Here’s a movie—a sharp, sugar-rush of fun that’s guaranteed to entertain the entire family.

With some terrific computer-generated effects, a great cast and a fun-packed storyline, Robots is the best animated film (动画片) since The Incredibles. Yep, it really is that good.

Set in a world populated by robots, Ewan McGregor plays Rodney Copperbottom, a young robot who leaves his small-town home to pursue his dream of becoming an inventor.

But after arriving in Robot City, his hopes of getting a job at Bigweld Industries are destroyed when he learns the firm has been taken over by the evil Ratchet (Greg Kinnear).

Egged on by his controlling mum, Madame Gasket (Jim Broadbent), Ratchet plans to reduce half of Robot City’s citizens to scrap metal by refusing to sell the spare parts they need to survive.

Instead, he wants to make a fortune selling expensive upgrades that few can afford. As he says, “Why be you when you can be new?”

Aided by a few misfit robots known as the Rustles—including Robin Williams as the cowardly' (胆小的）Fender (“I’m made of a metal called Afraidium”)—Rodney must track down the firm’s founder, Bigweld (Mel Brooks), and convince him to save the city from Ratchet’s plans.

The first thing that’ll strike you about the movie is the thought that's gone into creating Robot City. It’s a wondrous world full of mechanical marvels including wind-up cars and walking streetlamps.

Also terrific are the special effects. This might be an animated movie but at times you’ll catch yourself thinking it’s really a live-action film.

Of course, there have been plenty of animated movies that looked the part but were let down by a weak storyline (see Shark Tale, for example).

But Robots grips (扣人心弦) right from the start thanks to a heart-warming and thoroughly engaging plot that never bores.

My only complaints are with Williams who, as usual，has a one-in-10 success rate with his jokes. Also a letdown is a romantic subplot between Rodney and a shapely robot called Cappy (Halle Berry) that doesn’t go anywhere.

Complains aside, this is a mechanical marvel that’ll have you bolted firmly to your seat.

BEST QUOTE(引述): Fender: “Even though you had a discouraging day, just remember there’s another one coming tomorrow.”

BEST BIT: Check out those amazing images.

WORST BIT: Robin Williams, character does an unfunny Britney Spears dance routine.

IF YOU LIKED…Ice Age, The Incredibles, Toy Story... YOU’LL LIKE THIS.

1.This piece of writing is a _______.

A. commercial advertisement   B. film review

C. movie poster         D. literary essay

2.The cast of Robots is made up of all the following actors or actresses EXCEPT _______.

A. Ewan McGregor    B. Robin Williams

C. Britney Spears       D. Halle Berry

3.What is Shark Tale an example of?

A. A great cast. B. A poor plot.

C. Special effects.      D. Clumsy animation.

One of the most difficult questions to answer is how much a job is worth. We naturally expect that a doctor’s salary will be higher than a bus conductor’s wages. But the question becomes much more difficult to answer when we compare a miner with an engineer, or an unskilled man working on an oil-rig（钻探平台）with a teacher in a secondary school. What the doctor, the engineer and the teacher have in common is that they have devoted several years to studying in order to obtain the necessary qualifications for their professions. We feel instinctively that these skills and these years should be rewarded. At the same time we recognize that the work of the miner and the oil-rig laborer is both hard and dangerous, and that they must be highly paid for the risks they take.

　　Another aspect we must take into consideration is how socially useful a man’s work is. Most people would agree that looking after the sick or teaching children is more important than, say, selling second-hand cars. Yet it is almost certain that the used-car salesman earns more than the nurse and the schoolteacher.

　　Indeed, this whole question of just rewards can be turned on its head. You can argue that a man who does a job which brings him personal satisfaction is already receiving part of his reward in the form of a so-called “psychic（精神的）wage”, and that it is the man with the boring, repetitive job who needs more money to make up for the soul-destroying repetitiveness of his work. It is significant that the jobs like nursing and teaching continue to be poorly paid, while others, such as those in the world of sport or entertainment, carry financial rewards out of all proportion to their social worth.

Although the amount of money that people earn is largely determined by market forces, this should not prevent us from seeking some way to decide what is the right pay for the job. A starting point would be to try to decide the ratio（比率）which ought to exist between the highest and the lowest paid. The picture is made more complicated by two factors: firstly by the welfare benefits which every citizen receives, and secondly by the taxation system which is often used as an instrument of social justice by taxing high incomes at a very high rate indeed. Most countries now regard a ratio of 7:1 as socially acceptable. If it is less, the highly-qualified people carrying heavy responsibilities will become disappointed, and might even end up by leaving for another country. If it is more, the difference between rich and poor will be so great that it will lead to social unrest.

