大学英语快速阅读教程(第一册第十五单元).doc

Book One

Unit Fifteen

Passage One

Directions: You will have 10 minutes to read this passage quickly and answer the following questions from A, B9 C and D. You should decide on the best choice.

The Steps of Knighthood

In the medieval times，many knights rode out to do battle. They made sieges （围攻）on other castles，and defended their own castles. But knights weren’t always so good at fighting. Knights had to pass long，hard，half boring hours of practice，practice，practice. First they had to be a page. If they did good they became a squire. If squires were worthy they were dubbed （授予称号）and became knights.

Pages

When a boy born by a knight turns six or seven he is sent from his home to a nearby castle. There he is trained by the lord of the castle to become a knight. He is a page. A page helps his lord dress and put on armor. He plays many training games that include wrestling，piggy-back wrestling，sword practice with blunt wooden swords and tiny round shields called bucklers, and lance practice on a rolling log pulled by two other pages toward a quintain （A quintain is a target on one end of a swinging board. On the other end is a bag full of sand. When the lance hits the target the rider has to duck or the bag of sand will strike him on the back or the head.）. A page rarely ever learned how to read or write because it wasn’t thought to be very knightly. The ladies of the castle taught him table manners. The page waited on his lord and lady. It was his duty and privilege to accompany his lord and lady at all times. Whe n his lord’s armor was rusty，the page rolled the armor in a barrel of sand so that the rust was gone. He was taught to be quick，graceful， and flexible. He received religious training from the chaplain （牧师）? He sometimes received training-in-arms from the squires.

Squires

If the page showed promise，then at the age of fourteen，he became a squire. A squire is a Knight’s personal servant. In battle，a squire would bring his knight replacements of lances，swords, horses，or any item lost or damaged in battle. The squire had to become accustomed to heavy armor. A squire played games with real weapons against real knights! The squire learned to ride his war horse while keeping his weapon arm free. While he was a squire，he was allowed to carry a sword and a shield，which showed what rank he had achieved. The squire was taught not to kill many knights. Most knights held other knights for ransom. If he got through all of that，he was knighted or “dubbed”. Before a squire was dubbed，he did lots of things in preparation. First, he prayed all night. He prayed without sleeping or eating. When morning came，he would take a nice， warm bath. Then he put on a special padded vest and hood so that his armor did not hurt him. Then he would have a page help him put on chain mail armor or plate armor. Then the almost knighted squire would put on a white tunic. The tunic was white because white is the color of peace. He knelt before his lord. Then his lord would slap him with his hand or the flat of the sword. As his lord was doing that，his lord would say，“I dub thee Sir Knight.” Then the new knight would

receive his sword，lance, and golden spurs. Each of the weapons had a good meaning. The lance had a saying. It was said，“As fear of the lance drives back the unarmed, so the knight drives b ack the enemies of the church.” As for the sword, it was said that，“The two edges of the sword show that the knight serves God and the people.” Then the knight was free to wander. He usually rode off on quests of adventure. He either stopped by the road and challenged any knight that passed by or he did battle for a lady in need.

Knights existed between the year 800 A.D. and the year 1450 A.D. Knights were a great means of fighting until guns and cannons replaced them. Now knights have become almost a legend. Today we see knights in movies or books as a group of strong men who killed dragons and rescued princesses. If you want to learn more about what knights actually did，go to a library near you and you may be surprised to find a large selection of non-fiction books about knights that are more exciting than you ever dreamed!

(749 words) Questions

1.If you want to be a knight，you should be a _______ first.

A)fighter B) page C) squire D) hero

2.The training games a page plays are various except ___________ .

A)piggy-back wrestling

B)sword practice with blunt wooden swords

C)siege on a castle

D)lance practice on a rolling log pulled by two other pages toward a quintain

3.Before a squire was dubbed，first he should __________ .

A) have a nice and warm bath B) have a delicious meal

C) pray all night D) fight with another squire and win

4.The almost knighted squire would put on a white tunic. The tunic was white because ______ .

A) it is clean and beautiful B) it is a symbol of holiness

C) it is a symbol of purism D) it is a symbol of peace

5.During his adventure，a knight might _______________ .

A)challenge another knight and help the lady in need

B)kill dragons

C)rescue princesses

D)become a king

Passage Two

Directions: In this part, you will have 10 minutes to go over the passage quickly and decide questions 1-9 according t o the passage. If it is true you fill “T” in the parenthesis, if

not or false fill “F” in parenthesis before the sentence.

How to Create a Beautiful Organic Garden!

The leap from gardening with chemical fertilizers and pesticides to truly organic gardening can feel like a leap of faith. I came to this point of view gradually，as I work in the green industry，which is just starting to recognize the benefits of organic products. What I have learned along the way is Nature takes care of her own.

