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 hands. But soon they begin hitting one another over the heads with chairs. And so it goes on until one of the men crashes (撞擊) 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 catch fire, are well trained. They do this for a living. These men are called stuntmen. That is to say, they perform tricks (花招,手段). Here are two sides to their work. They 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 depends on trick of this sort, it also requires a high degree of skill and training.
Often a stuntmen’s success depends on careful timing. For example, when he is "blown up" in a battle scene, he has to jump out of the way of the explosion just at the right moment.
Naturally stuntmen are well paid for their work, but they lead dangerous lives. They often get seriously hurt, and sometimes killed. A Norwegian stuntman, for example, flew over the edge of a cliff (懸崖) a thousand feet high. His parachute (降落傘) failed to open, and he was killed. Although it is full of deadly dangers, this is no longer the work for men only. Men no longer dress up as women when actresses have to perform some dangerous actions. For nowadays there are stuntwomen too! (357)
小題1:
Stuntmen are those who ______.
A.often dress up as famous actors |
B.prefer to lead dangerous lives |
C.often perform dangerous actions |
D.often fight each other for their lives |
小題2:
What’s the meaning of the underlined sentences in the first paragraph?
A stuntman should _______.
A.crash bravely though a window made of sugar |
B.do the well-planned activity at a very moment |
C.open his parachute when he jumps down the cliff |
D.have got a high degree of skill and training |
小題3:
Which could probably the best title of this passage?
A.Fights in the Movies. | B.Crashing Out of the Window. |
C.Exciting Films Today. | D.Most Dangerous Work. |