most online shoppers have bought big-ticket items. |
| A．Why men tend to purchase online. |
| B．What kinds of purchases will be done by men. |
| C．Important causes for advanced shopping online. |
| D．Factors for women to buy expensive items online. |
| A．Similarity. | B．Responsibility. |
| C．Distinction. | D．Sense. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Objective. |
| C．Satisfied. | D．Disappointed. |
【推荐2】Over 400 human footprints preserved in volcanic sediment （沉淀物）provide a sign at social life among ancient hunter-gatherers. The impressions, found in northern Tanzania, add up to Africa's largest collection of ancient human footprints, say evolutionary biologist Kevin Hatala of Chatham University in Pittsburgh and colleagues. People walked across a muddy layer of volcanic ashes dating to between 19,100 and 5,760 years ago, the researchers reported on May 14 in Scientific Reports. Dating of a thin rock layer that partly overlaps （重 叠）the sediment narrows the footprints' age to about 12,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Hatala's team analyzed footprint sizes, distances between prints and which way prints pointed. One collection of tracks was made by 17 people walking southwest. Comparisons with modern prints suggest that this group consisted of fourteen women, two men and one young boy. The women may have been searching for foods while a few males visited or accompanied them, the researchers infer. Some present-day hunter-gatherers form lately female food-gathering groups.
The study is "a nice piece of work”, although it's hard to specify what people were doing, says geologist Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University in Poole, England.
Many more sets of footprint tracks would be needed to argue convincingly that hunter-gatherers at that time had female food-gathering groups, Bennett says. And it would still be unknown if the women were gathering plants or hunting prey. Other footprint sites present especially promising opportunities for studying ancient behavior, he says. He is involved in work in New Mexico that has uncovered tens of thousands of footprints of humans and other creatures from more than 10,000 years ago. Early results suggest that humans there hunted giant sloths （树 獭）.Bennett expects those prints will yield more insights into Stone Age hunting.
1. What does the underlined word "impressions” in the first paragraph mean?| A．Thoughts about people or things. | B．Collections of volcanic ashes. |
| C．Marks left by creatures or something. | D．Behaviors of imitating someone- |
| A．Ancient hunters were socially organized. |
| B．Ancient male hunters were admired by females. |
| C．Female food-gathering groups were obviously formed. |
| D．Males played a more important role in finding food than females. |
| A．The females gathered plants or hunted prey in the Stone Age. |
| B．The footprint tracks have proved female food-gathering groups existed. |
| C．The footprint sites provide a good chance to further study ancient behavior |
| D．The footprints will hardly influence our understanding of Stone Age hunting. |
| A．How Ancient Hunters Gathered Food |
| B．What Ancient Hunan Footprints Were Like |
| C．What Ancient Human Footprints Tell Us |
| D．How Ancient Food-Gathering Groups Cooperated |
【推荐3】Until recently, several lines of evidence — from fossils genetics, and archaeology — suggested that humans first moved from Africa into Eurasia (the land of Europe and Asia) about 60,000 years ago, quickly replacing other early human species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, that they may have met along the way.
However, a series of recent discoveries, including 100,000-year-old human teeth found in a cave in China, have clouded this straightforward statement. And the latest find, a prehistoric jawbone at the Misliya Cave in Israel dating back to nearly 200,000 years ago, which is almost twice as old as any Homo sapiens (智人) remains discovered outside Africa, where our species was thought to have originated from, has added new and unexpected twist.
The find suggests that there were multiple waves of migration across Europe and Asia and could also mean that modern humans in the Middle East were interacting, and possibly mating, with other human species for tens of thousands of years. “Misliya breaks the mould (模式) of existing assumptions of the timing of the first known Homo sapiens in these regions,” said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. “It’s important in removing long-lasting-constraint (限制) on our thinking.”
Prof. Hershkovitz, who led the work at Tel Aviv University said, “What Misliya tells us is that modern humans left Africa not 100,000 years ago, but 200,000 years ago. This is revolution in the way we understand the evolution of our own species.” He also added that the record now indicates that humans probably travelled beyond the African continent whenever the climate allowed it. “I don’t believe there was one big departure from Africa,” he said. “I think that throughout hundreds of thousands of years humans were coming in and out of Africa all the time.”