It’s all about the Soil.

How do we go about getting living soil for our plants? Mother Nature supplies nutrients from decaying matter be it plant，animal or even mineral. The Northeastern Native Americans used to pile their kitchen garbage，fish leavings. This half composted（施堆月巴）material would be spread on the fields in late fall and left to finish over the winter. But this does illustrate my first point. This is not rocket science; it is Nature doing what it does. Without Man in the picture, this process is still going to go on，so there is almost no way to go wrong here. Organic is easy.

Here are the first steps to take.

The most important step in going organic is replacing salt based，water soluble nitrogen with carbon-based solid nitrogen. The sooner we get your little junkies; I mean plants，off that stuff the better. Now our soil isn’t back to full health yet, so what can we use to support our plants and help to build good soil? Let’s look at that native recipe again.

Blood would be one of their kitchen leavings and it is one of the best sources of nitrogen in organic form （Bat guano is better，but not as available as blood meal） Bone meal is another excellent source of nutrition as it’s almost a third phosphate （憐酸盐）and wood ashes will round out the picture by supplying potassium （i:甲）.You can also use things like fermented （发酵的）fish oil to supplement our soil amendments （改善）? How much to use? Follow the package directions， but be assured there is very little chance of messing this up; short of burying your plants under piles of the stuff，the lower assays （诚验）of natural products make them much safer for your plants...

Let’s take a look at caring for those plant roots.

So we need to start building soil for these little roots to live in. Where to start? How does Mother Nature handle it? Oh yeah，decaying matter. Like what? Like leaves，chopped up twigs （not sticks，twigs）, banana peels，coffee grounds （they make organic compostible filters now!），vegetable peelings，garden cuttings, grass clippings, wood shavings or sawdust （锯屑）；just about anything that doesn’t have fat or meat and isn’t too big to turn over in a season. In short a lot of things you have been throwing away. So we are trading in things that cost you money for things you are throwing away, which brings me to my second point; Organic is cheaper. Organic is easy; organic is better!

Back to the Compost Pile!

How do we break it down? The old fashioned way is a compost pile, and that’s how most of mine gets made. The trick here is a layer of greens, a layer of browns, a layer of greens a layer of

browns，building our pile layer by later. Most of my pile is:

leaves (browns)

and grass (greens)

Vegetable peelings? Greens. Wood shavings? Browns. Coffee grounds? Browns (okay，that’s harder，but you get the idea).

Fluffy (蓬松的)compost piles

Now here comes the hard part; once a week during warm weather you have to turn the pile to aerate (使暴露于空气中)it. The fungi (真菌)breaking down the material are air breathers，and the ONLY way to screw up compost is to let it go anaerobic (airless). Then the little creatures die and the only things that continue to populate your compost are anaerobic bacteria. In about 14 weeks you will have dark, crumbly compost for your garden...

Oh，and there f s also the easy way

Can’t wait that long? Back hurts and you can’t turn that big pile? Ah，the compost tumbler (平底玻璃杯)is for you. I have my big pile，but I also use the tumbler to finish small batches quickly.

Just give it a spin (旋转)(daily is great，but every time you wander by in the garden will do it) and you can cut the time to 7-8 weeks，and no sore back. They can be pricey but worth every penny in the long run, so don't skimp or you’ll just be back for a bigger, shinier model once the bug bites. Composting does not get easier than this."so we have compost and fertilizer.

(769 words) True or False

( )1. Nature can only decay plant and animal to supply nutrients.

( )2. Blood’s almost a third phosphate and wood ashes will supply potassiurru

( )3. We should use as much as organic materials to our garden for its best growth.

( )4. The old fashioned way to break down organic is a compost pile.

( )5. In the author’s eyes，vegetable peelings are Greens and Coffee grounds are Browns, he layered them to break them down easily.

( )6. We should make the compost piles fluffy, for the fungi breaking down the material breathe air.

( )7. You can get perfect compost for your garden in about three and half months.

( )8. You can use a glass container which will help you shorten time and have no sore back.

Passage Three

Direction: In this part，you’ll have 15 minutes to read the passage quickly and answer the questions followed. For questions 7-7, mark Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the

information given in the passage. N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information

given in the passage; NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.

For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.

How Do Homing Pigeons Find Home?

Science seems to be getting closer to answering a very old mystery. Homing pigeons can be taken hundreds of miles from their homes. When they are let go to fly again，they find their way home. Because of this special ability to find home，pigeons have been used as messengers for hundreds of years.

Today people even breed homing pigeons for racing as a sport. The birds are shipped to some chosen place a few hundred miles away. Then all of them are let go together. The winner is the bird that gets home first. A good racer can make it home from 500 miles away in a single day.

