— I have learned that it is not easy to get on well with the new boss.

—______? I think that I only need to do my own job well.

A. So what    B. what for          C. what if        D. how come

.

— I have learned that it is not easy to get on well with the new boss.

—______? I think that I only need to do my own job well.

A. So what    B. what for          C. what if        D. how come

― I have learned that it is not easy to get on well with the new boss.

―______? I think that I only need to do my own job well.

A. So what    B. what for          C. what if        D. how come

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(rèn)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(shí)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.
【小題1】In Paragraph 2, the author tells us the importance of _____.

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(rèn)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(shí)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.

Think of some of your favorite singers. When you listen, they can make you happy or sad, peaceful or angry. They can make you relax or want to get up and dance. Gifted singers have the power to affect us in many ways—emotionally, physically and mentally.

       But becoming a great singer isn’t as easy as listening to one. It takes practice, devotion and strong lungs! Just ask the well-known American opera（歌�。﹕tar Carol Vaness.

       At the Metropolitan Opera in New York City where she often sings, Carol’s voice must be loud enough to be heard by four thousand people. It must reach every person in the theater, without a microphone, even when she’s singing softly. The reason Carol can project her voice that far is the way she breathes.

       “When you breathe, it’s like a swimmer taking a deep breath before going underwater,” Carol explains. “You have to take a lot of air into your lungs.”

       According to Carol, the main difference between pop singing and opera is “how you breathe, how much air you take in, and how you control it coming out. Regular singing is more like speaking, and it’s lot softer. When I sing for children, they’re often surprised by how the vibrations strike their ears—like waves on a beach, ”Carol says. “In opera, the air doesn’t just go out of your mouth—it vibrates in your chest，the way a guitar vibrates when it’s played.”

       Ever since she started piano lessons at the age of ten, Carol has loved music. As she got older, she decided to become a music teacher. When she went to college, she took singing lessons as part of her studies. Her voice teacher discovered that nineteen-year-old Carol had an exceptionally beautiful soprano voice-the highest singing voice for women.

       Carol decided to make opera her goal, not only because she loved to sing but also because she loved the drama. Opera is a play in which the characters sing the words instead of speaking them. The stories of opera can be tragic or comical. They can be personal stories about two people falling in love or grand stories about kings and queens who lived long ago. As the characters in an opera sing, the emotions（情感）expressed by words and music come to life.

       Today, Carol performs throughout the United States and Europe and she has song for almost twenty years. But she has never forgotten where she started singing in the first palace.

       “Put your heart into your singing and enjoy it,” says Carol, “because singing is a great joy. That’s why I sing. In fact, that’s why everybody sings.”

According to the passage,  the Metropolitan Opera in New York City      .

       A．is a five-story building    B．can seat 4,000 people     

       C．has no microphone in it   D．can project the singer’s voice

What is the best title for this passage?

       A．Opera Singing and Pop Singing     B．The Way an Opera Star Sings 

       C．An Opera Star         D．Singing without a Microphone

Which statement is true?

       A．A pop singer’s lungs are usually stronger than those of an opera singer’s   

       B．Opera singing is more like speaking.     

       C．A pop singer takes in much more air than an opera singer when singing.

       D．An opera singer breathes differently from a pop singer when singing.

From the passage you can conclude all the following EXCEPT that      .

       A．Carol once learned to play the piano     

       B．Carol worked as a music teacher    

       C．Carol has been singing opera for 20 years or so    

       D．Carol is popular with Americans and Europeans

Think of some of your favorite singers. When you listen, they can make you happy or sad, peaceful or angry. They can make you relax or want to get up and dance. Gifted singers have the power to affect us in many ways — emotionally, physically and mentally.

But becoming a great singer isn’t as easy as listening to one. It takes practice, devotion and strong lungs! Just ask the well-known American opera（歌劇）star Carol Vaness.

At the Metropolitan Opera in New York City where she often sings, Carol’s voice must be loud enough to be heard by four thousand people. It must reach every person in the theater, without a microphone, even when she’s singing softly. The reason Carol can project her voice that far is the way she breathes.

“When you breathe, it’s like a swimmer taking a deep breath before going underwater, ” Carol explains. “You have to take a lot of air into your lungs.”

According to Carol, the main difference between pop singing and opera is “how you breathe, how much air you take in, and how you control it coming out. Regular singing is more like speaking, and it’s a lot softer. When I sing for children, they’re often surprised by how the vibrations strike their ears — like waves on a beach, ” Carol says. “In opera, the air doesn’t just go out of your mouth — it vibrates in your chest, the way a guitar vibrates when it’s played.”

Ever since she started piano lessons at the age of ten, Carol has loved music. As she got older, she decided to become a music teacher. When she went to college, she took singing lessons as part of her studies. Her voice teacher discovered that nineteen-year-old Carol had an exceptionally beautiful soprano voice – the highest singing voice for women.  

Carol decided to make opera her goal, not only because she loved to sing but also because she loved the drama. Opera is a play in which the characters sing the words instead of speaking them. The stories of opera can be tragic or comical. They can be personal stories about two people falling in love or grand stories about kings and queens who lived long ago. As the characters in an opera sing, the emotions(情感) expressed by words and music come to life.

Today, Carol performs throughout the United States and Europe and she has song for almost twenty years. But she has never forgotten where she started singing in the first palace.

“Put your heart into your singing and enjoy it,” says Carol, “because singing is a great joy. That’s why I sing. In fact, that’s why everybody sings.”

According to the passage, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City _____.

A. is a five-story building                B. can seat 4,000 people

C. has no microphone in it                D. can project the singer’s voice

What is the best title for this passage?

