同步拓展阅读：新概念英语第3册第20课
一、往期回顾
【参考答案】
1. He waited at the train station for his master to return.
2. A symbol of enduring fidelity.
3. It was given to the president’s secretary, Betty Currie.
4. It lived at both the Jackson family home and Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.
5. It was turned over to the Center for Great Apes primate sanctuary in Wauchula, Florida.
二、本期内容
【课文主题】
第20课讲的是飞行员先驱Hubert Latham和Louis Bleriot的故事，所以我选择了一篇同样是有关飞行员先驱Hubert Latham的文章。
【拓展阅读】
一、文章内容
Arthur Charles Hubert Latham was born in Paris on January 10th, 1883. His family was wealthy: his father was a trader of indigo and other commodities and his mother came from a banking family. His father, who had English family background, died when Hubert was two years old and he was raised in a cosmopolitan environment. He spoke fluent English and German and studied in Oxford before his military service. He was a sportsman and tried several sports, including hunting, ballooning and speedboat racing. He also made an expedition exploring Ethiopia and travelled to the far East.
In 1908 he became interested in flying and approached Léon Levavasseur's Antoinette company, where he learned to fly and became the company's chief pilot. He famously competed with Louis Blériot over who would be first to fly over the English Channel, but lost after ditching because of engine problems.
He was the undisputed master of handling the difficult Antoinette monoplanes. He beat the world altitude record a couple of times and scored several spectacular successes, for example at the 1909 Reims, Blackpool and Berlin meetings. His looks, manners and lifestyle made him an international celebrity. His flying prompted long-time aviation journalist Harry Harper to almost fifty years later write that "I do not think there was ever a finer pilot".
However, there were also lacklustre meetings where neither the Antoinettes nor Latham performed well, such as the 1909 Frankfurt and Port-Aviation meetings and the 1910 Heliopolis meeting. In 1910 and 1911 he participated in several more meetings and made a tour of the USA, where he famously shot two ducks from his airplane with a shotgun, but the Antoinettes were getting outdated and he never achieved the same level of success again.
【词汇注释】
1. wealthy：富裕的
2. indigo：靛蓝
3. commodity：商品
4. cosmopolitan：世界性的
5. expedition：探险
6. ditch：迫降
7. undisputed：无可争议的
8. spectacular：惊人的
9. celebrity：名人
10. aviation：航空
11. lacklustre：单调的
二、阅读题目
根据短文内容判断下列句子对错：
1. Latham’s had French family background.
2. Latham had never travelled to the far East.
3. Latham was the first to fly over the English Channel.
4. Latham had broken the world record in handling monoplanes several times.
5. Latham once shot five ducks with a shotgun from his plane.
三、参考答案