The mystery of the homing pigeon is in how it navigates and how it finds home. It may be taken away in a covered-up cage，even a cage that is turned round and round to purposely mix up any sense of direction. To get home, it must fly over country that it has never seen before.

Suppose this were to happen to you? What would you need to find your way home (besides a good pair of legs)? I think I would ask for a compass, which always points north，to help find direction. I would also want a map. If a map shows where I am and where my home is，then I can use the compass to point me in the direction toward home. What we are talking about shows the two parts of the problem of the homing pigeon. Much of the study of homing pigeons leads to the idea that pigeons need the same kinds of information. They need to know how to tell direction and they need something like a map to tell which direction is toward home.

The first part seems to be pretty well answered, and we know of two ways that pigeons tell direction. First, they use the sun. Just getting rough directions from the sun is easy. It rises somewhere toward the east and sets somewhere toward the west. Getting accurate directions from the sun takes more care. You need to pay attention to the time of year. Then you need to watch the path of the sun closely at each hour of the day. To tell direction accurately from the sun, a person needs to know the exact time.

All plants and animals that have been studied carefully (including the human) seem to have built-in clock，as they are called, usually are not quite exact in measuring time. However，they work pretty well because they are “reset” each day, maybe when the sun comes up.

Naturally，people have wondered whether pigeons might have a built-in compass--- something that would tell them about the direction of the earth’s magnetic (有磁,性白〈J) field. One way to test that idea would be to see if a pigeon’s sense of direction can be fooled by a magnet attached to its back. With a strong magnet close by，anything like a magnetic compass can no longer tell about the earth’s weak magnetic field.

To test the idea，one group of ten pigeons had strong little bar-magnets attached to their backs. Another group carried little brass (铜)bars which were not magnetic. Let’s call those tw o groups the magnet-pigeons and the brass-pigeons. In a number of experiments，both groups were taken away

from home and let go. On sunny days none of the magnet-pigeons were fooled. They were just as good as the brass-pigeons in starting out in the right direction toward home. How about cloudy，overcast (阴天的)days with no sun? The brass-pigeons chose the right direction. But the magnet-pigeons were in trouble. They started out in various directions and acted completely lost.

What’s the easiest way to understand that experiment? Here’s what the scientists decided after they repeated the experiment many times. When pigeons can see the sun, they use it as their main means of direction-finding. When they can not see the sun, they use some special way to sense dire ction from the earth’s magnetic field.

Enough experiments have been done to decide that homing pigeons (and maybe other birds) seem to have a built-in compass as well as a built-in clock. The big questions now are about how these work and where they are lo cated in the birds’ body.

You see that we have learned a lot about how pigeons tell direction. But that is still only one of the questions we started out with. How do they know which direction is toward home? What do they use that we would call a map? These are other questions still to be answered.

(769 words) Questions

( )1. Science has found the answer to a very old mystery that homing pigeons taken hundreds of miles from their homes can find their home accurately.

( )2. Today people breed homing pigeons as a messenger.

( )3. A good homing pigeon racer can make it home from 500 mils away in a single day.

( )4. Homing pigeons need to know how to tell direction and they need something like a map to tell which direction is toward home.

( )5. All plants and animals that have been studied carefully (including the human) seem to have built-in clock，as they are called，usually are not quite exact in measuring time. ( )6. Homing pigeons can tell directions by the sun.

( )7. When pigeons can not see the sun，they use ultrasonic(超声波)?

Fill in the blanks

8.Naturally，people have wondered whether pigeons might have a ___________ —something

hat would tell them about the direction of the earth’s magnetic field.

9.The magnet-pigeons were just as good as the brass-pigeons in starting out in the __________

direction toward home.

10.Enough experiments have been done to decide that homing pigeons (and maybe other birds)

seem to have a as well as a .

Passage Four

Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A),

B)，C) and D). For questions 8-JO, complete the sentences with the information given

in the passage.

Marlon Brando: One of the Greatest Actors of All Time

Many critics say he was the greatest actor of all time. And many actors say he influenced them more than any other person in the film industry.

There was no public service to honor Marlon Brando when he died in two thousand four at the

age of eighty. The actor’s sister，Jocelyn Brando, said he would have hated such an event. The family held a small private ceremony instead.

Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1924. He was named after his father，a salesman，but his family called him Bud. His mother，Dorothy, was an actress in the local theater. He had two older sisters.

Marlon Brando’s childhood was not happy. His parents drank too much alcohol and argued often. Dorothy Brando blamed her husband for the failure of her acting career. The older Marlon Brando did not have a good relationship with his son.

The Brandos moved many times when Marlon was young. His parents separated when he was eleven, but they re-united after two years. Young Marlon was always getting into trouble at school. His father decided to send him to a military school in Minnesota. Marlon did not do well in classes there. But he did find support for his interest in theater. A drama teacher urged him to begin acting in plays there and he did. But he was expelled from the school for getting into trouble.

