This year Canada’s navy is one hundred years old. To mark the occasion, military ships from six different countries around the Pacific Ocean came to Canada for a four-day celebration. There were parades, parties and demonstrations of navy search and rescue aircraft and a show put on by the Snowbirds.
The Snowbirds, Canada’s aerobatic team, fly Tudor jet aircraft that are not particularly fast or particularly new but with amazing and sometimes hair-raising precision. They put a formation of nine aircraft into a space that would normally hold only one and they change the information in flight, roll it, loop it, break it and reform it in a dizzying ballet in the sky. The Snowbirds are one of the best aerobatic flying teams in the world and they are a readily recognized symbol of Canada just as the Great Wall is a recognized symbol of China. For a Canadian, watching the Snowbirds fly can bring tears. They make us very proud.
The Snowbirds have been flying since 1971. All of the pilots are serving members of the Canadian Air Force. They are all very young, all are highly-skilled and each is attached to the Snowbirds for two or three years. Each winter they practice in the cold, clear skies and each summer they put on more than fifty air-shows across the country and sometimes abroad. What they do is highly specialized. They often fly less than two meters from each other at speeds of about seven hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.
Flying is, by its nature, inherently risky and what the Snowbirds do increases that risk. While the pilots are all highly trained professionals, eight Snowbird pilots have been killed over the years. I have been fortunate enough to watch the Snowbirds fly probably fifteen or twenty times and if I know they are going to be flying I will go to see them again and again. This is not because I want to see someone do something dangerous, it is because I want to see something done so well—it is almost unbelievably precise and beautiful. I want to watch nine aircraft in an incredibly tight formation, each one painted in the red and white of my country’s flag, soaring through the cloudless blue sky. I want to feel that pride and that tear just behind my eyelids that comes from watching something uniquely and wonderfully Canadian.
小题1:.
Which of the following is TRUE about the Snowbirds?
A．The aircraft they fly are particularly fast and new.
B．They are the best aerobatic flying team in the world.
C．They are regarded as a symbol of Canada.
D．Every year they put on more than fifty air-shows across the country.小题2:.
. The underlined word “inherently” in the last paragraph refers to .
A．naturally
B．truly
C．entirely
D．nearly小题3:.
Why does the author like to watch the Snowbirds fly?
A．Because he w
ants to see someone do something dangerous.
B．Because the flying is unbelievably precise and beautiful.
C．Because his country’s flag is painted on each one.
D．Because watching them fly can make people cry.小题4:.
Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?
A．Air-shows of the Snowbirds
B．A Four-day Celebration of Canada
C．The Training of Highly-skilled Pilots
D．A National Symbol -- the Snowbirds
