Anthony Horowitz was miserable (痛苦的) as a child.He was, as he puts it, "not very bright"
and couldn"t win the attention of his very wealthy parents, who preferred his "clever" older brother
.At age 8, Horowitz was sent away to an abusive (虐待的) boarding school in his native England,
even though he screamed and pleaded (恳求) with his parents year after year not to send him."The
thought was, "It"ll be good for him" ," Horowitz recalls (回忆).
It was not.Horowitz did badly in his studies, had few friends and was bullied (欺负) for five
years."My teachers couldn"t have had a lower opinion of me," he said."I wasn"t even smart enough
to rebel (反抗).One thing I remember from the very earliest age was this desire to write.When
I was 10 years old, I remember asking my parents to get me a typewriter for my birthday because
I wanted to be a writer."
Now, at 55, Horowitz is one of the world"s most successful children"s book authors.His Alex
Rider series has sold more than 5 million copies, and the eighth book featuring the young spy,
Crocodile Tears, came out this month.
The Alex Rider books tell the adventures of 14yearold Alex Rider, an agent for the British
intelligence agency MI6.
Horowitz said he doesn"t try to write for kids; it just comes out that way."I have a feeling it"s
to do with purity and simplicity.I give as little information as is necessary to describe the room,
the character in the room, and get on with the action," he said.
That style has also made Horowitz a successful writer of television shows for adults in Britain
because, he says, writing books for kids is a lot like writing television for grownups.In both cases,
it"s all about entertaining people with a good story.
Now, Horowitz couldn"t be happier with his life.He sums up his success: "…you can be anything
you want to be if you just believe in yourself.I do believe it completely."
B.Horowitz"s miserable childhood
C.Horowitz, a successful children"s writer
D.Horowitz"s special writing style
B.was paid more attention by his parents
C.couldn"t understand why he was sent to the boarding school
D.led a miserable life because of poverty
B.He benefited a lot from boarding school.
C.He emphasizes the plot rather than character in stories.
D.Although he is successful, he isn"t very happy.
B.Hardship teaches valuable lessons.
C.Interest is the best teacher.
D.Diligence is the parent of success.
played an energetic mixture of jazz and country songs. He was also an inventor.
The electric guitar and recording devices he created changed the sound of popular music and greatly
influenced rock and roll.
Les Paul is best known for creating one of the first solidbody electric guitars and the eighttrack
recording device. He also perfected new recording methods to give special effects to his music.
Les Paul was born Lester William Polfuss (POLLfuss)in 1915 in Waukesha, (WAHkuhshaw)Wisconsin. By the age of nine, he had taught himself to play the harmonica and had built a radio. He also learned to
play the guitar and banjo. He could not read music, but he could play music that he heard. And he had a
good sense of musical structure.
Les Paul was soon performing in country bands in the Midwest. He left high school to perform full time on radio shows. He performed using the names "The Wizard of Waukesha", "Hot Rod Red" and "Rhubarb Red". He also started playing music influenced by great jazz guitarists including Django Reinhardt.
By 1937, he had formed the Les Paul trio. He moved to New York City the next year. Les Paul played with many famous performers including the popular singer Bing Crosby.
Around 1941, Les Paul invented his famous guitar. He wanted to make an instrument that could play a note longer than notes played on a traditional acoustic guitar. He developed a new kind of electric guitar that had a solid body. On an acoustic guitar, the strings vibrate and the hollow part of the instrument, or the
sound box, also vibrates. Les Paul wanted an instrument in which only the strings vibrated.
In the 1970s, Les Paul made two records with the country guitarist Chet Atkins. One was called "
Chester and Lester". It won a Grammy Award in 1976. Starting in the early 1980s, Paul began playing in
jazz clubs in New York City. He kept on performing weekly until a few months before his death.
a. He moved to New York.
b. He had taught himself to play the harmonica.
c. He performed full time on radio shows.
d. He began playing in jazz clubs in New York City.
e. He invented his famous guitar.
B. bcade
C. bcdea
D. bcaed
B. in order of importance
C. by giving examples
D. by listing reasons
B. He is a lazy man.
C. He is a naughty man.
D. He is a crazy man.
B. He had no good sense of musical structure.
C. He could play and read music when he was a child.
D. He made two records with Chet Atkins in the 1970s.
lawmakers asked a fine artist, Graham Sutherland, to paint Winston Churchill"s picture. When it was
completed, it was presented to him, at a grand affair in the Westminster Hall, at the House of Commons (下议院).
There is a famous film that shows Churchill accepting the gift. He describes the painting as "a
remarkable example of modern art", which draws loud laughter.
In fact he must have been unhappy with the painting. Sutherland later reported that he asked whether
it was to be painted with a "happy" or "angry" attitude. "Angry," replied Churchill. At the time, Churchill
was coming to the end of his political life and was unhappy that people wanted him to end his career.
