In the age of reality television, success isn’t the only way to the public eye. Failure can also create fame, just like William Hung, 21, a native of Hong Kong.

Hung recently has made an agreement with US-based entertainment firms Koch Records and Fuse Music Network. They will publish a full-length record, titled “The True Idol” on April 6.

The idol （偶像） is a civil engineering student at the University of California at Berkeley. He did a version （改写本） of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” on the television show “American Idol 3", on January 27. The Fox TV singing contest searches for pop stars among ordinary people. In the case of Hung, however, his act was so bad that the judges cut him off in mid-act. Hung’s response? “I already gave my best, so I have no regrets at all.” That’s interesting, because any common person would have found plenty to regret: the off-key singing, the blue Hawaiian shirt worn with pants pulled up too high, the terrible dancing, the hips jerking （摇摆） to a beat that did not belong to the song, maybe not even to this planet. It was, by all accounts, bad.

But, it was this very bad act that sold well.

Marc Juris, president of Fuse, explained it this way: “Every one of us is happily guilty of singing our favorite song at the top of our lungs with complete freedom, completely off-key and completely unworried．That’s what William did and immediately won the hearts of America．”

Whatever it is, for the moment it’s big. Three websites devoted to Hung have gone up on the Internet in the past few weeks. Versions of his performance have been remixed with hip hop and techno music and have made it to the top 10 request list at a Chicago radio station.

So, what does Hung think of this?

“There were all these people saying things about me. A lot were saying I was very courageous and that I was great on the show, but some didn’t have much respect for me and some were kind of mean.”

Now he says he’s not so sure whether to distance himself from the glamour （魅力） or to accept it. Returning to normal hasn’t been easy.

1．What is the main idea of this passage?

A．Sometimes an idol behaves quite foolishly.

B．Hung's performance attracted the public eye.

C．How an unsuccessful person became famous.

D．Success sometimes does not require hard work.

2．Hung was popular in America for all the following reasons EXCEPT ________

A．his shirt and pants　　　　           B．his off-key singing

C．his jerking hips　　　　　            D．his excellent version

3．What does the underlined word “it” in paragraph 6 refer to?

A．William Hung.　　　　　             B．Hung's bad performance.

C．Hung’s website.　　　　            D．The public’s opinion.

4．Which of the following shows the correct order of what happened to Hung?

a．The entertainment firms made an agreement with Hung.

b．The judges cut Hung off in mid-act in the singing contest.

c．Hung became popular among Americans.

d．Hung gave a terrible performance though he tried his best.

e. Three websites put Hung’s funny performance on the Internet.

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

5．Why was Hung able to win the hearts of America?

A．His success was based on luck rather than his own hard work.

B．He attracted people’s attention and won wide praise in the contest.

C．He was good-looking in his pants and shirt though he didn’t sing well.

D．In the contest he did what every one of us is happy to do in daily life.

In the age of reality television, success isn’t the only way to the public eye. Failure can also create fame, just like William Hung, 21, a native of Hong Kong.

Hung recently has made an agreement with US-based entertainment firms Koch Records and Fuse Music Network. They will publish a full-length record, titled “The True Idol” on April 6.

The idol (偶像) is a civil engineering student at the University of California at Berkeley. He did a version (改写本) of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” on the television show “American Idol 3", on January 27. The Fox TV singing contest searches for pop stars among ordinary people. In the case of Hung, however, his act was so bad that the judges cut him off in mid-act. Hung’s response? “I already gave my best, so I have no regrets at all.” That’s interesting, because any common person would have found plenty to regret: the off-key singing, the blue Hawaiian shirt worn with pants pulled up too high, the terrible dancing, the hips jerking (摇摆) to a beat that did not belong to the song, maybe not even to this planet. It was, by all accounts, bad.

But, it was this very bad act that sold well.

Marc Juries, president of Fuse, explained it this way: “Every one of us is happily guilty of singing our favorite song at the top of our lungs with complete freedom, completely off-key and completely unworried. That’s what William did and immediately won the hearts of America.”

Whatever it is, for the moment it’s big. Three websites devoted to Hung have gone up on the Internet in the past few weeks. Versions of his performance have been remixed with hip hop and techno music and have made it to the top 10 request list at a Chicago radio station.

So, what does Hung think of this?

“There were all these people saying things about me. A lot were saying I was very courageous and that I was great on the show, but some didn’t have much respect for me and some were kind of mean.”

Now he says he’s not so sure whether to distance himself from the glamour (魅力) or to accept it. Returning to normal hasn’t been easy.

1．What is the main idea of this passage?

A．Sometimes an idol behaves quite foolishly.

B．Hung's performance attracted the public eye.

C．How an unsuccessful person became famous.

D．Success sometimes does not require hard work.

2．Hung was popular in America for all the following reasons EXCEPT ________

A．his shirt and pants　　　　    B．his off-key singing

C．his jerking hips　　　　　     D．his excellent version

3．What does the underlined word “it” in paragraph 6 refer to?

