Perhaps only a small boy training to be a wizard at the Hogwarts school of magic could cast a spell so powerful as to create the biggest book launch ever. Wherever in the world the clock strikes midnight on June 20th, his followers will flock to get their paws on one of more than 10 million copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Bookshops will open in the middle of the night and delivery firms are drafting in extra staff and bigger trucks. Related toys, games, DVDs and other merchandise will be everywhere. There will be no escaping Pottermania.
Yet Mr. Potter's world is a curious one, in which things are often not what they appear. While an excitable media (hereby including The Economist, happy to support such a fine example of globalisation) is helping to hype the launch of J.K. Rowling's fifth novel, about the most adventurous thing that the publishers (Scholastic in America and Britain's Bloomsbury in English elsewhere) have organised is a reading by Ms. Rowling in London's Royal Albert Hall, to be broadcast as a live webcast. Hollywood, which owns everything else to do with Harry Potter, says it is doing even less. Incredible as it may seem, the guardians of the brand say that, to protect the Potter franchise, they are trying to maintain a low profile. Well, relatively low.
Ms. Rowling signed a contract in 1998 with Warner Brothers, part of AOL Time Warner, giving the studio exclusive film, licensing and merchandising rights in return for what now appears to have been a steal: some $500,000. Warner licenses other firms to produce goods using Harry Potter characters or images, from which Ms. Rowling gets a big enough cut that she is now wealthier than the queen—if you believe Britain's Sunday Times rich list. The process is self-generating: each book sets the stage for a film, which boosts book sales, which lifts sales of Potter products.
Globally, the first four Harry Potter books have sold some 200 million copies in 55 languages; the two movies have grossed over $1.8 billion at the box office.
This is a stunning success by any measure, especially as Ms. Rowling has long demanded that Harry Potter should mot be over-commercialised. In line with her wishes, Warner says it is being extraordinarily careful, at least by Hollywood standards, about what it licenses and to whom. It imposed tough conditions on Coca-Cola, insisting that no Harry Potter images should appear on cans, and is now in the, process of making its licensing programme even more restrictive. Coke may soon be considered too mass market to carry the brand at all.
The deal with Warner ties much of the merchandising to the films alone. There are no officially sanctioned products relating to "Order of the Phoenix"; nor yet for "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", the film of the third book, which is due out in June 2004. Warner agrees that Ms. Rowling's creation is a different sort of commercial property, one with long-term potential that could be damaged by a typical Hollywood marketing blitz, says Diane Nelson, the studio's global brand manager for Harry Potter. It is vital, she adds, that with more to come, readers of the books are not alienated. "The evidence from our market research is that enthusiasm for the property by fans is not waning."
When the author says "there will be no escaping Pottermania", he implies that______.
A.Harry Potter's appeal for the readers is simply irresistible
B.it is somewhat irrational to be so crazy about the magic boy
C.craze about Harry Potter will not be over in the near future
D.Hogwarts school of magic will be the biggest attraction world over
时间:2023-10-07 12:59:23
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Planned conversations usually degenerate into silence or involve only a small number of students.()
A . 正确
B . 错误
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A small business customer is interesting and requires some shared storage. They expect only 3-4 blades, but wise the storage they require 4 TB RAID 1+0. They also require Flash copy and remote mirroring. Which of the following will be an issue?()
A . FlashCopy is not supported on the DS3000
B . Remote mirroring is supported on the DS3000
C . FlashCopy is supported on the BladeCenter S RAIDed SAS Switch Modules
D . FlashCopy is not supported on BladeCenter S RAIDed SAS Switch Module
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Only a small minority of the mentally ill are liable to harm themselves or others,
A . easy
B . possible
C . likely
D . difficult
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1. The small town became a tourist attraction and its only restaurant became so crowded that the ______________ had to eat at home every night.
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The author was very frustrated with the conference because only a small number of audiences attended his lecture.
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32. Under the bridge, however, almost directly below, ____ was a small canoe, with a boy in it.
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Only a small part of people in the world would consider the author’s lifestyle to be affluent.
A、T
B、F
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It’s a small company -there are only fifteen of us and I’m responsible ____ answering the phone and making appointments for the director.
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The small lake was only four miles _____.
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As a small boy, he was slow ________ learning to read and write.
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It is illegal for manufacturers to give their product a misleading name,or to claim that it is made of a particular ingredient which in fact ______ only a very small proportion of the product.
制造商们把他们的产品起一个误导人的名字或者宣称这种产品由特殊成分制成,而实际上产品中仅仅含有比例极小的特殊成分,这种做法是非法的。
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Only one hundred boys are ________ to the school each year.
A.allowed B.admitted C.promised D.permitted
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One day, a poor boy who was trying to pay his way through school by selling goods door to door found that he only had one dime left. He was hungry so he decided to beg for a meal at the next house.
However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you?"
"You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught me never to accept pay for a kindness. "He said," Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart. "As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but it also increased his faith in the human race. He was about to give up and quit before this point.
Years later the young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where specialists can be called in to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly, now famous was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately, he rose and went down through the hospital hall into her room.
Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room and determined to do his best to save her life. From that day on, he gave special attention to her case.
After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it and then wrote something on the side. The bill was sent to her room. She was afraid to open it because she was positive that it would take the rest of her life to pay it off. Finally she looked, and the note on the side of the bill caught her attention. She read these words...
"Paid in full with a glass of milk."
(Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly
Tears of joy flooded her eyes.
The boy tried to earn money to pay for ______.
