BREAKING BAD
Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Breaking Bad is the __ ( I )__ story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with __ ( II )__ lung cancer at the beginning of the series. He turns to a life of crime, producing and selling methamphetamine, in order to secure his family’s financial future before he dies, teaming with his former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). The series has been labeled a contemporary western by its creator.
The series premiered on January 20, 2008 in the United States and Canada on the cable channel AMC, and the series finale aired on September 29, 2013. Breaking Bad received __ ( III )__ critical acclaim, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. By its end, the series was among the __ ( IV ) _ _ cable shows on American television, with audience numbers that doubled in the fifth season from the previous year’s episodes.
Breaking Bad was created by Vince Gilligan, who spent several years writing the Fox series The X-Files. Gilligan wanted to create a series in which the protagonist became the antagonist. “Television is historically good at keeping its characters in a self-imposed stasis so that shows can go on for years or even decades,” he said. “When I realized this, the __ ( V )__ next step was to think, how can I do a show in which the fundamental drive is toward change?” He added that his goal with Walter White was to turn him from Mr. Chips into Scarface.
While Gilligan defines the term “breaking bad” as “to raise hell”, it apparently means more than that. According to Lily Rothman, it is an old phrase which “connotes more violence than ‘raising hell’ does.... The words possess a wide variety of nuances: to ‘break bad’ can mean to ‘go __ ( VI )__ ‘, to ‘defy authority’ and break the law, to be verbally ‘combative, belligerent, or _ _ ( VII )__ or, followed by the preposition ‘on,’ to ‘completely dominate or humiliate.’”
The concept emerged as Gilligan talked with his fellow writer Thomas Schnauz regarding their _ _ ( VIII )__ unemployment and joked that the solution was for them to put a “meth lab in the back of an RV and drive around the country cooking meth and making money.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad
The adjectives that properly fill in blanks I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII, in the text, are
The following text refers to questions 12 and 13.
The Rebel Years
In March 1957, Elvis purchased the Graceland estate in Memphis. The address today is: 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee 38116.
The Colonial house is located _( I )_ a hill surrounded _( II ) _ fourteen acres _( III )_ land with a stand _( IV )_ mature trees, a barn and a tennis court. The estate is enclosed _( V )_ an eight-foot-high brick wall. The main entrance is a large iron gate _( VI )_ musical insignia. The house was built _( VII )_ tan Tennessee limestone and contained twenty-three rooms including five bedrooms. _( VIII )_ a spacious entry hall, the front part of the luxuriously appointed house comprises the living, dining and music rooms. Along the walls are large, white sofas. The focus of attention is the gilded concert grand piano. The curtains are white interlaced with gold thread. The shag rug is so thick that your shoes nearly disappear. At the back of the house are the recreation rooms, covering nearly the entire length of the house and about half of its breadth. The billiard room is dominated by a large pool table. The trophy room contains Elvis’s gold and platinum records. Upstairs is the bedroom suite and the guest rooms. The bedroom: navy-blue shag run, oversized white bed with built-in telephone, intercom, TV controls. After the bedroom come the study and the mirror-lined bath. Sixteen televisions are found throughout the house.
Since June 7, 1982, Graceland has been open to the public for an admission fee ($16.00: April 1993). An average of 2,500 visit the house every day.
Adapted from The Rebel Years by Lester Bangs
The words that properly fill in blanks I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII, in the text, are
The following text refers to questions 12 and 13.
The Rebel Years
In March 1957, Elvis purchased the Graceland estate in Memphis. The address today is: 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee 38116.
The Colonial house is located _( I )_ a hill surrounded _( II ) _ fourteen acres _( III )_ land with a stand _( IV )_ mature trees, a barn and a tennis court. The estate is enclosed _( V )_ an eight-foot-high brick wall. The main entrance is a large iron gate _( VI )_ musical insignia. The house was built _( VII )_ tan Tennessee limestone and contained twenty-three rooms including five bedrooms. _( VIII )_ a spacious entry hall, the front part of the luxuriously appointed house comprises the living, dining and music rooms. Along the walls are large, white sofas. The focus of attention is the gilded concert grand piano. The curtains are white interlaced with gold thread. The shag rug is so thick that your shoes nearly disappear. At the back of the house are the recreation rooms, covering nearly the entire length of the house and about half of its breadth. The billiard room is dominated by a large pool table. The trophy room contains Elvis’s gold and platinum records. Upstairs is the bedroom suite and the guest rooms. The bedroom: navy-blue shag run, oversized white bed with built-in telephone, intercom, TV controls. After the bedroom come the study and the mirror-lined bath. Sixteen televisions are found throughout the house.
Since June 7, 1982, Graceland has been open to the public for an admission fee ($16.00: April 1993). An average of 2,500 visit the house every day.
Adapted from The Rebel Years by Lester Bangs
According to the text,
Stop Wishing You Were Somewhere Else
If you reflect on this insidious tendency to be wishing you were somewhere else, you may agree that it’s a silly, even self-destructive thing to do. Before you jump up and say, “Wait a minute, I don’t do that,” let me explain whatI mean.
