Directions: in this section there are 3 passages followed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passage and then mark your answers on your answer sheet.
Passage one
Hollywood suggests attraction, a place where the young teenagers with star dreams could with a bit of luck fulfill their drams. Hollywood suggests luxurious houses with vast palm-fringed swimming pools, cocktail bars and furnishings fit for a millionaire. And the big movie stars were millionaires. Many spent their fortunes on yachts, Rolls-Royces and diamonds. A few of them lost their attraction quite suddenly and were left with nothing but emptiness and debts.
Movies were first made in Hollywood before World War I. The constant sunshine and mild climate of southern California made it an ideal site for shooting motion pictures. Hollywood’ s fame and fortune reached its peak in the 1930s and 1940s, the golden days of the black and white movies. In those days Hollywood was like a magnet, drawing ambitious young men and women from all over the world. Most of them had only their good looks to recommend them and had no acting experience — or ability — whatsoever. Occasionally they got jobs, if they were lucky enough to be noticed.
As for the star themselves, they were held on a tight control by the studio chiefs who could make or break all but the stars with really big appeal. The stars were “persuaded” to sign seven-year contracts, during which time the studios built up their images. Under their contracts the stars did not have the right to choose their roles. Their studios decide everything.
No country in the world has developed so expertly the skill of advertising as the Americans. They advertise everything, from ice cream to candidates for the Presidency. The Hollywood studios, by means of advertising, turned common people into superstars. Many studio chiefs were rich, determining to get their own way at all costs.
Stars were often typecast, that is, if he or she appealed to the public as a lover, then he or she always played the part of a lover. A star popular as a cowboy or a bad guy got the same kind of role again and again. There was little arguing. “You’ re the perfect dumb blond, baby, and that’ s how you’ re going to stay, ” they would say. They even tried to interfere in their stars’ private lives: “No, sugar! You just can’ t marry Mel Billigan. He’ s too intellectual. He’ d destroy your image. ” Only when they ceased to be stars did some of them discover that they were also good actors.
Hollywood is no longer the heart of the world’ s motion picture industry. Most movies today are filmed on location, that is to say, in the cities, in the countryside, and in any part of the world that the script demands. The Hollywood studios are still standing, but most of them have been leased to television networks. About 80% of all American TV entertainment comes from Hollywood.
Yet Hollywood has not lost all its glamour. Movie stars still live there, or in neighboring Beverley Hills, and so do many of the California. There is also the attractive Hollywood Bowl, the huge outdoor amphitheater where every summer since 1922 “Symphonies under the Stars” is played by America’ s best orchestras before packed audiences.
Hollywood, above all, has the glamour of the past. It is a name which will always be associated with motion picture- making and for many years to come the old Hollywood movies will be shown again and again in movie houses and on television screens all over the world.