What is most likely to affect your success at school or at a job? The ability to read. And that goes for your kids too. The declining literacy(讀寫能力的下降) of our society has been a main concern of educators for a while now, and yet things are not getting better.

In most cases, how well we learn to read will depend largely on our exposure（接觸） to language as children. If we hear people around us talking about all kinds of subjects as children, we naturally pick up the words and phrases they use. If we pick up a lot of words, we will learn to read better.

Much of the traditional advice to struggling readers, theses days, seems to include developing “cognitive strategies”（認知策略）. In this way, readers are asked to centre more, to think, to be interested and ask questions, to analyze, to predict, to reason, and to check their understanding, or worse still to answer questions of what they have read. In other words they are asked to become self-conscious（有自我意識的） readers. I do not agree with this approach.

Here are my several strategies for reading improvement.

Read about things that interest you. If you are interested in what you are reading about, the words will come alive, and you will understand better. The more you read, the better you will become at reading. Just get started and it will become a habit, as long as you are interested in what you are reading.

Read material that is at your level or just a little difficult for you. Read material that you find easy to read, or just a little challenging. Looking up many unknown words in a dictionary is dull, and the results of the dictionary search are quickly forgotten.

_____ If you can hear the new words and phrases that you are reading, you will have an easier time understanding and remembering them. Hearing the rhythm of someone reading a text will help your own reading.

Don’t worry about what you don’t understand. Most of your reading should be for pleasure. You can still enjoy reading without understanding all of what you read. You may even understand some things in your own personal way.

Unfortunately not all reading is just for pleasure. When you are reading a textbook or report or other material for school, you may need to underline, take notes and read some parts over again. However, if you have developed the habit of reading for pleasure, you will find that the skills you need will come naturally, and that you will understand a lot better than before.

1.In Paragraph 2, the author tells us the importance of _____.

    A. hearing people around as children            B. talking ability as children

    C. contacting different people                  D. learning different languages

2.Which sentence is best to be filled in the blank in the passage?

    A. Listen as much as possible.              B. Try to use your imagination.

    C. Great works need to be read out loud.    D. Listen first if you have trouble reading.

3.It can be learned from the last paragraph that _____.

    A. you should find pleasure from reading a textbook

    B. the habit of reading for pleasure is important

    C. reading for school is helpful for reading for pleasure

    D. reading for school requires different skills from reading for pleasure

4.What is the purpose of the author in writing the passage?

    A. To tell us some ways to improve reading ability.

    B. To show that poor literacy has been a big problem.

    C. To teach us how to look for fun in reading.

    D. To tell us some ways to pick up new words and phrases.

 

— Don’t you agree with what he said?

—Yes，_______! It can’t be better．

A．approximately

B．absolutely

C．relatively

D．partly

 

New York State has passed the USA’s first state law banning motorists talking on hand-held cell phones. The ban will begin November 1, although drivers caught using hand-held cell phones will be given only warnings during the first month.

First-time violators(違法者) will face a ＄100 fine. A second time call for a ＄200 fine and every violation after that will cost＄500．

At least a dozen localities(地方) have established bans, starting in 1999; and 40 states have had bans proposed but not passed．At least 23 countries, including the Great Britain, Italy, Israel and Japan, ban drivers from using hand-held cell phones.

There are about 115 million cell phones in use in the United States and more than 6 million in New York State.

“To think that I’m not going to use cell phone when at the same time I can still use my laptop, I still can read a paper, I can still change my pants(褲子) while driving 65 mph. I think there’s just something wrong,” an official said．

Other critics noted that other things like eating, drinking coffee and applying make-up while driving posed(造成) at least as much of a concern. They suggested that the ban include a broader range of things.

1.How much fine will a hand-held cell phone user receive if he has been caught using it four times while driving after November?

A．$500．

B．$1000．

C．$1200．

D．$1300．

2.The official mentioned in this passage _______. 

A．does not agree with this ban

B．doesn’t believe using hand-held cell phones while driving will cause any danger

C．doesn’t understand why hand-held cell phones alone should be banned among many others

D．believes changing pants while driving will cause greater danger

3.The writer intends to tell us in the last paragraph that _______.

A．it is not fair to have this ban passed

B．the ban will never be passed in the whole country

C．more activities of the same kind should also be banned

D．the ban will meet with more criticism

4.This article is most probably taken from _______.

A．a newspaper article	B．an advertisement
C．a personal diary	D．a letter

 

Did you know that women’s brains are smaller than men’s?  The average women’s brain weighs 10% less than men’s．Since research has shown that the bigger the brain, the cleverer the animal, men must be more intelligent than women．Right? Wrong．Men and women always score similarly on intelligence tests, despite the difference in brain size．Why? After years of study, researchers have concluded that it’s what’s inside that matters, not just the size of the brain．The brain consists of “grey matter” and “white matter”．While men have more of the latter, the amount of “thinking” brain is almost exactly the same in both sexes．

It has been suggested that smaller brain appears to work faster, perhaps because the two sides of the brain are better connected in women．This means that little girls tend to learn to speak earlier, and that women can understand sorts of information from different sources at the same time．When it comes to talking to the boss on the phone, cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the baby all at the same time, it’s women who come out on top every time．

There are other important differences between two sexes．As white matter is the key to spatial tasks, men know better where things are in relation to other things．“A great footballer always knows where he is in relation to the other players, and he knows where to go,” says one researcher．That may explain one of life’s great mysteries: why men refuse to ask for direction and women often need to!

The differences begin when fetuses（胎兒）are about nine weeks old, which can be seen in the action of children as young as one．A boy would try to climb a barrier before him or push it down while a girl would attract help from others．These brain differences also explain the fact that more men take up jobs that require good spatial skills, while more women speech skills．It may all go back to our ancestors, among whom women needed speech skills to take care of their babies and men needed spatial skills to hunt, according to one research．

If all this disappoints you, it shouldn’t．“The brain changes throughout our lives according to what we do with it．”says a biologist．

1.Which of the following is true according to the first paragraph? ________．

A．Women’s brain is 10% less than men’s

B．Grey matter controls thinking in the brain．

C．Grey matter plays the same role as white matter．

D．Both sexes have the same amount of white matter．

2.What can we infer from the second and third paragraphs? ________．

A．Men do better dealing with one job at a time．

B.Women prefer doing many things at a time． 

C．Women do not need to tell directions．

D．Men have weaker spatial abilities．

3.Which of the following do you agree with according to the fourth paragraph? _  A.More women take up jobs requiring speech skills

B.Young boys may be stronger than young girls．

C．Women may have stronger feelings than men．

D．Our ancestors needed more spatial skills．

4.What is the writer’s attitude in writing this passage? ________．

A．Defensive．  B．Objective．  C．Persuasive． D．Supportive．