You are watching a film in which two men are having a
fight. They hit one another hard. At the start they only fight with their fists(拳頭).But soon they begin hitting one another over the
heads with chairs. And so it goes on until one of the men crashes through a
window and falls thirty feet to the ground below. He is dead!
Of course he isn’t really dead. With any luck he isn’t
even hurt. Why ? Because the men who fall out of high windows or jump from fast
moving trains, who crash cars of even catching fire, are professionals(職業(yè)).They do this for a living. These men are called
stuntmen. That is to say, they perform tricks(騙局).
There are two sides to their work. They actually do
most of the things you see on the screen. For example, they fall from a high
building. However, they do not fall on to hard ground but on to empty cardboard
boxes covered with a mattress(床墊). Again, when they hit
one another with chairs, the chairs are made of soft wood and when they crash
through windows, the glass is made of sugar!
But although their work depend on trick of this sort,
it also requires a high degree of skill and training. Often a stuntman’s
success depends on careful timing(計(jì)時(shí)).For
example, when he is “blown up” in a battle scene, he has to jump out of the way
of the explosion(爆炸)just at the right moment.
Naturally stuntmen are well paid for their work, but
they lead dangerous lives. They often get seriously injured, and sometimes
killed. A Norwegian stuntman, for example, skied over the edge of a cliff a
thousand feet high. His parachute(降落傘)failed to
open, and he was killed.
In spite of(盡管)all the risks,
this is no longer a profession for men only. Men no longer dress up as women
when actresses have to perform some dangerous action. For nowadays there are
stuntgirls too!
1.Stuntmen are those who____________
A.Often dress
up as actors
B.prefer to lead
dangerous lives
C.often perform
seemingly dangerous actions
D.often fight
each other for their lives
2.Stuntmen earn their living by___________
A.playing their
dirty tricks
B.selling their
special skills
C.jumping out
of high windows
D.jumping from
fast moving trains
3.When a stuntman falls from a high
building,___________
A.he needs
little protection
B.he will be
covered with a mattress
C.his life is
endangered
D.his safety is
generally all right
4.Which of the following is the main factor(因素) of a successful performance?
A.Strength B.Exactness C.Speed D.Carefulness
5.What can be inferred from the author’s example of
the Norwegian stuntman?
A.Sometimes an
accident can occur to a stuntman.
B.The
percentage of serious accidents is high.
C.Parachutes
must be of good quality.
D.The cliff is
too high.