Thousands of people living in the Chinese capital will celebrate the start of the Chinese New year by heading for the ski resorts (滑雪场). Never mind that Beijing’s dry weather seldom produces snow. It is cold enough in winter for snow-making machines to make a covering for the hills north to the capital. And the rapid growth of a pleasure-seeking middle class has formed the basis for this new craze(热潮).
Since Beijing’s first ski resort was opened ten years ago, the sport has enjoyed astonishing increase. There are now more than a dozen resorts. Clothes markets in the city have added bright colored ski suits to their winter collections. Mr. Wei, a manager of a newly-opened ski resort in Beijing, sees the growth of an industry that could soon lead Chinese to head for the ski resorts of Europe. In recent years, ski resorts offering natural snow have opened in China. But many are in faraway areas of the country and can’t really match the equipment and services of some ski resorts in Europe.
Beijing’s skiing craze is partly a result of the recent increase in private (私有的) cars. This has led to the growth of a leisure industry in the capital’s suburbs (郊区), which until the late-1990s were unreachable to ordinary people. According to Mr. Wei, about 40% of the visitors to his resort come in their own cars. The rest are bused in by schools, businesses or government offices.
The problem is making money. Starting ski resorts requires quite a lot of money; hiring land from the local government, preparing the hills, buying snow machines, making sure there are enough water and electricity to run them, and buying ski equipment for hiring out to customers.
The ski resort where Mr. Wei works cost nearly $4 million to set up. And as so often in China when someone comes up with a good idea, many others rush in and price wars break out. Beijing now offers some of the cheapest ski training classes in the world, though with most people rather new to the sport, expecting a few more doing the same job.
小题1:What does this text mainly talk about?
A．Convenience for skiers brought about by private cars.
B．Skiing as a new way of enjoying one's spare time.
C．Things to be considered when starting a ski resort.
D．A sudden increase of ski training classes in Beijing.小题2:Why are some Chinese likely to go skiing in Europe?
A．To visit more ski areas.
B．To ski on natural snow.
C．For a large collection of ski suits.
D．For better services and equipment.小题3:The underlined words “leisure industry” in Paragraph 3 refer to
A．transport to ski resorts
B．production of family cars
C．business of providing spare time enjoyments
D．part-time work for people living in the suburbs小题4:What is the main problem in running a ski resort?
A．Difficulty in hiring land．
B．Lack of business experience．
C．Price wars with other ski resorts
D．Shortage of water and electricity.
