Three divers enter a hole leading to a water-filled cave on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. They swim for an hour. Finally, they reach a large room 60 feet underground and about the size of two basketball courts. Here, they discover an upside-down human skull. Other bones lie nearby.
The team came across the skull in 2007. The divers then told the Mexican government about the finding. Soon the government formed a team of scientists to look into it. The group, which included archaeologist Dominique Rissolo, believed that the skull belonged to someone who lived in the last ice age. At the ice age some twenty thousand years ago, sea levels dropped and new land appeared. Over time, rain and wind ate holes into some of the land.
"The person may have died after entering the cave," Rissolo says. Then, when the ice age ended some ten thousand years ago, sea levels rose. Water flooded the cave, covering the remains.
Worrying that moving the skull might destroy it, scientists decided to examine it at its watery resting place. They collected information about the skull and other pieces of bones. They found that the bones belonged to a 15- to 17-year-old girl who lived at least twelve thousand years ago. The team named her after a type of water nymph (仙女) in Greek myths: the Naiads (Naia).
Naia is the oldest nearly complete human skeleton (骨架) ever found in the Americas. DNA tests showed that she's a direct ancestor of present-day Native Americans. Naia's DNA also matches with people native to Siberia, a part of Russia. Scientists have long thought that ancient people from this area arrived in Alaska during the last ice age. They were the first humans to live in the Americas. And Naia proves how far south they went.
In 2014 the scientists decided to bring up Naia's skull from the cave to protect it from curious divers. So it was taken to a lab, where it remains today.
1. What can we learn about the skull?| A．It was left alone in the cave. |
| B．It lay under a basketball court. |
| C．It drew the government's attention. |
| D．It was discovered by three scientists. |
| A．Scientists tried to protect it. |
| B．The temperature was fine in there. |
| C．It was against the law to take it out. |
| D．It would help scientists study the cave. |
| A．Early humans in Greece. |
| B．Early humans in Siberia. |
| C．Early humans in Alaska. |
| D．Early humans in Mexico. |
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【推荐1】From the earliest times, man has been interested in art. People have often worked together to collect and save the world‘s art treasures.
Fine art treasures from many countries are kept in an art museum called the Louvre in Paris, France. The works of art have been collected by the people of France over many centuries.
The Louvre has not always been a museum. The first building was a fort. In 1190, it was the king’s castle with high walls and a round tower. It had a moat to prevent his enemies from walking in .
Over the years, the number of buildings around the castle grew. By 1350, the castle was no longer needed as a fort. The Louvre became a palace home for French kings and queens.
During times of peace, new treasures were brought in. During days of war, many treasures were stolen, and the buildings were damaged.
When Francis I became king of France in 1515, he brought in artists from many countries. One of the artists was Leonardo da Vinci from Italy. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the best known painting in the museum today.
In 1793, the Louvre became a public museum, just as it is now. It is a place where art treasures have been saved for everyone to enjoy.
1. On the whole, this passage is mainly about____.| A．an art museum called the Louvre | B．an Italian artist named Leonardo da Vinci |
| C．a king of France named Francis I | D．the best known painting in Louvre |
| A．the Louvre has always been a museum. |
| B．old forts always make the best museums. |
| C．Nowadays even the ordinary people can enjoy the art treasures in the Louvre. |
| D．king Francis I of France brought in artists from an old fort |
| A．a high tower built in former times where soldiers watched out for enemies |
| B．a long and deep ditch dug round a castle and was usually filled with water. |
| C．a cart pulled by horses on which soldiers fought |
| D．a long and high wall around castle |
To answer this question, we need to look back at the time of the Roman Empire. At this time Roman artists, scientists and writers influenced by Greek ideas were the world’s most advanced. They had become skilled observers of the natural world around them, and had become experts in studying animals, plants, the human body or the stars and planets. They wrote down their ideas about what they saw, and based their theories about the world on their observations.
During the fourth and fifth centuries the Roman Empire slowly broke down. Many of the Romans’ art and sculptures were destroyed and some manuscripts（原稿）were lost as well. But most importantly, some of the ancient attitudes were lost. A questioning approach to the world was replaced by an unquestioning one.
Why did this happen? One reason was to do with the influence of the Christian Church. Through the thousand years following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church controlled many aspects of life including education and learning. The Church ran all the universities and thought that the aim of a university should be to teach old ideas more clearly, not to introduce new ones. The scholars in the universities were expected to study God and heaven from the Bible and ancient books, rather than the world around them.
