J. K. Rowling was born in Chipping Sodbury in 1965. She spent part of her childhood in Gloucestershire and then in South Wales. At school she did well in English, arts and poetry.
At the strong encouragement of her parents she took a degree in English at the University of Essex.
The inspiration for writing Harry Potter came on a delayed train journey from London to Manchester. It was on this train journey that she became inspired with magicians, Hogwarts, Harry Potter and magic trains. J. K. Rowling tells how on the journey she didn’t have a pen.
However, on arriving in Manchester she began immediately writing the first draft of Harry Potter. These early writings were rewritten several times over the course of the next few years.
A significant feature in the main character of Harry Potter is the fact that at an early age he gets orphaned.
This fact becomes an important theme throughout the Harry Potter series. What is more, shortly after beginning the writing of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling lost her own mother. This was a heavy blow to J. K. Rowling and gave her additional empathy with her main character, Harry Potter.
It took several years for J. K. Rowling to finish the first book in the series “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”.
There she was married for a short time before divorcing and returning to the UK. Through this first marriage J. K. Rowling had her first child, who she had to bring up by herself.
However, despite having a full-time teaching job and being a single mother, J. K. Rowling eventually finished her first book and sent it off to book agents. After several refusals by big companies, the book was taken on by Bloomsbury.
The book was released and immediately became a big bestseller.
In fact, the first book was later brought out with a special adults’ cover so readers would not be embarrassed with reading a “children’s book”. As the Harry Potter series progressed, the books became very popular worldwide. J. K. Rowling has received numerous awards for her Harry Potter series.,
,(A)However, the characters and basic plot already existed.,
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,(B)After she came back from Portugal, she bought a house near London.,
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,(C)She first wanted to give up publishing the book.,
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,(D)He misses his mother and father a lot.,
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,(E)It sold well not just amongst children but adults as well.,
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,(F)She was too shy to ask another passenger if she could borrow one.,
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,(G)At the time they were quite small in the publishing world.,
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,(H)During this time she spent a couple of years in Portugal.,
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,(I)On the other hand, she did not excel in sports.,
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,(J)J.K.Rowling did not agree with the price of the first book.,
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Part 2: An Amazing Adventure (6 points)
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,,(a)The Wieliczka Salt Mine is a place well-known to the whole world. Every year more than one million tourists come to Poland to see one of its most beautiful and legendary treasures. Many famous people such as Goethe, Nicolaus Copernicus and Bill Clinton were totally impressed when seeing the mine. The charm and almost magical atmosphere in Wieliczka can give you chills when experiencing it – 135 metres underground.,
,,(b)Wieliczka is the only salt mine in the world preserved in such good condition. The deposit of rock salt in Wieliczka has been mined since the 13th century. It has nine levels and the lowest one goes down to a depth of 327 metres although the tourist’s tour starts at 65 metres and goes only to 135 metres. Since 1978 Wieliczka Salt Mine has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The numerous pieces of art such as altars and statues sculpted in salt needed expensive protection against the humidity and thanks to the help of UNESCO, such equipment was installed in the mine.,
,,(c)There are many reasons why Wieliczka is such a unique place. It shows a great history of mining due to the conservation of the old galleries and the underground exhibition of tools used. It takes over two kilometres of walking to see all the mine’s attractions. It passes through 20 caves, many of them decorated with sculptures the miners made. Amazingly it is very clean. The walls are sparkling when you hold a light to them. The most impressive place is the Underground Cathedral – the wall decorations such as The Last Supper, the altar, statues, and even the floor and ceiling are all made of salt. The creators were three miners who spent their spare time this way. It took 68 years of work.,
,,(d)A very interesting legend that illustrates the source of salt in Wieliczka is connected with this place. It’s about the Hungarian princess Kinga who was about to marry the Polish king Boleslaw. Kinga wanted to give a special present to her fiancé and her new nation. Before the marriage she was given one of the salt mines in Hungary as part of her parents’ gift. She dreamt that salt would be discovered in Poland. So she threw her engagement ring into the mine and prayed for that. When she arrived in Poland for her marriage, miners miraculously found a block of salt and Kinga’s ring in a place shown by the princess.,
,,(e)If you are interested in experiencing something amazing, seeing the history of mining, feeling the atmosphere of one of the oldest salt mines in the world, breathing the healthy air, or sending a postcard to a friend from 135 metres underground, just book one of the cheap flights to Poland and take the Wieliczka Salt Mine tour. It might also be a great occasion to see the historical town of Krakow.,
Part 3: Early Life of Walt Disney (7 points)
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,Born in Chicago, in 1901, Walter Elias Disney was the fourth son of Elias Disney, a carpenter and farmer and his wife, Flora Call, who had been a public school teacher.
However, his father soon left farming and moved the family to Kansas City, where he bought a morning newspaper business and forced his young sons to assist him in delivering papers. Walt later said that many of the habits of his adult life came from the disciplines and discomforts of helping his father with the paper round. In Kansas City the young Walt began to study cartooning at a local school.
In 1917 the Disneys moved back to Chicago, and Walt entered McKinley High School, where he took photographs, made drawings for the school paper and studied cartooning on the side, for he was hopeful of achieving a job as a newspaper cartoonist. His progress was interrupted by World War I, in which he took part as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross.
Returning to Kansas City in 1919, he found occasional employment in art studios, where he met Ub Iwerks, a young artist whose talents contributed greatly to Walt’s early success.
Dissatisfied with their progress, Disney and Iwerks started a small studio of their own in 1922 and acquired a second-hand movie camera with which they made one- and two-minute animated advertising films for distribution to local movie theatres. They also did a series of animated cartoon sketches called Laugh-O-Grams and the pilot film for a series of seven-minute cartoons that combined both live action and animation, Alice in Cartoonland. A New York film distributor tricked the young producers, and Disney was made bankrupt in 1923. He moved to California to start his chosen career as a cinematographer.
With Roy – Walt’s brother – as business manager, Disney re-started the Alice series, persuading Iwerks to join him and assist with the drawing of the cartoons. They invented a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, contracted for distribution of the films at $1,500 each, and launched their small enterprise. In 1927, just before the change to sound in motion pictures, Disney and Iwerks experimented with a new character – a cheerful and energetic mouse called Mickey. They had planned two shorts, called Plane Crazy and Gallopin’ Gaucho, that were to introduce Mickey Mouse when The Jazz Singer, a motion picture with the popular singer Al Jolson, brought the new idea of sound to the movies. Fully recognizing the possibilities for sound in animated cartoon films, Disney quickly produced a third Mickey Mouse cartoon with voices and music, entitled Steamboat Willie, and ignored the other two soundless cartoon films. When it appeared in 1928, Steamboat Willie was a sensation.,