比较好的英语阅读文章材料
有的时候多看一些课外英语阅读，除了可以扩展我们的英语词汇量以外，还可以扩展我们的英语阅读范围。这里与大家分享比较好的英语阅读文章，有时间我们不妨学习一下，看看自己能够做到何种程度。
比较好的英语阅读文章(一)
America's sweetheart
There is an English saying that goes, "he who laughs last, laughs the hardest." High School Musical star and teen heartthrob (让人心动的男人) Zac Efron is laughing a lot these days.
As a young boy, Efron was picked on in school because he was always the smallest in his class and teased (取笑) because he had a big space between his teeth. In sixth grade, Efron's basketball team made it to the league championships. In double overtime (两个加时赛), with three seconds left, he rebounded the ball and passed it — to the wrong team! They scored and his team lost the game.
But history, as they say, is a thing of the past. Now at 21, Efron is one of People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People, graces (荣登) the cover of Entertainment Weekly, Hollywood's most influential magazine, and is traveling the world promoting the third High School Musical film. Director Adam Shankman described Efron as "arguably the biggest teen star in America right now." Simply google "Zac Efron" and you get more than 14 million responses. Yes, it seems Efron has a lot to smile about these days.
Efron was born and raised in California. He took school seriously. According to Efron, "he would flip out (发疯) if he got a B and not an A in school, and that he was a class clown." It was his father who encouraged him to act. He took part in school performances and with a local theater group. He also took singing lessons. He graduated high school in 2006 and was accepted at the University of Southern California to study film. But he deferred (延期) — why study movies when you can star in them.
Now he has signed on to star in the romantic comedy Seventeen Again and to play in the remake of the hugely popular movie, Footloose. Efron is also earning more than $3 million for his role in High School Musical 3. Not bad for a 21-year-old. But Efron still remembers those bullies (欺人者).
"You always have to remember that bullies want to bring you down because you have something that they admire," Efron said. "Also, when you get made fun of, when people point out your weaknesses, it's an opportunity for you to rise above."
Efron has risen all the way to the top of the movie business. And he can now laugh all the way to the bank.
比较好的英语阅读文章(二)
Opening his eyes in Africa
KIDS in a Sudanese refugee (难民) camp stir up a cloud of dust as they kick (踢) around a football. NBA superstar Tracy McGrady watches from a distance before offering to buy the kids a grass pitch for $1,000.
Perhaps he sees a Ronaldinho rising up out of the African soil. Or maybe he just wants to do something – anything – to give these children some hope. But he is told, politely, that grass is not what the kids need.
This scene appears in 3 Point, a new documentary, which shows the Houston Rockets star coming face-to-face with the reality that life is more than sport.
McGrady, 29, writes on his website that he traveled to Africa because he was tired of only reading about it in the news. "Who were the faces behind the statistics?" he said. "I needed to see it for myself."
And he did. He stepped out of his mansion (别墅) and flew to a place torn to bits by war and famine (饥荒). He slept in a tent (帐篷). He dodged minefields (躲避雷区). He talked with people who have been tortured (折磨). And he swallowed his pride.
But no one should blame McGrady for wanting to buy the kids a patch of grass. Sport gave him a chance, so perhaps he thought it would do the same for the refugees.
McGrady was eyed* by NBA scouts as a teenager and he didn't bother going to college. Instead, he leaped right into the NBA. Since that move, basketball has given him a handsome* living, but one very far removed* from the lives of ordinary people. As McGrady would learn in Africa, most people see sport as just a break from life's difficulties. They don't mistake it for life itself.
Only McGrady knows how this Africa trip changed him, but I'd bet that, at the very least, it has given him a new sense for what is truly meaningful.
McGrady doesn't own an NBA championship ring. He hasn't risen to the heights of Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. But, perhaps, now he knows he doesn't have to in order to truly make a difference in the world.
