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. But soon they begin hitting one another over the heads with chairs. And so it goes on until one of the men crashes (撞击) 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 professionals. They do this for a living. These men are called stuntmen. That is to say, they perform tricks.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 cardboard¹ boxes covered with a mattress² (床垫). 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 stuntman³' s success depends on careful timing⁴. For example, when he is "blown up" in a battle scene, he has to jump out of the way of the explosion⁵ 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 cliff⁶ (悬崖) a thousand feet high. His parachute (降落伞) failed to open, and he was killed. In spite⁷ of 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 tool

1. Stuntmen are those who ______.

A. often dress up as actors

B. prefer to lead dangerous lives

C. often perform seemingly⁸ 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 inferred⁹ 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.

KEY: 1- 5 CBDBA