阅读理解

Leisure and Private Life in England

英国的个人休闲生活

    在英国，工厂的假日都集中在七月中旬到八月中旬这段时间。英国人喜欢旅游，你知道他们一般到什么地方旅游，又是怎么去旅游的吗?

    In England，factory holidays are much concentrated in the period between mid- July and mid-August．State schools usually only have six weeks off in summer，from about mid-July to the end of August．

The coast is the most popular objective of English people for their annual holiday，but there are few new seaside hotels．Food in British hotels and restaurants is reasonably cheap, but rooms are not．Few English people rent houses or flats for their holidays，but one of the traditional ways of spending a summer holiday is in a boarding house．Some boarding-house keepers provide all meals for their guests．Others provide breakfast only．

The British may be conservative about the times at which they take their holidays，but they have shown themselves very ready to take to new places．They have always been pioneers in traveling far away, and Englishmen were among the first to climb many of the great Alpine summits．Now foreign travel is within reach of most working people，and each year more English men，women and children become familiar with some part of continental Europe．Many take their cars，often with tents，crossing the Channel by ferry；others use the travel agents’ plans for group travel. When they get home again，they talk endlessly of how they spent their leisure and private life．

Notes

leisure n．＆ adj．休闲(的)；空闲(的)

objective n．目标；目的

    conservative adj．保守的

    boarding-house n．供膳的寄宿处

    summit n．顶点；首脑

continental adj．大陆的；大陆性的

pioneer   n．先驱者；先锋

Comprehension questions

1．State Schools in England usually have ________for summer holidays．

A．a month　　　　　　　　   B．two month

C．42 days　　　　　　　　   D．fifty days

2．The prices of food in British hotels and restaurants are reasonably ________.

    A．cheap　　　　 B．expensive　　    C．high　　    D．low

3．The British people are fond of ________．

A．traveling far away for their holidays

B．staying at home for their holidays

C．renting houses for their holidays

D．talking about their work when they get home

Leisure and Private Life in England

英国的个人休闲生活

    在英国，工厂的假日都集中在七月中旬到八月中旬这段时间。英国人喜欢旅游，你知道他们一般到什么地方旅游，又是怎么去旅游的吗?

    In England，factory holidays are much concentrated in the period between mid- July and mid-August．State schools usually only have six weeks off in summer，from about mid-July to the end of August．

The coast is the most popular objective of English people for their annual holiday，but there are few new seaside hotels．Food in British hotels and restaurants is reasonably cheap, but rooms are not．Few English people rent houses or flats for their holidays，but one of the traditional ways of spending a summer holiday is in a boarding house．Some boarding-house keepers provide all meals for their guests．Others provide breakfast only．

The British may be conservative about the times at which they take their holidays，but they have shown themselves very ready to take to new places．They have always been pioneers in traveling far away, and Englishmen were among the first to climb many of the great Alpine summits．Now foreign travel is within reach of most working people，and each year more English men，women and children become familiar with some part of continental Europe．Many take their cars，often with tents，crossing the Channel by ferry；others use the travel agents’ plans for group travel. When they get home again，they talk endlessly of how they spent their leisure and private life．

Notes

leisure n．＆ adj．休闲(的)；空闲(的)

objective n．目标；目的

    conservative adj．保守的

    boarding-house n．供膳的寄宿处

    summit n．顶点；首脑

continental adj．大陆的；大陆性的

pioneer   n

．先驱者；先锋

Comprehension questions

1．State Schools in England usually have ________for summer holidays．

A．a month　　　　　　　　   B．two month

C．42 days　　　　　　　　   D．fifty days

2．The prices of food in British hotels and restaurants are reasonably ________.

    A．cheap　　　　 B．expensive　　    C．high　　    D．low

3．The British people are fond of ________．

A．traveling far away for their holidays

B．staying at home for their holidays

C．renting houses for their holidays

D．talking about their work when they get home

Cittaslow has discovered China, and it is awarding a little village in Jiangsu the title of "slow city"
The bored teenagers of Gaochun are impatient with the leisurely pace of hometown life．For them there is no nightlife to speak of, no bright lights, no excitement and they cannot wait to grow up and leave for the urban attractions of the big cities．But it is this laid-back lifestyle that has attracted international attention．At least, a quiet village within Gaochun county has come under the spotlight．Yaxi village, population 20,000, is about to be designated China's first "slow city" by Cittaslow, the sustainable lifestyle movement that first surfaced in Italy 11 years ago．
At home, the residents at Yaxi are unfazed and pretty much unimpressed by the honor．To them, life has been like this for as long as they can remember．Here, growing old gracefully is natural．
Nobody living in this little county had heard of Cittaslow or the words "slow city" before this．
"The first time I heard the term was last July, when the vice-president of Cittaslow, Angelo Vassallo, visited Yaxi village," says Zuo Niansheng, the chief editor of local newspaper Gaochun Today．
"Vassallo was deeply impressed by this village's natural and cultural resources and said it perfectly fitted the requirements for a slow city," says Zuo．"That was how Yaxi became connected with Cittaslow．
The Slow City must also be committed to protect and maintain the natural environment as well as promote a sustainable way of development ?all of which are the current strategies adopted in Gaochun．"We've been doing this for years," adds Zuo．
Cittaslow was founded in Tuscany, Italy in 1999．It was a spin-off from the Slow Food movement which started, also in Italy, in 1986 as a protest against the first McDonald ' s opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome．The movement championed a return to healthy, nutritious home-grown, home -cooked food．
Slow Food has since expanded globally to more than 130 countries．Its mission has also broadened to include the promotion of sustainable foods and local small businesses, and the localization as opposed to globalization of food production．
Cittaslow is an expansion of the Slow Food movement, and it actively advocates a lifestyle that is sustainable, that will improve quality of life, and will preserve cultural and culinary （烹饪的）heritage．
【小题1】According the passage, Cittaslow is a（n） ____．

