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(读写能力的下降) 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(接触) 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”(认知策略). 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(有自我意识的) 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.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 |
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. |
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 |
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. |
Michael Fish may soon be replaced as a weather forecaster by something truly fishier---the shark(鲨鱼).
Research by a British biology student suggests that sharks could be used to predict storms.
Lauren Smith, 24, is close to completing her study on shark’s ability to sense pressure.
If her studies prove the theory, scientists may be able to monitor the behaviour of sharks to predict bad weather.
Miss Smith had previously studied the behaviour of lemon sharks in the Bahamas.
She then used their close relatives, lesser spotted dogfish, for further research at Aberdeen University.
Her work---thought to be the first of its kind to test the pressure theory ---- resulted from the observation that juvenile blacktip sharks off Florida moved into deeper water ahead of a violent storm in 2001.
Miss Smith said: “I’ve always been crazy about traveling and diving and this led me to an interest in sharks.”
“I was delighted to have been able to research in the area for my degree. I know there’s so much more we need to understand ---- but it certainly opens the way to more research.”
It has been discovered that a shark senses pressure using hair cells in its balance system.
At the Bimini Shark Lab in the Bahamas, Miss Smith fixed hi-tech sensors to sharks to record pressure and temperature, while also tracking them using GPS (Global Positioning System) technology.
In Aberdeen, she was able to study the effects of tidal(潮汐的) and temperature changes on dogfish----none of which were harmed. She also used a special lab which can mimic(模拟) oceanic pressure changes caused by weather fronts.
She is due to complete her study and graduate later this year. She says she will be looking for a job which will give her the chance to enrich her experience of shark research.The passage is most probably taken from _____.
| A.a short-story collection | B.a popular science magazine |
| C.a research paper | D.a personal diary |
What do we learn from the first four paragraph of the passage?
| A.Sharks may be used to predict bad weather. |
| B.Sharks’ behaviour can be controlled. |
| C.Michael Fish is not qualified for his job. |
| D.Lauren Smith will become a weather forecaster. |
Lauren Smith conducted her research by _______.
| A.removing hair cells from a shark’s balance system |
| B.measuring the air pressure of weather fronts |
| C.recording sharks’ body temperature |
| D.monitoring sharks’ reaction to weather changes |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A.A popular way of forecasting weather. |
| B.A new research effort in predicting storms. |
| C.Biologists’ interest in the secrets of sharks. |
| D.Lauren Smith’s devotion to scientific research. |
Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 to a Mexican American family. As the only girl in a family of seven children, she often felt like she had “seven fathers,” because her six brothers, as well as her father, tried to control her. Feeling shy and unimportant, she retreated(躲避) into books. Despite her love of reading, she did not do well in elementary school because she was too shy to participate.
In high school, with the encouragement of one particular teacher, Cisneros improved her grades and worked for the school literary magazine. Her father encouraged her to go to college because her thought it would be a good way for her to find a husband. Cisneros did attend college, but instead of searching for a husband, she found a teacher who helped her join the famous graduate writing program at the University of Iowa. At the university’s Writers’ Workshop, however, she felt lonely----a Mexican American from a poor neighborhood among students from wealthy families. The feeling of being so different helped Cisneros find her “Creative voice.”
“It was not until this moment when I considered myself truly different that my writing acquired a voice. I knew I was a Mexican woman, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalance in my life, but it had everything to do with it! That’s when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn’t write about.”
Cisneros published her first work, The House on Mango Street, when she was twenty-nine. The book tells about a young Mexican American girl growing up in a Spanish-speaking area in Chicago, much like the neighborhoods in which Cisneros lived as a child. The book won an award in 1985 and has been used in classes from high school through graduate school level. Since then, Cisneros has published several books of poetry, a children’s book, and a short-story collection.Which of the following is TRUE about Cisneros in her childhood?
| A.She had seven brothers. | B.She felt herself a nobody. |
| C.She was too shy to go to school. | |
| D.She did not have any good teachers. |
The graduate program gave Cisneros a chance to _____.
| A.work for a school magazine | B.run away from her family |
| C.make a lot of friends | D.develop her writing style |
According to Cisneros, what played the decisive role in her success?
| A.Her early years in college. | B.Her training in the Workshop. |
| C.Her feeling of being different. | D.Her childhood experience. |
What do we learn about The House on Mango Street?
| A.It is quite popular among students. |
| B.It is the only book ever written by Cisneros. |
| C.It wasn’t success as it was written in Spanish. |
| D.It won an award when Cisneros was twenty-nine. |
Weather changes when the temperature and the amount of water in the atmosphere change. We can see and feel water coming from the atmosphere when we have rain. But the water must somehow get back to the atmosphere. Meteorologists call this the water cycle.