Some twenty years later it was revealed that Lady Churchill hated the painting so much that she had it
destroyed. "It was preying on (折磨) his mind," she was reported as saying.
A leading art critic was asked what he thought about the matter. He said he could understand Lady
Churchill and had pity on her. Graham Sutherland was a very honest artist, who could only paint what
he saw. At the time it was painted, Churchill was an old man, worried by the thought that he would have
to end his political career soon. But Lady Churchill shouldn"t have had the painting destroyed. It could
have been stored away until after their deaths.
B. To make Churchill happy.
C. To put it in the Westminster Hall.
D. To make Churchill unhappy.
B. In Churchill"s office.
C. In the Westminster Hall.
D. In a busy town square.
B. Because the painting did not look like him one little bit.
C. Because Lady Churchill was not happy with the painting.
D. Because he was so very sick and did not feel well at all.
B. Disapproval.
C. Anger.
D. Indifference.
books. His father was a lawyer, but a poor one, who lived at Florida, Missouri. The family was so
poor that Samuel did not receive much teaching. He had to learn all that he could from the people
whom he met. His father died when he was very young, and then there was even less money than
before.
Many of the men in this part of America worked in the ships on the great River Mississippi, and
he did this himself at one time (1857).
Where did he find the name "Mark Twain"? It came from the great river itself. It was part of one
of the cries used by men who worked in the ships. When a man called "By the mark twain!" he meant
that the river was "two marks deep" there, that is to say, six feet deep ( "Twain" is an old form of the
work "Two".) Samuel Clemens often heard these words when he was young, and he used them as a
penname all his life.
During his work on the Mississippi he met travelers of all kinds, and this helped him a great deal
when he started to write. But the number of travelers became smaller when war started in America in
1861. Many of the great ships on the river stopped work. Samuel left then and went to Nevada with
his brother, who was at that time Governor of Nevada. There, near the town of Carson, Samuel
became a gold miner, but he never made much money at the time. He soon saw that life in the gold
mines was not for him. He also tried writing for the newspapers in Nevada, and this seemed more
hopeful. He found that he could write.
He went to Europe in 1867 and visited France and Italy. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon,
and two years later he was spending nearly all his time writing. Among his books is his own story
(1908).
He is now always known as Mark Twain, and many people do not even know that his family
name was Clemens. He traveled in America and in England, and went to Oxford in 1907. He was
one of the great American writers of the time, and could make his readers laugh - a thing which few
writers can do. He died in 1910.
B. name of a book
C. a great river in America
D. a large ship
B. the family was very poor
C. he disliked school very much
D. he could learn what he liked from the people he met
B. The Mississippi river
C. All kinds of travelers he met
D. His brother
B. Samuel did not love writing at the beginning
C. his writings to the newspaper were successful
D. his brother encouraged him to write more
B. make a lot of money for his family
C. cause his readers to laugh
D. travel everywhere he wanted
acting while performing in plays at his high school. He later spent two years studying theater at
Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. But he left college to join the Army Air Forces during World War Two.
After the war, he found small roles in the theater as well as in television shows. His performance in a
television version of the book Jane Eyre caught the attention of the Hollywood producer Cecil B. DeMille who later asked Heston to play the role of Moses in his movie The Ten Commandments which came out in 1956. This role made Heston famous and defined (明确) his career as a hero and leader. His face and
body represented strength and heroism in many different roles. He played cowboys, soldiers and athletes.
The 1959 movie Ben Hur made Charlton Heston an even bigger star. Ben Hur won eleven Academy
Awards, including Best Actor for Charlton Heston. Heston starred in many adventure movies during the 1960s. In the 1970s, Heston appeared in popular disaster movies like Earthquake,. Skyjacked and Airport 1975.
Charlton Heston was also very active in the movie industry. He worked to help set up the American
Film Institute. In 1977 he was honored for his service in the industry. He received the Jean Hersholt
Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1997 he was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor. And, in 2003, President Bush gave Charlton Heston a Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the nation"s highest civilian honor.
In 2000, Charlton Heston issued a statement announcing that he had an Alzheimer"s disease. He died in 2008 at his home in Beverly Hills, California.
B. Cowboys.
C. Soldiers.
D. Athletes.
B. Earthquake.
C. Ben Hur.
D. The Ten Commandments
B. He used to be a soldier.
C. He was once awarded by Kennedy.
D. He won eleven Academy Awards.
B. How Charlton Heston began his career.
C. Who made Charlton Heston a popular star.
D. Who made Charlton Heston win so many awards.
February 22,1810, of a French father and a Polish mother. His father, Nicholas Chopin, was a French
tutor to many noble families, later accepting a position as a French teacher at
the Warsaw Lyceum.