A．William Hung.　　　　　      B．Hung's bad performance.

C．Hung’s website.　　　　      D．The public’s opinion.

4．Which of the following shows the correct order of what happened to Hung?

a．The entertainment firms made an agreement with Hung.

b．The judges cut Hung off in mid-act in the singing contest.

c．Hung became popular among Americans.

d．Hung gave a terrible performance though he tried his best.

e. Three websites put Hung’s funny performance on the Internet.

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

5．Why was Hung able to win the hearts of America?

A．His success was based on luck rather than his own hard work.

B．He attracted people’s attention and won wide praise in the contest.

C．He was good-looking in his pants and shirt though he didn’t sing well.

D．In the contest he did what every one of us is happy to do in daily life.

    I am beginning to wonder whether my grandmother isn’t right when she complains, as she frequently does, that children nowadays aren’t as well-behaved as they used to be. Whenever she gets the opportunity, she recounts in detail how she used to be told to respect the elders and betters. She was taught to speak only when she was spoken to, and when she went out on her own, she was reminded to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Children in her day, she continues, were expected to be seen and not heard, but these days you are lucky if you ever hear parents telling their children to mind their p’s and q’s.

       If you give her the chance, she then takes out of her drawer the old photograph album which she keeps there, and which she never tires of displaying. Of course when you look at pictures of her parents, you feel sure that, with a father as stern-looking as that, you too would have been "seen and not heard". He had a lot of neatly cut hair, long side-whiskers and a big moustache. In the photographs, he is always clutching (抓住) his coat with one hand, while in the other he holds a thin walking stick. Beside him sits his wife, with their children around her: Granny and her elder brothers. It always occurs to me that perhaps those long, stiff, black clothes were so clumsy to a little girl, that she hadn’t enough breath left to be talkative, let alone mischievous (淘气的). It must have been a dull and lonely life too, for she stayed mainly at home during her childhood, while her brothers were sent away to school from an early age. Despite their long black shorts and their serious expressions in the photographs, I always suspect that their lives were considerably more enjoyable than hers. One can imagine them telling each other to shut up or mind their own business, as soon as their parents were out of sight.

       Going to see Granny on Sundays used to be a terrible experience. We would always be warned in advance to be on our best behavior, since my mother made a great effort to show how well brought up we were, in spite of our old, comfortable clothes, our incomprehensible (to Granny) slang, and our noisy games in the garden. We had to change into what Granny described as our "Sundays best" for lunch, when we would sit uncomfortably, kicking each other under the table. We were continually being ordered to sit up straight, to take our elbows off the table, to wait till everybody had been served, not to wolf down our food, nor to talk with our mouths full. At length we would be told to ask to be excused from the table and ordered to find quiet occupations for the rest of the day. We were always very bad-tempered by the evening, and would complain angrily all the way home.

       Yet though we hated the Sunday visit, we never questioned the rules of good manners themselves. I remember being greatly shocked as a child to hear one of my friends telling her father to shut up. I knew I could never have spoken like that to my father and it would never have occurred to me to do so.

       However, my childhood was much freer than Granny’s. I went to school with my brother and I played football with him and his friends. We all spoke a common language, and we got up to the same mischief. I would have died if I had had to stay indoors, wear a tight dress, and sew.

       But I do sometimes look wistfully (惆怅地) at an old sampler which hangs in the hall, which was embroidered (刺绣) by an even more distant relative—my great-great-aunt, of whom, regrettably, no photograph remains. It was done as an example of her progress in learning. The alphabet is carefully sewn in large colored childish letters from A to Z, and below it a small verse reads:

                     Mary Saunders is my name,

                     And with my needle I worked the same,

                     That by it you may plainly see

                     What care my parents have for me.

       It must have taken that little five-year-old months and months of laborious sewing, but, in a circle in a bottom corner of the sampler, there is a line: "Be Ever Happy".

50. The writer’s grandmother will complain that ______.

  A. children used to be mischievous

  B. children behave worse than they did in the past

  C. children are often reminded of what to do

  D. children are very badly behaved

51.Visiting Granny on Sundays was a terrible experience because ______.

  A. the writer was not so well raised as she was required to pretend

  B. Granny continually warned the writer to be on her best behavior

  C. Granny was always describing the writer’s "Sunday best"

  D. the writer was always blamed for not behaving well

52. From Paragraph 4, we can infer that the writer ______.

  A. seldom spoke to her father in the way her friend did

  B. was never questioned about the rules of good manners

  C. never doubted the value of the strict rules at that time

  D. was worried that her friend’s father would be shocked

53. The writer looked wistfully at the sampler, because______.

  A. it was embroidered by a relative.

  B. she wished she could sew herself.

  C. it called to mind the values of good old days.

  D. she had no photographs of Mary Saunders.

54. By sewing "Be Ever Happy" in the sampler, Mary Saunders ______. 

  A. suggested she was unhappy then

  B. indicated happiness was hard to gain

  C. expected we would find happiness in sewing

  D. hoped happiness would be everlasting