1 . How You Will Really Keep Your Eye on the Ball

A new way of electronically tracking the high-speed movement of a ball through the air could     1     change the way sport is televised.

A Wembley dentist, Michael Godin, has invented a way of following the path of the ball and then using a computer to make this much clearer on the screen.

His work began when one of his friends told him that squash (壁球) was not televised because the ball moved too jellyfish fast to be picked up by     2     (tradition) cameras. Using his dentistry     3     (equip), he made holes in the surface of a squash ball and filled them with reflective materials. When lights shine on the ball, it looks like a bright comet (彗星).

Godin is not a crazy sports fan, but he thinks a lot of televised sport is     4     (pleasant) because the ball cannot be clearly seen. “In golf，for example, the ball is so small that the only way they can make it     5     (vision) is to move the cameras in the same direction as the ball, so that the ball stays as a spot in the middle of the screen. You     6     (loss) the excitement of the speed of the ball and a sense of its relationship with its surroundings.”

Godin’s     7     (invent), a TAIP camera, removes the ball from the camera frame, electronically makes a new, stronger image and puts this on the screen-all in half a second. The computer can     8     (large) the ball to any size, paint it any colour, make it flash and even make it change colour against the background.

With this process,     9     (view) should be able to see a great deal of what goes on in ball games for which at present they have to use their     10     (imagine). In soccer, the path of the ball could be shown as a continuous line. And in tennis, the ball’s movements could be shown as one uninterrupted line, too.

2 . Directions: Read the text below. Use the word given in the brackets to form a word that fits in the space.

It was a rainy morning two years ago. Shirley Huxham was cycling     1    (gentle) downhill. As she waved to a friend, her bike slid uncontrollably on the wet road, throwing her to the ground. “I’d never even thought of buying a helmet,” she says. For months she was partly paralysed (瘫痪) down her left side and still has     2    (healthy) problems today.

Some might think that Shirley was just unlucky. How     3    (danger) can it be to fall from a bicycle? In fact, each year on Britain’s roads more than 200 people are killed and at least 4,000 seriously injured on bicycles. But these numbers don’t tell the whole story: the majority of the     4    (die) and injured were not wearing helmets.

A study of bicycle accidents in the US found that helmets could     5    (reduction) the risk of serious head injury by 85 percent. Yet it is estimated that in Britain, no more than five percent of bicycle     6    (ride) wear helmets. Why don’t more cyclists wear     7     (they)?

People think that helmets look foolish, that they’re     8    (convenient), and that accidents only happen to other people.

One of the wrong ideas bicyclists have is that lower speeds can put them at     9    (little) risk than motorcyclists, who are legally obliged to wear helmets. In fact, according to a British report, a higher percentage of bicyclists than motorcyclists suffer head injuries. And their injuries can be just as severe.

Helmets, however, can make a big     10    (different). Shirley wasn’t just unlucky. If she had worn a helmet, she wouldn’t have spent months in hospital. Why take the risk?

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Start with the end and work backwards

When Jason Hoelscher was an undergraduate of fine art studies, there weren’t any professional development classes. So ambition and the timely realization     1     he would have to determine “what’s next” on his own urged Jason to engage his future self to find direction. It was 1996, and he was finishing his BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art) in Denver. He was faced with the choice of sitting back to wait for something     2     (happen), or pursuing a path into the unknown. He chose the latter.

Jason set up a plan that in five years he     3     (show) his work in the top gallery in that area of the country. This five-year goal gave him a starting point     4     which to work backwards.

By setting the goal, all of Jason’s efforts     5     (point) in the same direction. He showed up at different art show openings, and researched as best he could to make     6     familiar with the market environment.

As a result of showing up, Jason took opportunities     7     got him closer to his goal. He sent work to a student show and was accepted by Robin Rule, the owner of Rule Gallery.     8     (inspire), Jason spent the next month making new work.

In April of 1997, Jason went back to Rule Gallery with his new work.     9     scared to death, he looked confident at the gallery meeting. When he left, he left as the newest addition to the rule gallery roster (花名册). He had his first exhibition there one year later.

Jason could have stopped with the show selection, but what he really wanted was gallery representation. He struck while the iron was hot, and in     10     (do) so, shortened his five-year plan into a year-and-a-half.