MountainClimbing
Mountain climbing, or ascending mountains, is popular worldwide, wherever hills rise high enough to provide a challenge. The activity’s rewards include the physical exercise it provides, the satisfaction of overcoming difficulties by working with others, the thrill of reaching a summit, and the unobstructed views from a mountaintop.Exploration and research are other reasons that people climb mountains. Since ancient times, people have viewed mountain peaks as towering objects of myth, spiritual inspiration, and romantic beauty.Early peoples made ascents only to hunt game, to rescue lost or strayed animals, or to gain a military advantage over an enemy.Eventually, the unknown and inaccessible peaks ceased to be feared and avoided, and the conquest of the major mountain peaks and ranges of the world began. Mountaineering as a sport was born onAugust 8,1786. Since that ascent, mountain climbing has evolved into three related sports: alpine climbing, ice climbing, and rock climbing. These sports require the same fundamental techniques.
The style of alpinism or alpine climbing encompasses much of the basic climbing techniques, equipment, and safety precautions that form the basis for ice climbing and rock climbing.Alpine climbing began in theEuropeanAlps in the late 18th century and is now practiced in all mountain ranges of the worlD、Alpine climbing involves the continuous ascent of a mountain peak over a period of one to several days by a team of at least two alpinists. Teams may consist of as many as four climbers. The climbers carry all the equipment they need—a camping stove and fuel, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, a tent or bivouac sack, first aid gear, a water bottle, and fooD、Each night the climbers spend the night on a mountain ledge before continuing upwarD、
Ice climbing grew out of traditional mountaineering, and ice climbers use the basic equipment, techniques, and safety precautions that alpinists do, with certain specialized changes to account for the added difficulties of ascending vertical sheets of ice. For example,Eckenstein’s ten-point crampons enabled mountaineers to ascend more difficult and steeper climbs over icy routes.A、[■]Ice climbers later created more radically drooped ice axe picks and ergonomically designed ice axe shafts, allowing them to venture onto continuously vertical, and even overhanging, frozen waterfalls.
In the early 20th century, French and German mountaineers sought out new challenges by training on cliffs and boulders near their homes.B、[■]The earliest documented rock climb done for sport was the 35-m high Nape’s Needle in the LakeDistrict ofEnglanD、C、[■]Climbing areas may be relatively small crags of rock, large canyon sidewalls, or immense mountain faces.D、[■]Granite, limestone, sandstone, metamorphosed schist, and gneiss are the five most popular rock types for climbing.
In recent years, well-publicized successes and tragedies in mountaineering activities and improvements in climbing equipment have given rise to an increased number of mountain climbers worldwide. The sport’s popularity has led some countries to require mountaineers to purchase climbing permits. Himalayan expeditions must also pay an environmental bond to guarantee that they will remove all of their waste at the conclusion of their trip.
Environmental protection efforts are underway at many rock climbing areas to ease ecological strains on popular areas. Local climbers participate in an annual cleanup day to maintain approach trails, wash gymnastic chalk off the rock, and pick up litter. TheAccess Fund is the national organization that helps climbers gain access to climbing areas and also assists with environmental problems associated with cliffs in the United States.
Beginning in the 1980s indoor rock-climbing gyms have played a key role in introducing large numbers of

FilmExchanges inAmerica’sEarly Movie Industry
Motion pictures were exhibited to the public in the late 1800s, though the first device to accomplish this would seem very unfamiliar to today’s movie-going audiences. ThomasEdison’s 1893 Kinetoscope was little more than a wooden box with a small glass window. Intended only for individual viewing, it housed a roll of film, a mechanical device to circulate the film, and a small light to illuminate it.A、person would peer through the window and watch a short moving sequence, usually just a depiction of an everyday
event or the performance of an acrobat or dancer. Needless to say, the medium’s ability to serve only one customer at a time severely limited its profitability.
Everything changed two years later with the advent of projection, by which a much larger film image could be shown to multiple viewers simultaneously. The Lumiere brothers of France were the first to introduce this new technology with a projection machine called a cinematograph.Edison was quick to follow their lead and created his Vitascope projector in late 1895. With the potential to make money by charging admission to movies now within reach, the innovators of the film industry were ready to expand their business ventures.
There were two industry models in practice during the early 1900s.A、handful of successful firms, such as theBiographCompany, owned the equipment to make their own films as well as the venues in which to display them. Such companies were rare, however; most films were shown by independent exhibitors. These included traditional theater owners, who added short film presentations to their programs of live-action entertainment, and traveling cinema exhibitors, who moved from town to town to reach new audiences, often following circuits established by rural fairs. They typically purchased films directly from the production companies that made them, paying a set price per foot of film regardless of its content.Because movies of the time were never longer than one or two minutes, it was feasible to buy them outright. However, this system failed to attract significant audiences as the public soon tired of the small stock of films exhibitors had to offer, and the reels of film themselves deteriorated quickly through repeated transport and screening in traveling cinema shows.
Things changed again when producers began increasing the length of their films in order to tell more complex stories. Longer films entailed higher prices, and it became difficult for small-scale exhibitors to purchase them. This, in turn, prevented production studios from creating as many movies as they could, since they had no one to sell them to. It was precisely this dilemma that gave rise to the film exchange.An early version of a motion-picture distributor, film exchanges were responsible for bridging the gap between production and exhibition. They financed production studios, giving them the funds they needed to film more movies. Then, they purchased these films and rented them out to exhibitors around the country for a fraction of what it would have cost the exhibitors to purchase the films themselves.
The film-exchange system revolutionized the industry, greatly benefiting all parties involveD、
Film rentals allowed exhibitors to show a wide variety of movies and gave them constant access to new films so they could change their programs frequently.
This led to the rise of what we now know as the movie theater, a venue dedicated solely to the public exhibition of films.
Film exchanges made money by taking a percentage of ticket sales, and the production studios were paid by the exchanges.
【单选题】： A B C D

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