With long brown hair, deep blue eyes, a tall and thin figure(身躯) Brad Pitt seems to be a born actor.He made his first appearance in a film in 1990.Though he was in the film for only 14 minutes, people flooded the cinema to see him.In his next film Pitt played the role of a fisherman.To make the film better, he learned the skill of fishing from a fisherman.
Pitt, caring more about roles than money, has a special favor for the “hard” roles.After reading the screenplay(剧本) of “Legends of the Fall”, he was attracted by the leading character.He asked for a lower pay from the shooting team and was willing to work in hard conditions in the Rocky Mountains for six months.“The film gives the chance to know life.I shall always remember the time when we were making the film,” Pitt said after completing it fully.
Pitt started his dream of art when he was in university.Though born in a common family in 1964, he showed his interest in film at an early age.After leaving high school, he went to university to study law.Because he loved film more than law, shortly before he could graduate, he dropped out for a life of his own, with only 325 dollars in hand, sometimes as a porter or a waiter.Thanks to his hard work, he finally opened up a new field of his own.
【小题1】Pitt acted his first film at the age of        .

No matter where he lives, 16-year-old Danny Lopez feels like an outsider: he is half-Mexican and half-white.
At his private high school in wealthy northern San Diego, California, US, Lopez is too brown to fit in, whereas for the Mexican side of his family in National City, just a dozen miles from the border, he is too white to belong.
Different from both sides, Lopez is silent in school. He focuses on his passion for baseball and working hard to improve the pitches (球场) that have kept him off the school team.
Mexican Whiteboy, by Matt de la Pena, is about a teenager’s search for identity. It was named as one of the Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults in 2009 by the US Young Adult Library Services Association.
When Lopez’s mother decides to go to live with her wealthy white boyfriend in San Francisco, he chooses to spend the summer with his father’s family in San Diego. It’s a trip to explore roots and self-identity, filled with unexpected friendship.
There he meets Uno, of mixed heritage (遗传) like himself, also with a divorced mom. Uno understands Danny’s split background and helps him improve his baseball skills. Both boys have big league dreams, but they both have to learn to come to terms with their mixed heritages before they can achieve their goals.
Aside from discussions of racism, Mexican Whiteboy takes on other issues, such as the importance of family and the negative influence of hiding the truth. It also shows how sports can draw cultures together.
【小题1】The reason why Lopez feels like an outsider lies in the fact that ___________.

February 4, 2012 saw the take-off of a new rising NBA star-Jeremy Lin.
Among professional basketball players, Jeremy Lin's background is not typical. He graduated from Harvard University, which sends few players to the NBA, and he is the only Chinese-American NBA player.
Lin's enjoyment of basketball actually began in Taiwan. When Lin's father moved to U.S., his interest in the sport only grew and he passed on this love of basketball to his son, introducing him to the game at the age of five. The young Lin spent much of his youth playing basketball for fun.
In high school, Lin dreamed of playing in the NBA. When he applied for college, he was not offered a single sports scholarship. However, after his admission to Harvard, he was offered a place on its college basketball team.
During Lin's time at Harvard, his basketball career began to speed up. He scored 1,482 points, making him one of the highest scorers in Ivy League history.
When he graduated, no professional teams offered Lin a contract, but he was invited to play in the NBA Summer League. He played well and ended up eagerly signing a contract with the Golden State Warriors.
At first，playing in professional games filled Lin with excitement. He treasured opportunities to meet players he had been watching on TV for years. But slowly, the excitement wore off and was replaced by anxiety. In a few very difficult months, he was cut by two teams before the New York Knicks picked him up.
But he had the courage and determination to stick to his dream, so he put himself into hard training to get ready for his opportunity to come. Then his moment arrived on February 4, 2012，on which his excellent performance made him famous overnight. After that, he led the Knicks to their fifth straight victory. Knicks fans developed the nickname for him "Linsanity" (林发疯）. Time magazine released its 2012 list of the 100 "Most Influential People in the World", Jeremy Lin included.
【小题1】Which of the following is of little help in Lin’s success?