Although Chopin later attended the Lyceum where his father taught , his early training began at home. This included receiving piano lessons from his mother. By the age of six, Chopin was creating original
pieces, showing remarkable musical ability. His parents arranged for the young Chopin to take piano
instruction from Wojciech Zywny. When Chopin was sixteen, he attended the Warsaw Conservatory of
Music, directed by composer Joseph Elsner. Elsner, like Zywny, insisted on the traditional training
associated with classical music but allowed his students to investigate more original imaginations of the
romantic style as well.
As often happened to the young musicians of both the Classical and Romantic Periods, Chopin was
sent to Vienna,the center of music that day. He gave piano concerts and then arranged to have his pieces
published by a Viennese publishing house there. While Chopin was in Austria,Poland and Russia were in
the apparent beginnings of war.He returned to Warsaw to get his things in preparation for a more
permanent move. While there, his friends gave him a silver goblet filled with Polish soil. He kept it always, as he was never able to return to his beloved Poland.
News of the war in Poland inspired Chopin to write many sad musical pieces expressing his grief for " his" Poland. Among these was the famous " Revolutionary Etude". As the war continued in Warsaw and
then reached Paris, Chopin retired to Scotland with friends. Although he
was far beyond the reach of the revolution, his attitude of sorrow did not improve and he sank deeper
into a depression. Likewise, his health did not regain either.
Chopin died at the age of 39 and was buried in Paris. His last request was that the Polish soil in the
silver goblet be cast over his grave.
B. Because the silver goblet was expensive.
C. Because the soil could be used in his experiments.
D. We don" t know the reason from the passage.
B. He liked the goblet very much.
C. He loved his motherland deeply.
D. He was interested in the soil in the goblet.
B. He hated his country so he left it.
C. He missed his motherland when he was abroad.
D. He enjoyed an active life.
B. Poland and Russia used to fight against with each other.
C. Chopin created his original pieces at the age of six.
D. Chopin died at an early age mainly because of his character.
- 1已知直线y=x+6与x轴,y轴围成一个三角形,则这个三角形面积为 _________ .
- 2理解下列句子的含义。(4分)(1)子曰:“士志于道,而耻恶衣恶食者,未足与议也。”(2分)(2)子温而厉,威而不猛,恭而
- 3到1962年底,国民经济形势开始好转,农民重新有了自留地,不少农村甚至开始了包产到户。上述现象的出现主要得益于 [
- 4There are many new bikes ____ for you in the shop. I think y
- 5已知,,,,则( )A.B.C.D.
- 6以小王家为坐标原点建立坐标系,向东为正,向北为正,小李家在小王家东方向,距离小王家四个单位长,则小李家的坐标为(
- 7下列词语中加点的字,每对读音都不相同的一项是( )A.颈圈/颈椎 镶嵌/攘外 翘首以待/翘楚B.沮丧/刀俎谒见/墓碣否
- 8Western people often eat ______ on Thanksgiving Day. [ ]
- 9世界贸易组织的英文缩写是( )A.WTOB.UNC.ASAND.OPEC
- 10Some families in the countryside were _____ poor _____ pay f
- 1在平面直角坐标系中,横坐标、纵坐标都为整数的点称为整点,请观察图中每一个正方形边上的整点的个数,解决下列问题:(1)请你
- 2当时,,(I)求;(II)猜想与的关系,并用数学归纳法证明.
- 3香港地形以山地丘陵为主,有著名的天然良港。结合图文信息回答1—2题。1、香港建港的有利自然条件是[ ]A.地平坡
- 4改革开放以来,我国南方地区经济强劲发展。追溯历史,阅读材料,回答问题。材料一:宋史记载:“国家根本,仰给东南。”材料二:
- 5书面表达。 山东泰山被联合国教科文组织命名为世界自然与文化遗产.假设外国朋友到你校参观后,准备去旅游.请根据
- 6在2008年北京奥运会上,俄罗斯著名撑杆跳运动员伊辛巴耶娃以5.05 m的成绩第24次打破世界纪录.如图所示为她在比赛中
- 7已知等腰三角形的一个角为102度,那么这个等腰三角形的底角等于______度.
- 8一定条件下的可逆反应:2SO2(g)+O2(g)2SO3(g),改变下列条件,可以提高反应物中的活化分子百分数的是 [
- 9中国式尊严冯 华近几年,大批富起来的中国游客蜂拥前往世界各地观光,你能在不同的陌生国度看到越来越多的中文警示牌:禁止随地
- 10【题文】(7分)读材料,完成下列各题。材料一 近年来,我国的攀岩运动发展迅速,某些城市充分利用其有利的自然条件迅速发展起