The discovery means that modern humans were potentially meeting and interacting during a longer period with other ancient human groups, providing more opportunity for cultural and biological exchanges. It also raises interesting questions about the fate of the earliest modern human pioneers. Genetic data from modern-day populations around the world strongly suggest that everyone outside Africa can trace their ancestors back to a group that left around 60,000 years ago. So, the inhabitants of the Misliya Cave are probably not the ancestors of anyone alive today, and scientists can only guess why their branch of the family tree came to an end.
1. What does the underlined word “they” refer to in Paragraph 1?| A．Early human species living in Europe. |
| B．Neanderthals and Denisovans. |
| C．People first moving from Africa into Eurasia. |
| D．Ancient people living in Africa all the time. |
| A．Our ancestors were powerful and kind of aggressive. |
| B．Our ancestors left Africa much earlier than thought. |
| C．The origins of modern humans are from Europe. |
| D．Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans once lived together. |
| A．Climate was a big factor in human migration from Africa. |
| B．There was a large-scale human migration from Africa. |
| C．Human migration was occasional in Africa 200,000 years ago. |
| D．The Misliya find is against our understanding of human evolution. |
| A．They were ancestors of people living in China. |
| B．They left evidence for their mysterious disappearance in history. |
| C．They probably contributed little to present-day people genetically. |
| D．They could be traced by their remains left on their travelling route. |
【推荐1】I used to think the whole purpose of life was pursuing happiness. Everyone said the path to happiness was success, so I searched for that ideal job, that perfect boyfriend, and that beautiful apartment. But instead of ever feeling fulfilled, I felt anxious and lost. Eventually. I decided to go to graduate school for positive psychology to learn what truly makes people happy.
And what's the difference between being happy and having meaning in life? Many psychologists describe happiness as a state of comfort and ease, feeling good in the moment. Meaning, though, is deeper. The famous psychologist Martin Seligman says meaning comes from belonging to and serving something beyond yourself and from developing the best within you. Our culture is obsessed with happiness, but I came to see that seeking meaning is the more fulfilling path.
There are four pillars of a meaningful life.
The first pillar is belonging. Belonging comes from being in relationships where you're valued for who you are and where you value others as well. For many people, belonging is the most essential source of meaning.
For others, the key to meaning is the second pillar: purpose. Finding your purpose is not the same thing as finding that job that makes you happy. A doctor told me her purpose is healing sick people. Many parents tell me, “My purpose is raising my children.” The key to purpose is using your strengths to serve others. Without something worthwhile to do, people flounder, thus losing the aim of life.
The third pillar of meaning is also about stepping beyond yourself, but in a completely different way: transcendence (超然). Transcendent experiences can change you. Transcendent states are those rare moments when you're lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life, your sense of self fades away, and you feel connected to a higher reality. For me, I’m a writer, and it happens through writing. Sometimes I get so in the zone that I lose all sense of time and place.
The fourth pillar is storytelling, the story you tell yourself about yourself. Creating a narrative from the events of your life brings clarity. It helps you understand how you became you. But we don’t always realize that we're the authors of our stories and can change the way we’re telling them. Your life isn't just a list of events. You can edit, interpret and retell your story, even as you're constrained by the facts.
That’s the power of meaning. Happiness comes and goes. But when life is really good and when things are really bad, having meaning gives you something to hold on to.
1. What can we know from the first two paragraphs？| A．Life might be fulfilled by landing ideal jobs． |
| B．Life dilemma is challenging for us to get out of． |
| C．Meaning is highly valued in our culture． |
| D．Happiness is what most people try to achieve． |
| A．Confused | B．Distracted |
| C．Disappointed | D．Saddened |
| A．Belonging | B．Purpose |
| C．Transcendence | D．Storytelling |
| A．meaning is superior to happiness |
| B．meaning is the way to success |
| C．chasing meaning can make people happy |
| D．meaning has deeper psychological significance |
【推荐2】Along with soccer, basketball is a global sport. As you read this. young people somewhere in the world are happily passing, dribbling(运球) and shooting. It’s enormous fun and a joyful way to spend time with others.
Basketball is a game for everyone. Unlike golf or tennis. it doesn't require great wealth or a lot of space to play. After all, not many people have a golf course-sized backyard. and tennis equipment is expensive. Basketball, by contrast, just needs a wall with a hoop and a ball.