Marlon Brando moved to New York City when he was nineteen years old in 1943. He took acting classes at the New School for Social Research. One of his teachers was Stella Adler，who taught the “Method” style of realistic acting. The Method teaches actors how t o use their own memories and emotions to identify with the characters they are playing. Marlon Brando learned the Method style quickly and easily.

Marlon Brando appeared in several plays. He got his first major part in a Broadway play in 1947, at the age of twenty-three. He received great praise for his powerful performance as Stanley Kowalski in the Tennessee Williams play, “A Streetcar Named Desire.” His fame grew when he acted the same part in the movie version, released in 1951. Brando plays an angry working-class man.

“Streetcar” was Brando’s second film. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the performance. He was nominated for Oscars for his next two films as well. In 1952 he played Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata in the movie “Viva Zapata.” The following year he played Marc Antony in “Julius Caesar.”

Marlon Brando did not win an Oscar for Best Actor until 1954 for the movie “On the Waterfront.” Many critics consider it his finest performance. The film’s director，Elia Kazan，said it was the best performance by a male actor in the history of film.

Marlon Brando acted in about forty movies. He was nominated for a total of eight Academy Awards. In his movies，he played a Japanese translator, a German Nazi military officer and the father of Superman. He even sang in a movie musical called “Guys and Dolls.”

His real life was as colorful as his many movie characters. His love life was especially active. He married actress Anna Kashfi in 1957, but they separated the next year. In 1960, Brando married Movita Castenada，a Mexican-American actress. They had two children before they separated in 1962. The same year，he married a Tahitian actress，Tarita. Brando’s marriage to Tarita lasted ten years. But his love of Tahiti never ended. In 1966, he bought a small island near Tahiti. Brando divided his time between his island and his home in California for the rest of his life.

Critics say Marlon Brando began to suffer professionally during and after his work on “Mutiny on the Bounty.” Hollywood directors a nd producers considered him difficult to work with. Some critics said the actor appeared to be tired of acting.

But that changed in 1972 when Brando appeared in “The Godfather.” At first，the film studio

officials did not want Brando in the movie. But the director，Francis Ford Coppola, chose him for the part. The film was a major critical and financial success. Brando was praised for his performance as the Godfather，Vito Corleone, the powerful head of a criminal organization in New York City.

Marlon Brando w on the Best Actor Oscar for 'The Godfather.” But he rejected it. He sent a woman named Sasheen Littlefeather to speak for him at the Academy Awards ceremony. She said that Brando could not accept the award because of the way the American film industry treated Native Americans. The people at the Academy Awards ceremony did not like the speech. But some experts think the action helped change the way American Indians were shown in movies.

Marlon Brando was also active in the civil rights movement. He spoke out against racism often and forcefully. He marched in demonstrations. And he gave money to civil rights groups.

When Marlon Brando died，many famous actors expressed regret. One of them said simply: “He was the best.”

(839 words) Questions

1.After Marlon Brando’s death， ______________ .

A)only his family held a small ceremony for him

B)millions of his fans attended his ceremony and mourned him

C)no one knew it till his body was found by a dustman

D)only his fans held a small ceremony for him

2.During Marlon Brando’s childhood，____________ .

A)his mother was a successful actress

B)his family was harmonious

C)his parents had a very good relationship

D)his father didn’t get along well with him

3.Which of the following is correct about his parents’ marriage?

A)They separated in 1935 but re-united two years later.

B)They were always having a good relationship.

C)They separated in 1937 and re-married respectively.

D)They separated in 1935 but re-united in 1940.

4.The Method teaches actors ________________ .

A)how to act different characters

B)how to identify with the characters by their own memories

C)how to get a big and major character in a play

D)how to get along well with the other actors and directors

5.The movie “A Streetcar Named Desire” is_________ .

A)the first movie he acted

B)released when he was twenty seven

C)the movie which helped him win an Oscar for Best Actor

D)the movie in which he plays a happy working-class man

6.Marlon Brando won his first Oscar for Best Actor for the movie ___________ .

A)“Viva Zapata”

B)“A Streetcar Named Desire”

C)“On the Waterfront”

D)“Mutiny On the Bounty”

7.Many critics and directors consider __________his finest performance.

A) “Viva Zapata”B) “A Streetcar Named Desire”

C)“Julius Caesar”D) “On the Waterfront”

Fill in the blanks

8.Marlon Brando’s name was from__________ .

9.During his life Marlon Brando was nominated for a total of _______ A cademy Awards.

10.Marlon Brando did not accept the award of the Best Actor Oscar for “The Godfather” because

of .