In October 1961 at Crowley Field in Cincinnati Ohio an old deaf gentleman named William E. Hoy stood up to throw the first ball of the World Series. Most people at Crowley Field on that day probably did not remember Hoy because he had retired(退休) from professional baseball 58 years earlier in 1903. However he had been an outstanding player and the deaf people still talk about him and his years in baseball.

William E. Hoy was born in Houckstown Ohio on May 23, 1862. He became deaf when he was two years old. He attended the Columbus Ohio School for the deaf. After graduation he started playing baseball while working as a shoemaker.

Hoy began playing professional baseball in 1886 for Oshkosh(Wisconsin) of the Northwestern League. In 1888 he started as an outfielder(外场手) with the old Washington Senators. His small figure and speed made him an outstanding base runner. He was very good at stealing bases during his career. In the 1888 major league season he stole 82 bases. He was also the Senators’ leading hitter in 1888. Hoy was clever and he threw right-handed and batted left-handed. On June 19,1889 he threw out three batters(击球手) at the plate from his outfield position.

The arm signals used by judges today to show balls and strikes began because of Hoy. The judge lifted his right arm to show that the pitch was a strike and his left arm to signal that it was a ball.

For many years people talked about Hoy’s last ball game in 1903. He was playing for Los Angeles of the Pacific Coast Winter League. It was a memorable game because Hoy hit a wonderful ball which won the game. It was a very foggy day and therefore very hard to see the ball. In the ninth inning(棒球的一局) with two men out, Hoy managed to catch a fly ball to make the third out in spite of the fog. Los Angeles defeated their opposition and won the game.

  After he retired Hoy stayed busy. He ran a dairy farm near Cincinnati for 20 years. He also became a public speaker and traveled giving speeches. Until a few years before his death he took 4-10 mile walks several mornings a week. On December 15, 1961 William Hoy died at the age of 99.

1. In which order did the following things happen in Hoy’s life?

  a. Hoy worked as a shoemaker.

  b. Hoy began to run a diary farm.

  c. Hoy played a memorable game in the heavy fog.

  d. Hoy threw the first ball of the World Series.

  e. Hoy became deaf.

  A. d e a c b            B. e a c b d            C. d a e c b            D. e a b c d

2. We can infer from the last paragraph that Hoy _______ in his late years.

  A. became famous                       B. led a relaxed life

  C. traveled around the world        D. was in good physical condition

3. This passage is mainly about _______.

  A. a deaf player devoted to the game of baseball

  B. baseball game rules and important players

  C. the rise in the social position of the deaf people

  D. where the baseball judge hand signals came from

4. What can be inferred from this passage?

  A. Hoy was the greatest baseball player in his time.

  B. Speaking and listening are not necessary in baseball games.

  C. The judge had to study the hand signals very seriously.

    D. Hoy’s family encouraged him to become a baseball player.

LONDON----Here’s a new warning from health experts: Sitting is deadly.
Scientists are increasingly warning that sitting for prolonged periods — even if you also exercise regularly — could be bad for your health. And it doesn’t matter where the sitting takes place — at the office, at school, in the car or before a computer or TV — just the overall number of hours it occurs. Several studies suggest people who spend most of their days sitting are more likely to be fat, have a heart attack or even die.
  In an editorial published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin EkblomBak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences suggested that authorities rethink how they define physical activity to highlight the dangers of sitting.
  While health officials have issued guidelines recommending minimum amounts of physical activity, they haven’t suggested people try to limit how much time they spend in a seated position.
  "After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals," Ekblom-Bak said. She explained that genes regulating(调节) the amount of glucose(葡萄糖) and fat in the body start to shut down.
  Even for people who exercise, spending long periods of time sitting at a desk is still harmful. Tim Armstrong, a physical activity expert at the World Health Organization, said people who exercise every day — but still spend a lot of time sitting — might get more benefit if that exercise were spread across the day, rather than in a single bout.(一回)
  Still, in a study published last year that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for about a dozen years, researchers found people who sat more had a higher death risk, independently of whether or not they exercised.
  "We don’t have enough evidence yet to say how much sitting is bad," said Peter Katzmarzyk of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, who led the Canadian study. "But it seems the more you can get up and interrupt this sedentary behavior, the better."
  Figures from a U.S. survey in 2003-2004 found Americans spend more than half their time sitting, from working at their desks to sitting in cars.
  Experts said more research is needed to figure out just how much sitting is dangerous, and what might be possible tooffset those effects.
  "People should keep exercising because that has a lot of benefits," Ekblom-Bak said. "But when they’re in the office, they should try to interrupt sitting as often as possible," she said.
【小题1】What is the best title for the text?

A.Not Sitting Too Much While WorkingB.How To Avoid Sitting Too Much
C.Sitting Too Much Could Be DeadlyD.More And More People Sit Too Much
【小题2】According to the research,______________.
A.the more time you spend in exercising in a single bout, the healthier you will be.
B.those who often sit too much are sure to grow fat or suffer from a heart attack.
C.regular exercise is effective to get rid of the side effect of sitting too much.
D.you had better not sit for more than four hours in a single bout.
【小题3】How does the danger of sitting too much affect the human body?
A.It results in a higher death risk.
B.It increases glucose and fat in the body.
C.It makes a person unable to exercise long enough in a day.
D.It causes the gene to fail to balance the glucose and fat in the body.
【小题4】In the opinion of Ekblom-Bak, you’d better have a rest in the office by________.
A.sending your friends e-mails
B.having a walk around your office
C.chatting online or playing computer games
D.listening to music with your head on the desk.

根据短文内容,从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有一项为多余选项。

A. Goods for auction (拍卖) sales

  B. Definition of bidding

  C. Way to sell more goods by auction

  D. Auction sales in history

  E. Brief introduction to auctions

  F. Making a larger profit as an auctioneer

1.______

Auctions are public sales of goods, conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asks the crowd assembled in the auction-room to make offers, or “bids”, for the various items on sale. He encourages buyers to bid higher figures, and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of the goods. This is called “knocking down” the goods, for the bidding ends when the auctioneer strikes a small hammer on a table at which he stands.

2. ______

The ancient Roman probably invented sales by auction, and the English word comes from the Latin auction, meaning “increasing”. The Romans usually sold in this way the goods taken in war. In England in the eighteenth centuries, goods were often sold “by the candle”: a short candle was lit by the auctioneer, and bids could be made while it stayed alight.

3. ______

Practically all goods whose qualities vary are sold by auction. Among these are coffee, skins, wool, tea, furs, silk and wines. Auction sales are also usual for land and property, furniture, pictures, rare books, old china and similar works of art.

4. ______

An auction is usually advertised beforehand with full particulars of the articles to be sold and where and when they can be viewed by potential buyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues are printed, and each group of goods to be sold together, called a “lot”, is usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin with Lot 1 and continue in the order of numbers: he may wait until he notices the fact that certain buyers are in the room and then produce the lots they are likely to be interested in.

5. ______

The auctioneer’s services are paid for in the form of a percentage of the price the goods are sold for. The auctioneer therefore has a direct interest in pushing up the bidding as high as possible. He will not waste time by starting the bidding too low. He will also play on the opponents among his buyers and succeed in getting a high price by encouraging two business competitors to bid against each other.

 

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