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阅读理解 |
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III Reading Comprehension 阅读理解 |
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Uncle Harold is a changed man. For years he has bored aunt Grace with his expressions of regret at missing opportunities, particularly bargains he has failed to take advantage of. When he wanted to buy something, he would think of the buying over and over again. He would find it hard to make up his mind. “You remember that old chest,” he would say to her, “I wish I’d bought it. It would have been worth twice as much now.” Aunt Grace’s usual answer was a sigh, though it was never clear whether she was agreeing with her husband’s sense of loss, or whether she was silently saying, “I wish you would stop going on what might have been.” However, Uncle Harold clearly suffered a change of heart last month. He returned from a furniture sale where he had bought nearly everything in sight. “I realized,” he told Aunt Grace, “how often I’ve regretted not receiving a bargain when I saw one. So now I’ ve taken a bold（大胆的）step.” He showed her a Victorian sofa, a rocking chair, a stuffed bird in a glass case, a damaged coffee table, and three vases. She sighed.
For the past weeks Uncle Harold has been moving round the house speaking to himself, “I wish I’d never seen that sofa”, “If only I hadn’t bought that coffee table”, and “Had I known that damned bird was going to be watching me…” Perhaps he isn’t a changed man, after all. Certainly Aunt Grace sighs as much as ever.
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Man always wanted to fly. For hundreds of years they watched birds flying and wished that they could fly too. Birds fly very easily. They beat (打) the air with their wings (翅膀) and climb up through the air. The air keeps them up.
Man knew how to make kites hundreds of years ago. Kites could stay in the air for many hours. “If birds and kites can stay up in the air, perhaps we can,” they thought.
At first they made wings like birds. Then they jumped off high buildings and tried to fly. Many men did this but they failed to fly. Can you guess which way? They tried balloons (气球). “Hot air is lighter than cold air,” they said. “That is why hot air goes upwards. If we fill a balloon with hot air, it will go upwards.”
It was time for man to fly. In October 1783 another of the brothers’ balloons went up. This time a man went with it. The balloon did not rise very far. It went only to twenty-five metres. It was tied to the ground by a rope (绳子). A month later two men went up in a balloon full of hot air. This time there was no rope. A great group of people watched. The balloon rose to the height (高) of 900 metres. Then it came slowly back to earth. Men had traveled through the air for the first time.
Later, airships were made and they were filled with a gas (气体) called hydrogen. But the hydrogen gas was dangerous. It caught fire very easily. At last they stopped making airships.
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A star usually is someone who has become famous in sports, film, or pop music, someone like singer Michael Jackson. In the middle nineteen eighties, Michael Jackson successfully made a famous record, which quickly became the most popular recording in the history of music. This made Michael Jackson a bright star.
One of the famous sports bright stars in the United States is Mohammed Ali. When he was a young man, he won a gold medal in the Olympic Games as a boxer. Then, he won first place in the world heavy weight boxing match. Before long, he was known as one of the greatest and most famous boxers in sports history. Everyone knows his name.
Like the stars in the sky, a bright star will lose his brightness as lime passes. He is loved by millions of people today, but will be forgotten tomorrow. | |
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Do you remember the long hot summers of your childhood, when the sun kept on shining from breakfast until bedtime? Thinking back over the years, it seems that sweets used to be sweeter, girls used to be prettier, and people were in the habit of being nicer to each other than today. Or, perhaps like many others, you have revisited a place after several years only to be disappointed. The classrooms of your old school, which used to swallow you up as a child are now small; the corridors（走廊）, which would once stretch away into the distance are now covered in a few long steps; the high school fence, that went on rising almost to the sky, is now no higher or more frightening than others.
Why is this so?
Psychologists say that we tend to remember the pleasant things, rather than the unpleasant, so we have forgotten the colder days of our childhood, along with the less attractive sweets and people. It is also possible that we live in a different world; surely the manufacturer of the favorite ice-cream of our youth must have changed his recipe (配料) over the years. Certainly, we ourselves have changed in growing up. We are nearer to the top of the fence than we used to be, and we take longer steps down the same corridor.
I suppose I must accept the evidence of the weather records that the summers are no colder than they used to be. I am afraid I have to admit that my old school has not become smaller. But I am not willing to admit that my first love was not the most beautiful girl in the world. If only I had not thrown away her photograph!
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