Take medicine for example. The main textbook for doctors had been written by a Greek doctor called Galen more than a thousand years earlier. But when Roger Bacon, a thirteenth-century priest（牧师）, said that a new approach to medicine was needed --- doctors should do their own original research instead of reading writers from the past such as Galen-the Church put him in prison.
By the time of the fourteenth century, however, some parts of the Christian Church were becoming less strict about their ideas and there was a new state of mind among artists, doctors and scientist. People wanted to find out more about the world by studying it. This attitude of investigation had been common in classical scholars, and it was ‘reborn’ during the Renaissance.
1. We know from the text that scientists at the time of the Roman Empire believed in_______.
| A．their companions’ observations |
| B．what they saw with their own eyes |
| C．what they learned from the Greeks |
| D．the most advanced theories at that time |
| A．have good memories |
| B．change their beliefs |
| C．be lacking in creativity |
| D．be interested in astronomy |
| A．gave up being a priest |
| B．showed no respect for Galen |
| C．did some research secretly |
| D．challenged the Church |
| A．medicine | B．education | C．religion | D．history |
【推荐3】Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most important people in America’s fight for racial equality.
Born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, King, like many others, experienced racial discrimination (种族歧视) from a young age. Under America’s so-called “Jim Crow” laws, segregation was carried out in Southern states, meaning Black people couldn’t attend the same schools as white people, go to the same restaurants, and more. In his autobiography, King wrote that at the age of six his white friend wasn’t allowed to play with him because he was Black. This may be where his anger of racial injustice began.
In 1954, King, whose father and grandfather were pastors (牧师), moved to Montgomery to become pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. A year later, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person. This led to the 13-month Montgomery Bus Boycott. King was chosen to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association, which directed the boycott. He quickly became famous in America’s civil rights movement — which also made him a target. His home was bombed and his family was threatened. Worse still, he was stabbed (刺) while signing copies of his first book. But, inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi in India, King continued his peaceful fight for justice. After Montgomery, King and others founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to work with more protests. One of the most famous was the 1963 March on Washington. It was here, in front of over 200,000 people, that King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech.
In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, legally ending segregation in the US. That year, King won the Nobel Peace Prize. But in 1968, at age 39, he was shot and killed while standing on his hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2014. Since 1986, he has been honored on the third Monday of January, on what is known as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
1. W hat does the underlined word “segregation” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Interaction. | B．Deletion. | C．Separation. | D．Correction. |
| A．“Jim Crow” laws was put forward. |
| B．Black people suffered racial discrimination for a long time. |
| C．Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white person on a bus. |
| D．King became the leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association |
| A．Energetic and brave. | B．Determined and powerful. |
| C．Wise and warm-hearted. | D．Modest and knowledgeable. |
| A．He got inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi in India. |
| B．He has won awards and honor because of this speech. |
| C．He delivered this speech in front of 200,000 people in D. C. in 1963. |
| D．He made this speech because he and his family got attacked violently. |
【推荐1】Can trees talk? Yes—but not in words. Scientists have reason to believe that trees do communicate with each other. Not long ago, researchers learned some surprising things. First a willow tree attacked in the woods by caterpillars (毛毛虫) changed the chemistry of its leaves and made them taste so terrible that they got tired of the leaves and stopped eating, them. Then even more astonishing, the tree sent out a special smell—a signal causing its neighbors to change the chemistry of their own leaves and make them less tasty.
Communication, of course, does not need to be in words. We can talk to each other by smiling, raising our shoulders and moving our hands. We know that birds and animals use a whole vocabulary of songs, sounds, and movements. Bees dance their signals, flying in certain patterns that tell other bees where to find nectar (花蜜) for honey. So why shouldn’t trees have ways of sending messages?
1. It can be concluded from the passage that caterpillars do not feed on leaves that .| A．have an unpleasant taste | B．a relying on the ground |
| C．have an-unfamiliar shape | D．bees don’t like |
| A．growing more branches |
| B．communicating with birds and bees |
| C．changing its leaf chemistry |
| D．shaking caterpillars off |
| A．waving its branches | B．giving off a special smell |
| C．dropping its leaves | D．changing the color of its trunk |
| A．touching one another | B．smelling one another |
| C．making special movement | D．making unusual sound |
| A．cannot be taken seriously | B．seems completely reasonable |
| C．should no longer be permitted | D．must be checked more thorough |
【推荐2】Have you ever thrown together stuff you had on hand and were pleasantly surprised when it tasted good? You aren’t alone. Here’s a menu of some familiar foods that never would have happened if someone hadn’t created them by mistake.