A 33-year-old financial analyst in California recently quit his job to devote himself to an unpaid job teaching math on the Internet, and his lessons are reaching almost 100,000 people a month. Salman Khan’s voice is heard every day on the net --- by tens of thousands of students around the world who are hungry for help learning math. He has posted 1,200 lessons on YouTube ... lessons that appear on an electronic blackboard, which range from basic addition to advanced mathematics for science and finance. And they are free.

Khan lives in Silicon Valley, with his wife, a doctor, and their new baby. He got the idea for his “Khan Academy” four years ago, when he taught a young cousin how to convert kilograms to grams. With Khan’s help, the cousin got good at math, and Khan began a new career.

Now, Khan records his lessons himself, but he never goes on camera. “It feels like my voice in their head. You’re looking at it and it feels like someone’s over your shoulder talking in your ear, as opposed to someone at the blackboard, which is distant from you,” he said.

When Springfield High School in Palo Alto, California invited Khan to speak in person --- he immediately connected to the students there.

The idea of short lessons that can be played over and over again attracted high school senior Bridget Meaney. She says she had trouble with math in the seventh grade. “I think the teachers are good, but they can’t teach at a speed that’s perfect for everyone,” she said. “I like the idea of learning something in class but then going back and pressing pause or rewind and actually getting a deeper understanding of it.”

Originally, Khan kept his lessons short because of YouTube restrictions. Now, he thinks short is better. “Education researchers now tell me that 10 minutes is how long someone can have a high level of concentration. And anything beyond that and your brain switches off,” he said.

For Khan, teaching math, science, and finance is just the beginning. He says he’s ready to expand his YouTube site to include other subjects as well.

1.What gave Khan the idea of teaching math online?

A. His success in helping his cousin learn math.

B. His discovery that many students found learning math difficult.

C. A suggestion made to him at a local high school.

D. His interest in Internet teaching.

2. Why does Khan never go on camera?

A. He’s too shy to show his face on camera.

B. It’s restricted by YouTube for education videos.

C. He wants to keep distance from the viewers.

D. He wants to create a more relaxed learning atmosphere.

3. From the passage, we know that ________.

A. Khan travels to many schools to promote his lessons

B. Khan plans to include more subjects in the future

C. Khan gives live math lessons every day for free

D. Khan set up the Khan Academy with his wife

4.Why does Bridget Meaney like Khan’s lessons?

   A. Khan teaches seventh grade math better than her teacher.

   B. The lessons can be watched repeatedly until fully understood.

   C. She can perfectly follow the pace of Khan’s teaching.

   D. She cannot concentrate when learning in class.

5.What does Khan mean by “short is better” in the 6^th paragraph?

   A. Keeping the lessons short can ensure better concentration.

   B. YouTube recommends short lessons for its site.

   C. Short lessons encourage students to return to the website.

   D. Students enjoy short mathematics lessons more.

I grew up in a house where the TV was seldom turned on and with one wall in my bedroom entirely lined with bookshelves, most of my childhood was spent on books I could get hold of. In fact, I grew up thinking of reading as natural as breathing and books unbelievably powerful in shaping perspectives (观点) by creating worlds we could step into, take part in, and live in.
With this unshakable belief, I, at fourteen, decided to become a writer. Here too, reading became useful. Every writer starts off knowing that he has something to say, but being unable to find the right ways to say it. He has to find his own voice by reading widely and discovering which parts of the writers he agrees or disagrees with, or agrees with so strongly that it reshapes his own world. He cannot write without loving to read, because only through reading other people’s writing can one discover what works, what doesn’t and, in the end, together with lots of practice, what voice he has.
Now I am in college, and have come to realize how important it is to read fiction (文学作品)．As a law student, my reading is in fact limited to subject matter—the volume (量) of what I have to read for classes every week means there is little time to read anything else. Such reading made it all the clearer to me that I live in a very small part in this great place called life. Reading fiction(小说) reminds me that there is life beyond my own. It allows me to travel across the high seas and along the Silk Road, all from the comfort of my own armchair, to experience, though secondhand, exciting experiences that I wouldn't necessarily be able to have in my lifetime.
【小题1】What does the underlined word in paragraph 1 mostly probably mean?