Cittaslow has discovered China, and it is awarding a little village in Jiangsu the title of "slow city"

The bored teenagers of Gaochun are impatient with the leisurely pace of hometown life．For them there is no nightlife to speak of, no bright lights, no excitement and they cannot wait to grow up and leave for the urban attractions of the big cities．But it is this laid-back lifestyle that has attracted international attention．At least, a quiet village within Gaochun county has come under the spotlight．Yaxi village, population 20,000, is about to be designated China's first "slow city" by Cittaslow, the sustainable lifestyle movement that first surfaced in Italy 11 years ago．

At home, the residents at Yaxi are unfazed and pretty much unimpressed by the honor．To them, life has been like this for as long as they can remember．Here, growing old gracefully is natural．

Nobody living in this little county had heard of Cittaslow or the words "slow city" before this．

"The first time I heard the term was last July, when the vice-president of Cittaslow, Angelo Vassallo, visited Yaxi village," says Zuo Niansheng, the chief editor of local newspaper Gaochun Today．

"Vassallo was deeply impressed by this village's natural and cultural resources and said it perfectly fitted the requirements for a slow city," says Zuo．"That was how Yaxi became connected with Cittaslow．

The Slow City must also be committed to protect and maintain the natural environment as well as promote a sustainable way of development ?all of which are the current strategies adopted in Gaochun．"We've been doing this for years," adds Zuo．

Cittaslow was founded in Tuscany, Italy in 1999．It was a spin-off from the Slow Food movement which started, also in Italy, in 1986 as a protest against the first McDonald ' s opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome．The movement championed a return to healthy, nutritious home-grown, home -cooked food．

Slow Food has since expanded globally to more than 130 countries．Its mission has also broadened to include the promotion of sustainable foods and local small businesses, and the localization as opposed to globalization of food production．

Cittaslow is an expansion of the Slow Food movement, and it actively advocates a lifestyle that is sustainable, that will improve quality of life, and will preserve cultural and culinary （烹饪的）heritage．

According the passage, Cittaslow is a（n） ____．

       A．organization         B．person          C．lifestyle       D．honor

What' s the reaction of the residents at Yaxi to the award according the passage? They feel

       A．very excited．      B．very shocked            

       C．indifferent               D．very happy

Why is the village Yaxi awarded the title of “slow city”? Because           .

       A．it is full of excitement and activities of nightlife

       B．the residents at Yaxi enjoy a leisure life

       C．it is very rich and has a lot of attractions

       D．foreign people like small towns than big cities.

It can be inferred from the passage that          .

       A．young people at Yaxi enjoy their life very much

       B．China is more and more popular with foreign people

       C．the first McDonald’s in Europe was opened in Spain

       D．the lifestyle of “slow city” will be good to environment and people

D
As public playgrounds grow increasingly worn and shabby, the for-profit centers offer clean, safe, supervised activity as well as a variety of challenging exercises to develop youngsters’ physical fitness, usually for a fee of around $5 an hour. “Playgrounds are dirty, not supervised,” says Dick Guggenheimer, owner of the two-month-old Discovery Zone in Yonkers, N.Y., part of a Kansas City-based chain. “We’re indoors; we’re padded(铺上软垫); parents can feel their child is safe.”
Discovery Zone has sold 120 outlets in the past 14 months, boasting sandboxes full of brightly colored plastic balls, mazes(迷宫), obstacle courses, slides and mountains to climb. Now McDonalds is getting into the act. The burger giant is test-marketing a new playground, Leaps&Bounds, in Naperville, Ill. Phys Kids of Wichita has opened one center and has plans to expand.
American parents are rightly worried about their kids leisure life. There are 36 million children in the U.S. aged 2 to 11 who watch an average of 24 hours of TV a week and devote less and less energy to active recreation. Nationwide decrease in education budgets are making the problem worse, as gym classes and after-hours sports time get squeezed. Says Discovery Zone president Jack Gunion: “we have raised a couple of pure couch potatoes.”
In an attempt to attract more people , the new facilities cater to the concerns of two-earner families, staying open in the evenings, long after traditional public playground have grown dark and unusable. At Naperville’s Leaps&Bounds, families can play together for $4.95 per child, parents free. Fresh-faced assistants, dressed in colorful sport pants and shirts, guide youngsters to appropriate play areas for differing age group.
These new playground are not meant to be day-care facilities; parents are expected to stay and play with their kids rather than drop them off. But several also provide high-tech baby-sitting services. At some of the Discovery Zones, parents can register their children in special supervised programs, then leave them and slip away for a couple of hours to enjoy a movie or dinner.
The most fun of all, though, is getting to do what parents used to do in the days before two-career families and two-hour commutes: play with their kid. That, at least, is old-fashioned, even at per-hour rates.
68. What is this article mainly talking about?
A. Children can play in the public playground without parents’ care.
B. The fast development of Discovery Zone.
C. A new type of playground for kids.
D. The decay of outdoor playground.
69. According to the article, which of the following is true to the new playground?
A. The cost is high for a family.
B. It’s a place where kids can watch TV while eating potatoes.
C. It doesn’t allow parents to leave their kids.
D. It’s a place where parents can play together with their kids.
70. What does the writer mean by saying “old-fashioned”?
A. The so-called new playground is outdated.
B. the new playground offers a fashion which is popular in the past.
C. The new playground is also enjoyed by old people.
D. The new playground is actually enjoyed by parents
71. What is the writer’s attitude toward the new playground?
A. Agreeable.         B. Indifferent.        C. Objective.         D. Neutral.