I Made It Myself (英语阅读)
I Made It Myself 这两天在审查新版North Star的内容,顺便就读到了很多有趣的书中的内容。2级的Reading and Writing的第3单元Making Money的一篇文章,就非常有趣。把读后练习也附上。
Before computers and copiers, counterfeiting was not easy. You needed the artistic skill to draw a copy of a bill, a large printing press, and the skill to use it.
Counterfeiting often took a lot of time, planning, and hard work. Still the results were excellent. The counterfeit money looked and felt like the real thing. Today, professional counterfeiters still make fake money the old-fashioned way - on printing presses.
Now read the story of Michael Landress, who was once a professional counterfeiter.
It took months of planning, of trying to find the perfect paper, of mixing and remixing ink to get the right color, or printing and reprinting to get the right feel, but I did it. I made a perfect copy of a $100 bill.
During the days, I did regular print jobs at the shop. Then every evening at five o'clock, I sent my workers home, hoping no one would ask why I stayed late. I pulled out the paper, ink, and other equipment I hid away the night before and slowly, carefully worked until the sun came up. I didn't have time to sleep. I was too nervous to sleep anyway. As I worked, I worried about the Secret Service agents coming to get me. In the beginning, as I prepared the paper, I said to myself, "I'm just printing little blue and red hair lines on paper. They can't arrest me for that. I'm not breaking the law." Then as I printed the numbers, I said, "I'm just printing small numbers in four corners of a page. They can't arrest me for this. What I'm doing isn't illegal." Finally, as I got closer and closer to printing something they could arrest me for, I began to wonder, "Is this really that bad? Who am I hurting? I'm making myself a few thousand dollars so I can take my boy and move to Puerto Rico. I'm just trying to do my best for my family. Is that so wrong?" After about three weeks of slow work, I finally printed out a whoel sheet of $100 bills. I took out the magnifying glass and studied my work. "No. Oh, Ben, no. Ben, you don't look right," I said aloud to the empty shop. The portait of Ben Franklin on the front of the bill just didn't look right. To most people, he probably looked like the one on the real bill. However, I could see that it wasn't a perfect copy. I needed it to be perfect. So, slowly, painfully, I started over. A week later, I was printing the last of the bills. I didn't hear them come in because of the noise of the press. I just looked up from studying the now-perfect portraits of Ben Franklin to see a gun at my head and hear the Secret Service agent say, "Just like getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar, huh, Mike?" (Source: Based on M. M. Landress with Bruce Dobler, I Made It Myself (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1973)) Now answre the questions. Check your answers with a partner.
1. The title of the story is I Made It Myself. What does "It" refer to?
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