1.Why do people naturally expect that doctors should be well-paid?

A．Their work requires greater intelligence.

B．They are under constant pressure at work.

C．They work harder than most other people.

D．They have studied for years to get qualified.

2.In Paragraph 2 and 3, the author indicates that __________.

A．the talented should do more important work

B．unskilled jobs have less social responsibility

C．those with more socially useful jobs earn less

D．people want to pay more to important services

3.Which of the following statements would the author agree?

A．It’s difficult to define the social value of a job.

B．The market will decide what the right pay is for a job.

C．People should find a proper ratio between high and low pay.

D．Those receiving high salary should carry heavy responsibilities.

No one knows for sure when advertising first started. It is possible that it grew out of the discovery that some people did certain kinds of work better than others did them. That led to the concept of specialization, which means that people would specialize, or focus, on doing one specific job.
Let’s take a man we’ll call Mr. Fielder, for example. He did everything connected with farming. He planted seeds, tended the fields, and harvested and sold his crops. At the same time, he did many other jobs on the farm. However, he didn’t make the bricks for his house, grind the wheat for his flour, or cut his trees into boards. He also did not make the plows(犁), the work boots, or any of the other hundreds of things a farm needs. Instead, he got them from people who specialized in doing each of those things.
Suppose there was another man we shall call Mr. Plowright. Using what he knew about farming and working with iron, Mr. Plowright invented a plow that made farming easier. Mr. Plowright did not really like farming himself and wanted to specialize in making really good  plows. Perhaps, he thought, other farmers will trade what they grow for one of my plows.
How did Mr. Plowright let people know what he was doing? Why, he advertised, of course. First he opened a shop and then he put up a sign outside the shop to attract customers. That sign may have been no more than a plow carved into a piece of wood and a simple arrow pointing to the shop door. It was probably all the information people needed to find Mr. Plowright and his really good plows.
Many historians believe that the first outdoor signs were used about five thousand years ago. Even before most people could read, they understood such signs. Shopkeepers would carve into stone, clay, or wood symbols for the products they had for sale.
A medium, in advertising talk, is the way you communicate your message. You might say that the first medium used in advertising was signs with symbols. The second medium was audio, or sound, although that term is not used exactly in the way we use it today. Originally, just the human voice and maybe some kind of simple instrument, such as a bell, were used to get people’s attention.
A crier, in the historical sense, is not someone who weeps easily. It is someone, probably a man, with a voice loud enough to be heard over the other noises of a city. In ancient Egypt, shopkeepers might hire such a person to spread the news about their products. Often this primitive form of advertising involved a newly arrived ship loaded with goods. Perhaps the crier described the goods, explained where they came from, and praised their quality. His job was, in other words, not too different from a TV or radio commercial in today’s world.
【小题1】What probably led to the start of advertisement?

阅读下面的短文，请根据短文后的要求答题。（注意问题后的字数要求）

【1】 One day, a poor boy who was trying to pay his way through school by selling goods door to door found that he only had one dime(10分硬币) left. He was hungry so he decided to beg for a meal at the next house.

【2】 However, he lost his courage when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?”

【3】 “You don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “Mother has taught me never to accept pay for a kindness.” He said, “Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but it also increased his faith in God and the human race. He was about to give up and quit before this point.

【4】 Years later the young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where specialists can be called in to study her rare disease. Dr Howard Kelly, now famous, was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town __________, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately, he rose and went down through the hospital hall into her room.

【5】Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room and determined to do his best to save her life. From that day on, he gave special attention to her case.

【6】After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it and then wrote something on the side. The bill was sent to her room. She was afraid to open it because she was positive that it would take the rest of her life to pay it off. Finally she looked, and the note on the side of the bill caught her attention. She read these words…

???????????? “Paid in full with a glass of milk”

??????????????????? (Signed) Dr Howard Kelly

【7】Tears of joy flooded her eyes as she prayed silently, “Thank you, God. Your love has spread through human hearts and hands.”

1.What is the best title of the passage? (No more than 8 words.)

_____________________________________________________________________

2.When Dr. Howard Kelly heard the name of the town, what did he do?

_____________________________________________________________________

3.Please fill in the blank in the fourth paragraph with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence. (No more than 5 words.)

_____________________________________________________________________

4. When the young woman read the note, what was her feeling? (No more than 4 words.)

_____________________________________________________________________

5.What does the underlined word “it” (Sentence3, Paragraph 6) refer to?

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