认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入最恰当的单词。注意：每空格只填一个单词。

Ticket tax fuels Indian cinema strike

Cinemas in Mumbai, Bollywood’s homeland are striking against high taxes on ticket sales.

Owners of Mumbai’s single-screen theatres will keep their shutters (百叶窗) down until Friday to protest about taxes, which they say are driving them out of business.

More than a third of single-screen cinemas in the state of Maharashtra have closed down in the last five years. According to the Cinema and Exhibitors Association of India, just 700 are still in operation. The association blames the closing down on Maharashtra’s high rate of entertainment tax. Its president, R V Vidhani, says that cinemas must pay a tax for every ticket sold, which is 45%, and this makes it hard to break even. It’s the highest of all states across India. The majority of the states in India pay zero entertainment tax. Mr Vidhani says his members had decided to go ahead with a one-week closure after getting no response from the state government on the matter.

It is not just a high tax rate contributing to the shrinking（收缩）number of traditional cinemas, however. Large costs and declining box office takings also make times tougher.

Mr Vidhani has run the New Excelsior Theatre in South Mumbai since 1974. Last week a screening of Bollywood movie Tanu Weds Manu sold just 71 tickets despite a capacity of more than 1,000. Whether it’s a full house or an empty screening, running costs are more or less the same. “Air conditioning, regular business — every expenditure (支出) is the same, but the income has stopped.”

The cricket (板球) World Cup is not helping matters, according to Mr Vidhani. “The World Cup is creating the biggest problem,” he says. “These people are crazy so far as the cricket is concerned. When India is playing, occupancy in the theatre is just 15%.”

Mumbai’s city centre is dotted with empty cinemas.

So after remaining empty for six years, the Novelty theatre is perhaps more fortunate than its neighbours: it is to be reborn as a four-screen multiplex cinema.

Over the last decade the number of multiplexes in India has risen sharply. Despite higher ticket prices, with more choice on offer and typically newer facilities they pose fierce competition to the traditional single-screen theatres.

“Competition from the multiplexes is really tough,” Mr Vidhani says. “Then there is competition from the movie window being narrow. Movies are being released much quicker on television than they used to be so people can pretty much watch movies for free at home.

“With rising incomes, everyone’s going out and buying DVD players or VCD players. Content is available for the asking whether it is official or pirated(盗版).”

Unless single-screen theatres can become special destinations in their own right, while also offering up-to-date facilities, Jehil Thakkar thinks the decline is a trend that will continue, especially as multiplex cinemas spread to smaller towns.

“They are large corporate chains,” he says. “They have the ability to spend money on branding and advertising, so to a large extent the small cinema guys are fighting a losing battle.”