ICE CREAM CONE(圆锥形)
Before the ice cream cone, people ate their ice cream out of dishes or paper containers. This changed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. A seller ran out of dishes to serve his ice cream. Luckily, Ernest A. Hamwi, a quick-thinking seller nearby, rolled his waffle-like pastries (糕点) into a cone shape. The ice cream seller filled it with ice cream for his customers. He was able to continue selling ice cream, and customers got a second treat when they realized they could eat the cone.
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
In 1930, Ruth Graves Wakefield was running the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts. One day, Ruth mistook baker’s chocolate for semi-sweet chocolate and added the pieces to the dough(面团). Unexpectedly, the chocolate pieces stay the same inside the cookie instead of melting. Then the chocolate chip cookie was born.
POTATO CHIPS
In 1853, a man was eating dinner at Moon’s Lake House, New York. He ordered fried potatoes. But when they came out, he wasn’t satisfied. He sent them back to the kitchen, where Chef George Crum was so angry about it that he sliced the potatoes really thin, put much salt on them, and fried them. Not only did the diner love them, but they soon became popular.
TOFU
Tofu, or bean curd, is made by curdling fresh soya milk, pressing it into a block, and then cooling it. Tofu was accidentally invented in China 2,000 years ago, when a cook added seaweed to soy milk. This is the same process that is used for making cheese. Like cheese, tofu is a great example of creating something unexpectedly good.
1. What do these foods have in common?| A．They are made of unusual material. |
| B．They were created by accident. |
| C．They have their origins in the same region. |
| D．They require complex cooking steps. |
| A．Ice cream cone. | B．Chocolate chip cookies. |
| C．Potato chips. | D．Tofu. |
| A．Customers got another ice cream free of charge if they ate the cone. |
| B．Hamwi turned his pastries into a cone shape to draw customers’ attention. |
| C．George served potato chips to the picky customer hoping he would love it. |
| D．Seaweed needs to be added in order to make cheese. |
【推荐3】Awe is generally defined as the sense that you are in the presence of something larger and more consequential than yourself. According to a study called “awe walks”, people who took a fresh look at the world around them during brief, weekly walks felt more upbeat and hopeful in general than walkers who did not. Feeling a sense of awe also seems to up our overall feelings of gladness and improve health.
Previous studies have linked increased physical activity to greater happiness and reduced risks for anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. But no studies had looked into whether mixing awe and activity might increase the benefits of or, on the other hand, reduce them. So, for the new study, scientists concentrated on people in their 60s, 70s and 80s, an age when some people can face risks for declining mental health.
The scientists asked 52 volunteers to add a weekly 15-minute walk to their normal schedules. All of them were physically healthy and psychologically well-adjusted, with little anxiety or depression. Then they were randomly divided into two groups. One, as a control group, was asked to start walking, preferably outside, but given few other requirements. The other group was not only asked to walk once a week, but also were instructed in how to cultivate awe as they walked. “Basically, we told them to try to go and walk somewhere new, since novelty helps to cultivate awe,” says Virginia Sturm, an associate professor who led the new study.
Both groups were asked to take a few selfies during their walks and upload them to a lab website and also complete a daily online assessment of their current mood. After eight weeks, the scientists compared the groups’ responses and photos. Not surprisingly, the awe walkers felt happier, less upset and more socially connected than the control group members.
The findings are subjective, though, since awe, like other emotions, is difficult to quantify, but Dr Sturm thinks awe walks could be a simple thing for small wonders without any downside.
1. What makes the new study different from the previous ones?| A．It concentrated on older people. |
| B．It found the solution to mental health. |
| C．It associated physical exercise with happiness. |
| D．It took both activity and awe into consideration. |
| A．Only the control group practiced weekly walks |
| B．The volunteers were suffering mental diseases . |
| C．Some volunteers were given directions. |
| D．The volunteers were divided by age . |
| A．The number of volunteers is small. |
| B．The 15-minute walk is not enough. |
| C．The awe emotion is hard to measure. |
| D．No downside of awe walks is found. |
| A．Reserved. | B．Supportive. | C．Indifferent. | D．Critical. |
【推荐1】In the past, before alarm clocks were invented, what did people depend on to wake them up in the morning? Roosters.
“ A rooster’s crow symbolizes the break of dawn in many countries,” Takashi Yoshimura, professor at Nagoya University in Japan, told National Geographic. They are known to regularly crow two to three times at dawn.
However, scientists have long been unsure about why the animals do this. “It wasn’t clear whether crowing is under the control of a biological clock or is simply response to external stimuli.”