A. Opera Singing and Pop Singing          B. The Way an Opera Star Sings

C. An Opera Star                        D. Singing without a Microphone

Which statement is true?

A. A pop singer breathes more deeply than an opera singer when he or she sings.

B. Opera singing is more like speaking.

C. A pop singer takes in much more air than an opera singer when singing.

D. An opera singer breathes differently from a pop singer when singing.

From the passage you can conclude all the following EXCEPT that _____.

A. Carol once learned to play the piano              

B. Carol worked as a music teacher

C. Carol has been singing opera for 20 years or so     

D. Carol is popular with Americans and Europeans

The sentence “Put your heart into your singing” in the last paragraph means  “_____”.

A. devoting yourself to singing         B. taking trouble to sing

C. singing happily                   D. trying your best to sing  

Think of some of your favorite singers. When you listen, they can make you happy or sad, peaceful or angry. They can make you relax or want to get up and dance. Gifted singers have the power to affect us in many ways—emotionally, physically and mentally.
But becoming a great singer isn’t as easy as listening to one. It takes practice, devotion and strong lungs! Just ask the well-known American opera（歌�。﹕tar Carol Vaness.
At the Metropolitan Opera in New York City where she often sings, Carol’s voice must be loud enough to be heard by four thousand people. It must reach every person in the theater, without a microphone, even when she’s singing softly. The reason Carol can project her voice that far is the way she breathes.
“When you breathe, it’s like a swimmer taking a deep breath before going underwater,” Carol explains. “You have to take a lot of air into your lungs.”
According to Carol, the main difference between pop singing and opera is “how you breathe, how much air you take in, and how you control it coming out. Regular singing is more like speaking, and it’s lot softer. When I sing for children, they’re often surprised by how the vibrations strike their ears—like waves on a beach, ”Carol says. “In opera, the air doesn’t just go out of your mouth—it vibrates in your chest，the way a guitar vibrates when it’s played.”
Ever since she started piano lessons at the age of ten, Carol has loved music. As she got older, she decided to become a music teacher. When she went to college, she took singing lessons as part of her studies. Her voice teacher discovered that nineteen-year-old Carol had an exceptionally beautiful soprano voice-the highest singing voice for women.
Carol decided to make opera her goal, not only because she loved to sing but also because she loved the drama. Opera is a play in which the characters sing the words instead of speaking them. The stories of opera can be tragic or comical. They can be personal stories about two people falling in love or grand stories about kings and queens who lived long ago. As the characters in an opera sing, the emotions（情感）expressed by words and music come to life.
Today, Carol performs throughout the United States and Europe and she has song for almost twenty years. But she has never forgotten where she started singing in the first palace.
“Put your heart into your singing and enjoy it,” says Carol, “because singing is a great joy. That’s why I sing. In fact, that’s why everybody sings.”
【小題1】According to the passage,  the Metropolitan Opera in New York City     .

Think of some of your favorite singers. When you listen, they can make you happy or sad, peaceful or angry. They can make you relax or want to get up and dance. Gifted singers have the power to affect us in many ways—emotionally, physically and mentally.

       But becoming a great singer isn’t as easy as listening to one. It takes practice, devotion and strong lungs! Just ask the well-known American opera（歌�。﹕tar Carol Vaness.

       At the Metropolitan Opera in New York City where she often sings, Carol’s voice must be loud enough to be heard by four thousand people. It must reach every person in the theater, without a microphone, even when she’s singing softly. The reason Carol can project her voice that far is the way she breathes.

       “When you breathe, it’s like a swimmer taking a deep breath before going underwater,” Carol explains. “You have to take a lot of air into your lungs.”

       According to Carol, the main difference between pop singing and opera is “how you breathe, how much air you take in, and how you control it coming out. Regular singing is more like speaking, and it’s lot softer. When I sing for children, they’re often surprised by how the vibrations strike their ears—like waves on a beach, ”Carol says. “In opera, the air doesn’t just go out of your mouth—it vibrates in your chest，the way a guitar vibrates when it’s played.”

       Ever since she started piano lessons at the age of ten, Carol has loved music. As she got older, she decided to become a music teacher. When she went to college, she took singing lessons as part of her studies. Her voice teacher discovered that nineteen-year-old Carol had an exceptionally beautiful soprano voice-the highest singing voice for women.

       Carol decided to make opera her goal, not only because she loved to sing but also because she loved the drama. Opera is a play in which the characters sing the words instead of speaking them. The stories of opera can be tragic or comical. They can be personal stories about two people falling in love or grand stories about kings and queens who lived long ago. As the characters in an opera sing, the emotions（情感）expressed by words and music come to life.

       Today, Carol performs throughout the United States and Europe and she has song for almost twenty years. But she has never forgotten where she started singing in the first palace.

       “Put your heart into your singing and enjoy it,” says Carol, “because singing is a great joy. That’s why I sing. In fact, that’s why everybody sings.”

1.According to the passage,  the Metropolitan Opera in New York City      .

       A．is a five-story building                         B．can seat 4,000 people                   

       C．has no microphone in it                        D．can project the singer’s voice

2.What is the best title for this passage?

       A．Opera Singing and Pop Singing            B．The Way an Opera Star Sings        

       C．An Opera Star                                     D．Singing without a Microphone

3.Which statement is true?

       A．A pop singer’s lungs are usually stronger than those of an opera singer’s          

       B．Opera singing is more like speaking.     

       C．A pop singer takes in much more air than an opera singer when singing.

       D．An opera singer breathes differently from a pop singer when singing.

4.From the passage you can conclude all the following EXCEPT that      .

       A．Carol once learned to play the piano     

       B．Carol worked as a music teacher           

       C．Carol has been singing opera for 20 years or so                     

       D．Carol is popular with Americans and Europeans