To many basketball fans in Taiwan, the William Jones Cup or the Basketball Association may be their sweetest memory. But if you ask them, “What’s the hottest basketball event now?” There is the only answer: HBL, the High School Basketball League.

Founded in 1988, the HBLwas at first just a high school basketball tournament. After the Taipei School Sport Federation took charge in 1996 and renamed it HBL, everything changed. The Federation decided to co-operated with Nike, the well-known sportswear manufacturer, and use its experience in marketing to promote the game.

The HBL started with 129 teams; today there are more than 250. no longer just of interest to the players, it’s now Taiwan’s biggest basketball event. Fellow students, alumni (男毕业生，男校友), and sports fans all over Taiwan cheer for their favorite teams. At last year’s finals, Taipei and Kaohsiung mayors came to cheer for their teams.

The HBL starts in September with qualifying and preliminary(预备的，初步的) rounds and continues through April of the following year, when the finals are held. Broadcasting the games on television has helped make the HBL a wildly popular event. It’s become the place to spot young basketball talent. Today’s HBL players are tomorrow’s professionals.

Recent HBL tournaments have been very competitive, with no one school taking the advantage. This wide-open quality of the tournament makes it more exciting. Everyone wants to see how this year’s games will come out. HBL fever just keeps getting hotter.

1.What is the hottest event in the eyes of most basketball fans in Taiwan?

2.What was it that helped to make the High School Basketball League wildly popular to the public?

3.Why does the writer say“Recent HBL tournaments have been very competitive”?

4.What would be the best title for the passage?

5.Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

There are two ways to save money traveling. The first way is to get the best deals on the specific things you want. There is a limitation to this type of approach (途径，方法) though. If you find the lowest price on the best hotel in Honolulu at the height of the season, you will save money, but still have a very expensive vacation. Trying to get exactly what you want will generally be an expensive proposition, in travel and in life.

The other approach is to be a true opportunist. This will be difficult for some of you, and entirely unacceptable to others. Nonetheless (尽管如此)，the travelers who get to travel the most, go to the widest variety of places, learn the most and do the most, are the opportunists. This will be true until you are so wealthy that you have no monetary (货币的；钱的)limits.

The first time I went to Ecuador, I went there because it was cheap. If it wasn’t, I would have had a great time—somewhere else. The trip lasted a month, and cost $1045, which included airfare and even the $130 fee for a guide to take me to the top or glacier (冰川) covered Mount Chimborazo.

I cut the cost by taking a bus from my home in Michigan to Miami, and back again when I returned from Ecuador. The round-trip ticket cost $158. The round-trip flight to Quito from Miami was only $256, because it was a courier (信使，通讯员) flight, which meant I signed for some luggage(car parts), and  could only take carry-on luggage.

Never did I feel deprived, or bored. I had a great time, eating wherever it was cheap and clean, doing all sorts of inexpensive, but interesting things, and traveling across the country to climb Chimborazo. I also met and fell in love with my wife Ana.

Being an opportunist means you’ll have just as much variety, and probably almost everything you want—eventually. You just have to stop trying to get exactly what you want exactly when you want it. If the guide that took me up Chimborazo hadn’t dropped his price from $200 to $130, I would have spent $2 for a bus and gone hiking on EI Altar, another great Andean mountain. That would have left me with enough money for several other minor adventures.

1.The underlined phrase “the best deals” in the first paragraph probably refers to ______.

2.The return tickets from his hometown to Quito cost the author ______.

3.The last paragraph was to tell us how to ______.

4.It’s suggested that the author _____.

5.Which of the following can serve as the best title of the passage?

A high school history teacher once told us, “if you make one close friend in school, you will be most fortunate. A true friend is someone who stays with you for life.” __1___ teaches that he was right. Good friendship is just not easily __2___.

It is possible that we simply do not stay in one place long enough for __3___ friendship to __4__. However, there can be _5__ disagreement on the need for each of us to think carefully about the kind of friendship we want.

To most of us, friendships are considered very important, but we need to have clear in our _6__ the kinds of friendship we want. Are they to be close or __7_ at arm’s length? Do we want to __8_ ourselves or do we want to walk on the surface? For some people, many friendships on the surface are _9__ enough---and that’s right. But at some point we need to _10__ that our expectations are the same as our friends’ expectations. The sharing of _11__ experience _12__ our tears as well as our dark dreams is the surest way to deepen friendships. But it __13_ be undertaken（进行）slowly and carried on only if there are _14__ of interest and action in return.

What are some of the _15__ of friendship? The greatest is the attraction to expect too much too soon. Deep relationships __16_ time. Another “major difficulty” is the selfishness to think one “possesses” the other, including his time and attention, Similarly, friendships __17___actions in return, in __18__ words, you must give as much as you take. Finally there is a question of taking care of . Unless you spend __19__ time together, talking on the phone, writing letters doing things together, friendships will die __20__

Although the Lakers won 118-78 victory tonight over the Houston Rockets in Game 5 at Staples Center, they were ___ to celebrate it.

Bats are surprisingly long-lived creatures, some ___ a life span of around 20 years.

You can _____ that all the goods are delivered on time.

How can I help them to understand ___ they won’t listen to me？

I would love ___ to the party last night but I had to work extra hours to finish a report.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) ____ birds kept in cages in order to have the pleasure of setting them free.

_____, we decided to spend the night at the foot of the mountain.