There are many stages in the water cycle. Rain falls when water vapor in clouds condenses(凝结). Drops of water form and fall to the ground. The water soaks into the ground and feeds streams and rivers. A lot of rain falls into the sea. The heat of the sun evaporates some of the water in the ground and in the rivers, lakes, and the sea. It changes the liquid water into water vapour. The vapour rises onto the air. Water vapour is normally invisible. On a very damp or humid day, however, you can sometimes see water vapour rising from a puddle(水坑) or pond in a mist(薄雾) above the water. Water vapour also gets into the air from living things. Trees and other plants take in water through their roots and give off water vapour from their leaves. People and land animals drink water and breathe out water vapour. In all these ways the water returns to the air. There it gathers to form clouds and condenses to form rain. The rain falls to earth, and the cycle starts again. It continues even if snow or hail(冰雹) fall instead because both eventually melt to form water. The amount of water vapour in the air depends on the temperature. The air is more moist(潮湿) in the tropics(热带) than in the cold polar regions. What is the main idea of the passage?
| A.Water cycle. |
| B.Water vapour. |
| C.How rain forms. |
| D.Water, vapour, rain. |
How many ways of the water returning to the air are discussed in the text?
| A.Two. | B.Three. | C.Four. | D.Five. |
Whether water vapour can be seen or not depends on _______.
| A.how much water is evaporated |
| B.how good your eyes are |
| C.in which way water is evaporated |
| D.climate or weather |
From the passage we get to know _______.
| A.there is more water vapour in the air in the tropics than in cold polar regions |
| B.there is more water vapour in the air in cold polar region than in the tropics |
| C.it gets more rain in the tropics than in cold polar regions because there is less vapour |
| D.the amount of water vapour in the air depends on how often it rains |
Growing up in Philadelphia, Lieberman started cooking with his stay-at-home dad when he was seven. His food-loving family had two kitchens, and he quickly learned what was the best way to bake his cakes. Lieberman improved his kitchen skills greatly during a year abroad before college, learning from a cook in Italy and studying local specialties(地方特色菜)in Germany, Spain and France. At Yale, he was known for throwing dinner parties, single-handedly frying and baking while mixing drinks for dozens of friends. Just for fun, he and some friends decided to tape a show named Campus Cuisine about his cooking. Lieberman was a real college student showing his classmates how to do things like make drinks out of dining-hall fruit. That helped the show become very popular among the students. They would stop Lieberman after classes to ask for his advice on cooking. Tapes of the show were passed around, with which his name went beyond the school and finally to the Food Network.
Food Network producer Flay hopes the young cook will find a place on the network television. He says Lieberman’s charisma is key. “Food TV isn’t about food anymore,” says Flay. “It’s about your personality(个性)and finding a way to keep people’s eyeballs on your show.”
But Lieberman isn’t putting all his eggs in one basket. After taping the first season of the new how, Lieberman was back in his won small kitchen preparing sandwiches. An airline company was looking for some one to come up with a tasteful, inexpensive and easy-to-make menu to serve on its flights, Lieberman got the job. We can learn from the text that Lieberman’s family ___________.
| A. have relatives in Europe | B.love cooking at home |
| C. often hold parties | D.own a restaurant |
The Food Network got to know Lieberman______________.
| A.at one of this parties | B. from his teachers |
| C.through his taped show | D.on a television program |
What does the word “charisma” underlined in the text refer to ?
| A.A natural ability to attract others. |
| B.A way to show one’s achievement. |
| C.Lieberman’s after-class interest. |
| D.Lieberman’s fine cooking skill. |
Why did the airline company give Lieberman the job?
| A.He could prepare meals in a small kitchen. |
| B.He was famous for his shows on Food TV. |
| C.He was good at using eggs to make sandwiches. |
| D.He could cook cheap ,delicious and simple meals. |
What can we learn about Lieberman from the text?
| A.He is clever but lonely. |
| B.He is friendly and active. |
| C.He enjoys traveling around. |
| D.He often changes his meals. |
Zoe Chambers was a successful PR (Public Relations) consultant and life was going well—she had a great job, a beautiful flat and a busy social life in London. Then one evening in June last year, she received a text message telling her she was out of work. The first two weeks were the most difficult to live through." she said. "After everything I'd done for the company, they dismissed me by text! I was so angry and I just didn't feel like looking for another job. I hated everything about the city and my life."
Then, Zoe received an invitation from an old school friend, Kathy, to come and stay. Kathy and her husband, Huw, had just bought a farm in north-west Wales. Zoe jumped at the chance to spend a weekend away from London, and now, ten months later, she is still on the farm.
"The moment I arrived at Kathy's farm, I loved it and I knew I wanted to stay." said Zoe. "Everything about my past life suddenly seemed meaningless."
Zoe has been working on the farm since October of last year and says she has no regrets. "It's a hard life, physically very tiring." she says. "In London 1 was stressed and often mentally exhausted. But this is a good, healthy tiredness. Here, all 1 need to put me in a good mood is a hot bath and one of Kathy's wonderful dinners."
Zoe says she has never felt bored on the farm. Every day brings a new experience. Kathy has been leaching her how to ride a horse and she has learnt to drive a tractor. Since Christmas, she has been helping with the lambing—watching a lamb being born is unbelievable, she says, "It's one of the most moving experiences I've ever had. I could never go back to city life now." (08上海卷)When working as a PR consultant in London, Zoe thought she lived a______life.
| A.satisfying | B.tough | C.meaningless | D.boring |
The most important reason why Zoe went to visit Kathy's farm is that______.
| A.Zoe lost her job as a PR consultant | |
| B.Kathy persuaded her to do so | |
| C.Zoe got tired of the city life | D.Zoe loved Wales more than London |
How docs Zoe feel about the country life according to the passage?
| A.Tiresome and troublesome. |
| B.Romantic and peaceful |
| C.Mentally exhausting but healthy |
| D.Physically tiring but rewarding. |
Which of the following is closest to the main idea of the passage?
| A.A friend in need is a friend indeed. |
| B.Where there is a will, there is a way. |
| C.A misfortune may turn out a blessing. |
| D.Kill two birds with one stone. |