So after its invention by Canadian-American physical educator James Naismith in 1891, the sport took off within US citizens, who quickly became attracted to the game because it suited their circumstances. Today, 127 years later, basketball remains one of the most popular sports in the US, and the National Basketball Association (NBA)has an increasing appeal for fans around the world.
The success of basketball as global phenomenon is undoubtedly related to the way African-Americans play the game.” The basketball court reflected some of the major cultural shifts in America, such as from forbidding African-Americans to play basketball to allowing them to play in the NBA, "the LIVESTRONG website noted.
From the 1950s onwards, segregation rules, which had prohibited African-Americans from playing basketball in NBA games, were no longer used in the US. In 1950, when Earl Lloyd started to play for the Washington Capitols, things began to change. Since then, most of the greats of the game have been African-Americans, like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
It's not difficult to see that there's a strong link between political liberation and basketball. Something of this is expressed in a quote from the US author John Edgar Wideman. He makes a connection between basketball and hope:" When it's' played the way it's supposed to be played. basketball happens in the air; flying, floating, raised above the floor, letting the oppressed(受压制的) people of this earth imagine themselves in their dreams.”
1. What advantage does basketball have over golf or tennis, according to the author?| A．It can be played everywhere. |
| B．It doesn't cost much. |
| C．It doesn't require too much skill. |
| D．It interests almost everyone. |
| A．The sport was created by a PE teacher. |
| B．The sport was not popular with people at first. |
| C．Its rules have been changed a lot to suit new circumstances. |
| D．The NBA. with a history of 127 Years. attracts people worldwide |
| A．explain the origin and rules of NBA games in the 1950s |
| B．prove the popularity of basketball among African-Americans |
| C．stress the success African-Americans in basketball |
| D．show how racial integration took place in basketball |
| A．Basketball is sometimes a useful tool for politicians. |
| B．American people usually have a basketball dream. |
| C．Basketball stands for the freedom and hopes of people. |
| D．Political oppression is a serious problem in the US. |
【推荐3】Get Your Unlimited Card at Cineworld Cinemas
Enjoy Unlimited Films
Watch all the films you want at any Cineworld for just one monthly price. Being an Unlimited card holder gives you access to all the 2D films you can handle for one monthly price. Watch what you want, when you want, as many times as you want. Plus, save money when watching films in 3D and others. After you’ve been with us for more than 1 year we’ll upgrade you to a Premium Card and you’ll get into 3D films completely free too! Start enjoying today by using a temporary pass while you wait for your card to arrive in the post.
Save On Snacks And Drinks
Get 10% off all in-cinema food and drink. Plus get 10% off at Cineworld Starbucks licensed stores. First year card holders get 10% off. Whilst Premium card holders get 25% off Cine world’s in-cinema food and drinks including, all drinks, popcorn, nachos, hotdogs, ice cream, pick n mix and much more. Plus all card holders get 10% discounts at Cineworld Starbucks licensed stores. All you need to do is show your card at the counter and your discount will be applied.
Recommend A Friend
Unlimited members can get free months of membership when they recommend Unlimited to their friends!
Recommend Unlimited to your friends and we’ll give you free months of membership to say thank you. For every friend that signs up using your unique Recommend a Friend code you will both receive one month’s free membership once they have been an active Unlimited member for 90 days. The free month will be automatically added to the end of your current subscription. You can earn a maximum of 12 Free Months with your Recommend a Friend code, so recommend Unlimited to 12 friends and you could get a full year of free Unlimited cinema!
1. The cinema names its membership card “Unlimited” because __________.| A．one can have the benefits for good upon joining the membership |
| B．Cineworld members can enjoy as many 2D and 3D films as they like for free |
| C．it frees a member from any regular payment to the movie tickets at Cineworld |
| D．card holders can share limitless discounts and offers with friends and relatives |
| A．The benefits above are not available until the card is delivered. |
| B．Premium card holders can have 25% off at a licensed Starbucks. |
| C．Whoever persuades 6 friends into Unlimited can enjoy a half year of free membership. |
| D．A second year of investment is worthwhile if you are a cinema goer. |
| A．secure the loyalty of potential customers |
| B．introduce the latest movies and discounts |
| C．promote the popularity of Cineworld cinemas |
| D．give away movie cards to readers for free |
