英语四级词汇灵活记忆

英语四级词汇灵活记忆

在阅读文章的同时记忆英语四级单词，让记单词更加高效。请考生阅读下面文章，并记忆文中关键难点词。

The Olympic Games

In ancient Greece athletic festivals were very important and had strong religious associations. The Olympian athletic festival held every four years in honour of Zeus, king of the Olympic Gods, eventually lost its local character, became first a national event and then, after the rules against foreign competitors had been abolished, international. No one knows exactly how far back the Olympic games go, but some official records date from 776 B.C..

The games took place in August on the plain by Mount Olympus. Many thousands of spectators gathered from all parts of Greece. The exact sequence

of events is uncertain, but events included boys gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, horse racing and field events, though there were fewer sports involved than in the modern Olympic Games.

On the last day of the Games, all the winners were honoured by having a ring of holy olive leaves placed on their heads. Although Olympic winners received no prize money, they were, in fact, richly rewarded by their state authorities.

After an uninterrupted history of almost 1,200 years, the Games were suspended by the Romans in 394 A.D.. They continued for such a long time because people believed in the philosophy behind the Olympics: the idea that a healthy body produced a healthy mind, and that he spirit of competition in sports and games was preferable to the competition that caused wars. It was over 1,500 years before another such international athletic gathering took place in Athens in 1896.