A.traveling expenses to school
B.school tuition fee
C.his meals
D.a glass of milk
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听力原文: For many years, T-shirts were short sleeved undershirts only for men and boys. T-shirts used to be of one color--white. And since they were worn under shirts, they were generally not seen.
Today things have changed a lot. T-shirts has become colorful and fashionable. It can be seen al most everywhere and on everyone. Women and children wear T-shirts as well as teenagers, university students and men from all walks of life. T-shirts are worn on the playground, on the beach or in town. They can also be worn for work; Because the T-shirts are relatively inexpensive, smart, comfortable and convenient to wear, they have be come one of the newest ideas in fashion over the world.
Although T-shirts are now available in a wide variety of bright materials and styles, the most popular kind is the traditional cotton T-shirts with a slogan or a picture printed on the front. A T-shirt may bear a single word, a popular phrase, pictures of sportsmen, or an advertisement. As T-shirts are becoming more and more popular, new designs are coming up all the time.
When do people usually wear T-shirts?
A.When they take part in sports.
B.When they watch a film.
C.When they go shopping.
D.When they read a hook.
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What did the small boy think when he saw tears in his teacher's eyes?
A.She was happy.
B.She didn't like school.
C.There was something wrong with her eyes.
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Evidence showed only a small percentage of babies suffered major disorders__________.
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Perhaps it wouldn’t be ________ to go and see such a film.
A) worthy you while
B) worth of while
C) worthy of while
D) worth your while
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Only a small part of the sun's energy reaches the earth's surface because most of it is______.
A.absorbed by the clouds in the lower atmosphere
B.reflected by the gases in the upper atmosphere
C.lost in the upper and lower atmosphere
D.used to evaporate water from the oceans and lakes
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Such a small man can' t_____reach the balloon one metre higher than he.
A.possibly
B.impossible
C.possible
D.impossibly
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改同义句:I don`t know what I should do.
I don`t know what ( ) ( )
Mr Smith is busy now.He is writing a book
Mr Smith is ( ) ( )a book now
合并句子:Don`t climb the tree.Mothersaid to the boy
Mother told the boy ( ) ( ) ( )the tree
以what和how开头的祈使句的句式
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Elephants are perhaps the only animals that are hunted for their teeth. Elephant tusks, or very large teeth growing on either side of their mouths, are composed of a valuable material called ivory(象牙).
(78) An elephant uses its long, pointed tusks as tools for digging in the ground for food. He also uses them as weapons in combat.
The tusks of male elephants are usually large and heavy. In Africa, female elephants have long, light tusks. In India and other parts of southern Asia, female elephants have small, short tusks or none at all.
(79) Tusks in good condition are in great demand, and may sell for as high as two thousand dollars or more. Because of this, large numbers of elephants have been killed. Some countries have initiated (开始) methods to protect elephants. They have established elephant preserves, areas of land set aside for herds of elephants where no one is allowed to harm them. Elephants on the preserves are safe from ivory hunters.
Female elephants in India and southern Asia have ______ .
A.large and heavy tusks
B.small, short tusks or none at all
C.small and heavy tusks
D.long, light tusks
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No reference book, perhaps no book of any kind except the Bible, is so widely used as "the dictionary". Even houses that have few books or none at all possess at least one dictionary; most business offices have dictionaries, and most typists keep a copy on their desks; at one time or another most girls and boys are required by their teachers to obtain and use a dictionary.
Admittedly, the dictionary is often used merely to determine the correct spelling of words, or to find out the accepted pronunciation, and such a use is perhaps not the most important from an intellectual point of view. Dictionaries may, however, have social importance, for it is often a matter of some concern to the person using the dictionary for such purpose that he should not suggest to others, by misspelling a word in a letter, or mispronouncing it in conversation, that he is not "well-bred", and has not been well educated.
Yet, despite this familiarity with the dictionary, the average person is likely to have many wrong ideas about it, and little idea of how to use it profitably, or interpret it rightly. For example, it is often believed that the mere presence of a word in a dictionary is evidence that it is acceptable in good writing. Though most dictionaries have a system of marking words as obsolete, or in use only as slang, many people, more especially if their use of a particular word has been challenged, are likely to conclude, if they find it in a dictionary, that it is accepted as being used by writers of established reputation. This would certainly have been true of dictionaries a hundred years or so ago. For a long time after they were first firmly established in the eighteenth century, their aim was to include only what was used by the best writers, and all else was suppressed, and the compiler frequently claimed that this dictionary contained "low" words. Apparently this aspect of the dictionary achieved such importance in the mind of the average person that most people today are unaware of the great change that has taken place in the compilation of present-day dictionaries.
Similarly, the ordinary man invariably supposes that one dictionary is as good and authoritative as another, and, moreover, believes that "the dictionary" has absolute authority, and quotes it to clinch arguments. Although this is an advantage, in that the dictionary presents a definition the basic meaning of which can't be altered by the speaker, yet it could be accepted only if all dictionaries agreed on the particular point in question. But ultimately the authority of the dictionary rests only on the authority of the man who compiled it, and, however careful he may be, a dictionary-maker is fallible: reputable dictionaries may disagree in their judgments, and indeed different sections of the same dictionary may differ.
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A.The Bible is the most widely used reference book.
B.The dictionary is the most widely used reference book.
C.The dictionary is actually the more widely used book than the Bible.
D.The Bible is used as widely as the dictionary.
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I really can’t decide _____ first. A small computer or a big one?
A、what to buy
B、to buy what
C、which to buy
D、to buy which
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As it involves only a small ___ , we hope you will have no difficulty on promotion.()
A.quality
B.figure
C.quantity
D.number