There are two sides to their work. They actually do most of the things you see on the screen.
For example, they fall from a high building. However, they do not fall on to hard ground but on to empty cardboard boxes covered with a mattress. Again, when they hit one another with chairs, the chairs are made of soft wood and when they crash through windows, the glass is made of sugar!
But although their work depends on trick of this sort, it also requires a high degree of skill
and training. Often a stunt man‘s success depends on careful timing. For example, when he is "blown up" in a battle scene, he has to jump out of the way of the explosion just at the right moment.
Naturally stuntmen are well-paid for their work, but they lead dangerous lives. They often get seriously injured, and sometimes killed. A Norwegian stuntman, for example, skied over the edge of a cliff a thousand feet high. His parachute failed to open—and he was killed.
In spite of all the risks, this is no longer a profession for ―men only‖. Men no longer dress up
as women when actresses have to perform some dangerous action. For nowadays there are ―stunt girls‖ too！
Task 4:
【答案】
1) He started writing poetry when he was about 14 or 15.
2) He has published four books.
3) His first book came out when he was about 26. It wasn‘t easy. He got a lot of his work rejected at first.
4) The British, or at least the English, are embarrassed by it. They‘re embarrassed by people who reveal personal feelings, emotions, thoughts and wishes.
【原文】
When Thomas Edison was born in the small town of Milan, Ohio, in 1847, America was just
beginning its great industrial development. In his lifetime of eighty-four years, Edison shared in the excitement of America‘s growth into a modern nation. The time in which he lived was an age of invention, filled with human and scientific adventures, and Edison became the hero of that age.
As a boy, Edison was not a good student. His parents took him out of school and his mother
taught him at home, where his great curiosity and desire to experiment often got him into trouble. When he was six, he set fire to his father‘s barn ―to see what would happen.‖ The barn burned down.
When he was ten, Edison built his own chemistry laboratory. He sold sandwiches and
newspapers on the trains in order to earn money to buy supplies for his laboratory. His parents became accustomed, more or less, to his experiments and the explosions which sometimes shook the house.
Edison‘s work as a sales boy with the railroad introduced him to the telegraph and, with a
很全的听力答案,还有听力原文
friend, he built his own telegraph set.
Six years later, in 1869, Edison arrived in New York City, poor and in debt. He went to work
with a telegraph company. It was there that he became interested in the uses of electricity.
Task 5:
【答案】
1815， 1914， 35million
I.
A. villages，seaport
B. danger，long ocean voyage
C. a new land，a new language
D. finding a place to live
II.
a better life，opportunity，freedom
III.
A. England, Germany, Russia, Hungary
B. Roman Catholic, Jewish
C. customs，languages
IV.
A. Americanized，disappeared.
B. haven't disappeared，customs，identities
V.
A. were cheated，prejudice，mistreated
B. hardest，least-paid，dirtiest，most overcrowded
D. rejected，old-fashioned，ashamed
overcome
【原文】
Thousands of people came to American cities before Blacks and Puerto Ricans did. Between
1815 and 1914, more than 35 million Europeans crossed the ocean to find new homes in the United States.
Most of these immigrants were ordinary people. Few were famous when they arrived. Few
became famous afterward. Most had lived in small villages. Few had ever been far outside them. Most of them faced the same kinds of problems getting to America: the hardship of going from their villages to a seaport, the unpleasantness—even danger—of the long ocean voyage, the strangeness of a new land, and of a new language, the problem of finding a place to live, of finding work in a new, strange country.
Every immigrant had his own reasons for coming to America. But nearly all shared one
reason: They hoped for a better life. They considered America a special place, a land of opportunity, a land of freedom.
Immigrants came from many different countries: England, Germany, Denmark, Finland[,
Russia, Italy, Hungary and many others.
They came with many different religions: Roman Catholic, Jewish, Quaker, Greek Orthodox.
They brought many different customs and many languages.
Some people have called the United States a "melting pot". After immigrants were here
awhile—in the melting pot—they became Americanized. Differences were "melted down". They