Ticket tax fuels Indian cinema strike

认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入最恰当的单词。注意：每空格只填一个单词。
Ticket tax fuels Indian cinema strike
Cinemas in Mumbai, Bollywood’s homeland are striking against high taxes on ticket sales.
Owners of Mumbai’s single-screen theatres will keep their shutters (百叶窗) down until Friday to protest about taxes, which they say are driving them out of business.
More than a third of single-screen cinemas in the state of Maharashtra have closed down in the last five years. According to the Cinema and Exhibitors Association of India, just 700 are still in operation. The association blames the closing down on Maharashtra’s high rate of entertainment tax. Its president, R V Vidhani, says that cinemas must pay a tax for every ticket sold, which is 45%, and this makes it hard to break even. It’s the highest of all states across India. The majority of the states in India pay zero entertainment tax. Mr Vidhani says his members had decided to go ahead with a one-week closure after getting no response from the state government on the matter.
It is not just a high tax rate contributing to the shrinking（收缩）number of traditional cinemas, however. Large costs and declining box office takings also make times tougher.
Mr Vidhani has run the New Excelsior Theatre in South Mumbai since 1974. Last week a screening of Bollywood movie Tanu Weds Manu sold just 71 tickets despite a capacity of more than 1,000. Whether it’s a full house or an empty screening, running costs are more or less the same. “Air conditioning, regular business — every expenditure (支出) is the same, but the income has stopped.”
The cricket (板球) World Cup is not helping matters, according to Mr Vidhani. “The World Cup is creating the biggest problem,” he says. “These people are crazy so far as the cricket is concerned. When India is playing, occupancy in the theatre is just 15%.”
Mumbai’s city centre is dotted with empty cinemas.
So after remaining empty for six years, the Novelty theatre is perhaps more fortunate than its neighbours: it is to be reborn as a four-screen multiplex cinema.
Over the last decade the number of multiplexes in India has risen sharply. Despite higher ticket prices, with more choice on offer and typically newer facilities they pose fierce competition to the traditional single-screen theatres.
“Competition from the multiplexes is really tough,” Mr Vidhani says. “Then there is competition from the movie window being narrow. Movies are being released much quicker on television than they used to be so people can pretty much watch movies for free at home.
“With rising incomes, everyone’s going out and buying DVD players or VCD players. Content is available for the asking whether it is official or pirated(盗版).”
Unless single-screen theatres can become special destinations in their own right, while also offering up-to-date facilities, Jehil Thakkar thinks the decline is a trend that will continue, especially as multiplex cinemas spread to smaller towns.
“They are large corporate chains,” he says. “They have the ability to spend money on branding and advertising, so to a large extent the small cinema guys are fighting a losing battle.”
Ticket tax fuels Indian cinema strike

For many people – especially those juggling (兼顾) family and work at the same time --- it can be difficult to stick with a college degree. Kathy Bitzthum thought many times about dropping out of her accounting program at Iowa State University: She had two children and a job at Electronic Technology Corp. She’d only enrolled in the first place because her boss would offer her a promotion if she took a few accounting courses.
Because she only had enough time to take one class at a time, it took her seven years to complete the courses her boss asked her to take on. She received the promotion as her boss promised and wasn’t planning to continue a degree. But a request from her father, who was dying of cancer, made her think twice. He said to her, “Kathy, why don’t you just keep going and get your degree?”
Before he passed away, he made her promise that she would finish it. And he made her a promise in turn. Vitzthum’s parents had agreed to give each of their children a valuable gift when they graduated from college, and Vitzthum was obsessed with an antique she’d come across and knew that she couldn’t afford. After she promised to graduate from college, her parents bought her the antique. Her father told her, “I’m not going to be around when you graduate, so I’ll give this to you now. But it doesn’t _________ until you graduate from college.”
Since then, Vitzthum has looked at that antique every day and remembered the promise she had made to her father. Despite a hectic life as a wife, mother and full-time employee, she’s taken one course every semester for the last 19 years. And finally, at the age of 48, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting --- and she was excited to accept full ownership (所有权) of the antique that she’d borrowed for more than a decade.
【小题1】What had contributed to Kathy’s studying the accounting program at Iowa State University?
___________________________________________________________________
【小题2】Why did it take Kathy seven years to finish the accounting program?(no more than 10 words)
___________________________________________________________________
【小题3】What did Kathy’s father make her promise to do before he died?(no more than 10 words)
___________________________________________________________________
【小题4】Fill in the blank in Paragraph 3 with proper words.(no more than 3 words)
___________________________________________________________________
【小题5】What does the passage mainly talk about?(no more than 12 words)
___________________________________________________________________

 Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Ohio, a state in the

US with a l______________ population. He didn’t have much school education

1.____________

because the m______________ of his teachers thought he was not clever enough,  

2. ____________

and his o_____________ of success is merely a dream. However, he became one    

3.____________

of the greatest ________________ (发明家) with a list of 1,093 U.S. patents. In

4. ____________

fact, there was evidence indicating that Edison was to distinguish ____________

5. ____________

later in life. The boy had a great d____________ for knowledge and was curious

6. ____________

about things. He did a lot of reading in the library while ___________ a living by

7. ____________

selling newspapers on trains. He often __________ (实验)with different things. All

8. ____________

these made him so extraordinarily ________________ (成功). Many people think   

9. ____________

that we owe our way of life _________ his ideas and efforts.           

10.____________