Train-spotting

Many people around the world have seen Danny Boyle’s movie Train spotting starring Ewan McGregor, but how many of us really know what train-spotting is all about? Now this is not considered cool in town and the word “train-spotter” in Britain is related to “geek” or “nerd” (someone who seems very ridiculous). But is this reputation really deserved?

First of all, let’s see what train-spotting is. It is said that there are some 100,000 train spotters in the UK. Exactly as the title suggests, they spot trains, that is, they stand in train stations, look at the number of each train that leaves and arrives and write it down. The eventual aim is to have seen every train in the country.

    Being crazy about railways and trains is not modern and it dates back to 1804. As the number of trains grew and they got faster and faster, so did the interest in them grow? Is this any stranger than people who love cars?

    So, what do you need to be a train-spotter? Well, all you really need is a pen or pencil and a notebook to write down the train numbers. Other equipment(装备) includes hot tea in a thermos, a camera and some sandwiches for those long afternoons spent on train platforms when you don’t want to risk the delights of railway station food.

    It’s interesting to note that despite the “bad name” of train-spotting, there have been famous railway lovers in history, such as Alfred Hitchcock, who filmed them regularly, especially The 39 Steps. There is evidence, too, that being a train-spotter is not necessarily a strange phenomenon（现象）in Britain.

    One glance at the US train stations should be enough to convince you that train-spotters there are alive and well. In America, they try to call rail lovers “train-fans” and talk of “train-fanning”. Don’t let this fool you—these people are train spotters and there are a lot of them. Each month, two million pages are visited on the website TrainWeb.org.                      

340words

1.What is train-spotting according to the passage?

A. A kind of hobby.             B. A type of sport.

C. A strange phenomenon.        D. A special job.

2.Which of the following about train-spotters is true according to the passage?

A. They number each train they see.

B. They keep a careful path of every train.

C. They count the trains passing in front of them.

D. They produce films about trains with video cameras.

3.The writer writes the passage to        .

A. introduce some famous train-spotters

B. encourage readers to do more train-spotting

C. try to present a true picture of train-spotting

D. describe the necessary equipment in train-spotting

4. What do we learn from the passage?

A. Train-spotters in the UK want to fool people.

B. Train-spotting is more acceptable in America.

C. Train-spotters are much stranger than car lovers.

D. Train-spotting relates to（与…有关）a dangerous lifestyle.

“You know, these cups brings to my mind a story I heard,” Mary said to her students.
She poured some tea. There were four of them and there were four completely different cups on the tables.
“I heard there was a teacher who took all his students for tea. His students were surprised that all the cups on the table were different. They all took a cup and started drinking their tea, each looking at the cups of others. The teacher said, “Did you notice your behavior? You are all looking at each other’s tea cup and some of you even envy(羡慕)the finer cups of others.”
“I put the different cups here on purpose. I want to say life is like this tea. You all have the same thing in your cups——tea. And yet you cannot truly enjoy it in your envy of another’s cup. You forget to enjoy your own life when you envy someone else’s life. We all have the same thing——life. We should care more about the tastes of your own life. So now, taste your own tea. Does it matter from which cup it came from?” Mary finished telling her story and her students all sat in silence for a while, enjoying their tea. And it really did not matter a bit from which teacup they drank.
【小题1】 Which of the following statement is TRUE?

Tea bag drinking is most Westerners' favorite way of drinking tea. Do you know how it came about?

The tea bag was invented in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan, an American tea seller. He was sending out free tea in silk bags for people to try. People put the bags together with the tea leaves into the cup and added(增加) hot water. The tea tasted good, and people thought it was easy to clean the cup. They were not happy when Sullivan started sending them loose (散的) tea again.

Sullivan realized that he had a hot new thing in his hands, and he built a machine to pack the bags. As tea bags became popular, they were changed from silk to gauze (薄纱) and later paper. In 1952, Lipton Tea made the tea bag even more popular with its invention of the four-sided tea bag. Tea bags were soon a hit in the UK, and today 85%of the tea in the UK is packed in paper bags.

However, many people still prefer loose-leaf tea.  This is because some tea companies put not very good tea in their tea bags. But for most drinkers, tea bags are still the easy and tasly way to go.

1.Who invented the tea bag?

A. An English tea seller.       B. Chinese.

C. Lipton.                      D. Thomas Sullivan.

2.The tea in silk bags was welcome because________.

A. the tea in bags was free and very good

B. the tea tasted good and the cup was easy to wash

C. people were happy, with the loose tea

D. people didn't know any better way to enjoy the tea

3.The material of the tea bags is usually_________now.

A. silk         B. gauze         C. paper       D. plastic

4.The underlined sentence "Tea bags were soon a hit in the UK" probably means “_______in the UK”.

A. Tea bags soon became popular

B. Tea bags surprised everyone very much

C. Tea bags kicked the loose-leaf tea out of the market

D. Tea bags weren't allowed to be sold

5.The reading mainly talks about________.

A. the invention of tea        

B. the way of drinking tea

C. the history of tea bags     

D. people' s favorite tea in the world

【小题1】 Linda is the big ____________ of the car race.
【小题2】 Art is my ____________ class in the timetable today.
【小题3】We should always speak ____________ to our parents.
【小题4】 Jim ____________ the TV and watched the football game.
【小题5】Mr. Zhang owns a teahouse. It ____________ tea in special bowls.