There are many ways that we __ ( I )__ time wishing we __ ( II )__ somewhere else. We’ll be at work and wish we __ ( III )__ home. Or during the middle of the week we __ ( IV )__ it were Friday. Sometimes we wish we __ ( V )__ something else with our careers. We wish we __ ( VI )__ different responsibilities or could spend our time with different people. We wish our boss were different, or our employees. We wish our working environment were different or we had a different kind of commute. We wish our industry were different, or that our circumstances would change. This list could obviously go on. The problem is, these wishes aren’t reality, but rather, they are thoughts of a different reality.
If you’re not careful, you can begin to wish your life away, always wishing you were somewhere other than where you actually are. But you’re not somewhere else. Rather, you’re right here. This is reality. One of my favorite quotes is, “Life is what’s happening while we’re busy making other plans.” A slightly different version might be, “Life is what’s happening while we’re wishing we were elsewhere.” When you are wishing you were somewhere else, it’s almost as though you are one step removed from life rather than actually being in it, open to life exactly as it is.
From a practical standpoint, it’s very difficult to be focused and effective when your mind is preoccupied with where it would rather be. In fact, the two are a contradiction of terms. Your concentration suffers because there is a lack of engagement, a lack of zeroing in on what’s truly significant. In addition, it’s virtually impossible to enjoy yourself and what you are doing when you’re focused more on where you’d rather be than where you actually are. Think about the things you enjoy most. In all cases, they are activities where you are completely absorbed in the moment, really focused on what you are doing. In the absence of the focus, the joy you experience is diminished. How much fun is it to read a good novel when you’re thinking about something else?
Adapted from Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff Treasury – A Special Collection for the Office by Richard Carlson
The verbs that properly fill in blanks I, II, III, IV, V and VI, in the text, are
Stop Wishing You Were Somewhere Else
If you reflect on this insidious tendency to be wishing you were somewhere else, you may agree that it’s a silly, even self-destructive thing to do. Before you jump up and say, “Wait a minute, I don’t do that,” let me explain whatI mean.
There are many ways that we __ ( I )__ time wishing we __ ( II )__ somewhere else. We’ll be at work and wish we __ ( III )__ home. Or during the middle of the week we __ ( IV )__ it were Friday. Sometimes we wish we __ ( V )__ something else with our careers. We wish we __ ( VI )__ different responsibilities or could spend our time with different people. We wish our boss were different, or our employees. We wish our working environment were different or we had a different kind of commute. We wish our industry were different, or that our circumstances would change. This list could obviously go on. The problem is, these wishes aren’t reality, but rather, they are thoughts of a different reality.
If you’re not careful, you can begin to wish your life away, always wishing you were somewhere other than where you actually are. But you’re not somewhere else. Rather, you’re right here. This is reality. One of my favorite quotes is, “Life is what’s happening while we’re busy making other plans.” A slightly different version might be, “Life is what’s happening while we’re wishing we were elsewhere.” When you are wishing you were somewhere else, it’s almost as though you are one step removed from life rather than actually being in it, open to life exactly as it is.
From a practical standpoint, it’s very difficult to be focused and effective when your mind is preoccupied with where it would rather be. In fact, the two are a contradiction of terms. Your concentration suffers because there is a lack of engagement, a lack of zeroing in on what’s truly significant. In addition, it’s virtually impossible to enjoy yourself and what you are doing when you’re focused more on where you’d rather be than where you actually are. Think about the things you enjoy most. In all cases, they are activities where you are completely absorbed in the moment, really focused on what you are doing. In the absence of the focus, the joy you experience is diminished. How much fun is it to read a good novel when you’re thinking about something else?
Adapted from Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff Treasury – A Special Collection for the Office by Richard Carlson
According to the text,
BREAKING BAD
Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Breaking Bad is the __ ( I )__ story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with __ ( II )__ lung cancer at the beginning of the series. He turns to a life of crime, producing and selling methamphetamine, in order to secure his family’s financial future before he dies, teaming with his former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). The series has been labeled a contemporary western by its creator.
The series premiered on January 20, 2008 in the United States and Canada on the cable channel AMC, and the series finale aired on September 29, 2013. Breaking Bad received __ ( III )__ critical acclaim, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. By its end, the series was among the __ ( IV ) _ _ cable shows on American television, with audience numbers that doubled in the fifth season from the previous year’s episodes.
Breaking Bad was created by Vince Gilligan, who spent several years writing the Fox series The X-Files. Gilligan wanted to create a series in which the protagonist became the antagonist. “Television is historically good at keeping its characters in a self-imposed stasis so that shows can go on for years or even decades,” he said. “When I realized this, the __ ( V )__ next step was to think, how can I do a show in which the fundamental drive is toward change?” He added that his goal with Walter White was to turn him from Mr. Chips into Scarface.
While Gilligan defines the term “breaking bad” as “to raise hell”, it apparently means more than that. According to Lily Rothman, it is an old phrase which “connotes more violence than ‘raising hell’ does.... The words possess a wide variety of nuances: to ‘break bad’ can mean to ‘go __ ( VI )__ ‘, to ‘defy authority’ and break the law, to be verbally ‘combative, belligerent, or _ _ ( VII )__ or, followed by the preposition ‘on,’ to ‘completely dominate or humiliate.’”
The concept emerged as Gilligan talked with his fellow writer Thomas Schnauz regarding their _ _ ( VIII )__ unemployment and joked that the solution was for them to put a “meth lab in the back of an RV and drive around the country cooking meth and making money.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad
According to the text,