Roosters do react to the environment-such as car headlights-at any time of day. So it was previously thought that the increasing light in the morning might be the trigger for roosters’ crowing.
But Yoshimura and his colleagues now claim to have finally figured out the reason-roosters don’t need morning light to know when to start crowing; they will crow at the same time every day regardless of whether they can see dawn breaking.
In the study, which was published in the journal Current Biology, researchers placed 40 roosters in a soundproof, windowless room under dim lighting for 24 hours. But this didn’t deter the roosters. No matter what, they kept crowing in the morning just before dawn.
“It is proof that the behavior is caused by circadian rhythm”, said Yoshimura. In short, the roosters are genetically programmed to crow at a certain time every 24 hours.
Most animals, as well as plants, have such an internal time-keeping system. That’s why we tend to eat, sleep and exercise at around the same time every day. By consciously being aware of the schedule, our body has a chance to adapt to it, so keeping a regular biological clock is often tied to good health.
This experiment is the first of its kind to investigate the timing of roosters’ crowing. Kristen Navara, a scientist at the University of Georgia in the US who was not involved in the study, said that she wasn’t sure why no one had taken a closer look at this well-known phenomenon before.
“I think this is a very interesting study and something that should have been done a long time ago.” said Navara.
1. What has been recently discovered to make roosters crow in the morning？| A．External stimuli like noises. | B．Their biological clocks. |
| C．Exposure to morning light. | D．Increased temperature. |
| A．Prevent. | B．Attract. | C．Encourage. | D．Upset. |
| A．Roosters have the same circadian rhythms as humans. |
| B．Following our biological clocks is good for our health. |
| C．Dark conditions can have some effect on roosters’ crowing. |
| D．Roosters’ biological clocks will change to help them adapt to the environment. |
| A．Worthless. | B．Meaningful | C．Boring. | D．Unscientific. |
【推荐2】Earlier this year, my husband and I were presented with the chance to make our home in an urban “micro” space. As we initially considered it, it seemed crazy. Would we even make it a week without going mad? Living room, kitchen, office, dining room, all in one small four-walled space.
There were a number of other potential options. We could move out into the suburbs like most people do in our extraordinarily expensive city and have a small yard maybe even a basement. But there was something about this neat “tiny” home that aroused our interest, which challenged us. We like to live differently from the crowd, to avoid what everyone else is doing “just because” everyone else is.
“Let’s try it for six months. If it makes us crazy, we’ll move. We can do anything for 6 months,” my husband said. It was challenging squeezing into the space at first, but then something caught us by surprise. We started having a ton of fun with our tiny space.
In the past, sometimes we had quite different ideas about which art or decorating style we found appealing. But here, in this tiny space, we found ourselves having a ton of fun exploring possible options. There’s no room for clutter(凌乱的东西), either. This is a gift!
It’s been 8 months, and we’re staying. Perhaps forever. When a space is this small, you don’t need to spend much in furnishing it, and you can’t keep endlessly buying things. There’s nowhere to put them!
This leaves us more financial resources and more time to go out into the much bigger world and enjoy life. For us, living in a “tiny” home has filled us with a feeling of abundance. It’s so much better than feeling weighed down, paying for a big space and more and more things. I highly recommend it.
1. What can we learn from the words of the author’s husband?| A．He didn’t like to stay in the small space. |
| B．He made up his mind to stay in the small space. |
| C．He was uncertain about living in the small space. |
| D．He encouraged the author to live in the small space. |
| A．It was depressing but inspiring. |
| B．It was challenging but interesting. |
| C．It was disappointing but touching. |
| D．It was embarrassing but rewarding. |
| A．She could enjoy life more. | B．She could avoid the crowds. |
| C．She could clean the room easily. | D．She could enjoy a feeling of freedom. |
| A．A new trend of living | B．The joy of living “tiny” |
| C．Save space, save money | D．Make good use of space |
【推荐3】My father was left fatherless at the age of 12, and pretty much on his own then.
Because of that, he was never the loving type. He didn’t have time to offer a pat on the back or a loving hug（拥抱）. He was built for work, and work he did—7 days a week—expecting my brothers and me to do the same.
Growing up, I spent much of my free time laboring with him on jobs around the house. To him, working alongside someone was the best way to show you cared. The way you felt about a person was clear from the fact you spent time with the person; you didn’t need to express your feelings. As far as I know, he never did. Except once.
I was 22, graduated from college, and leaving home for the last time. He and I had loaded my things into the car and were talking in the garage. Without warning, he wrapped me in his huge arms and hugged me tight.“You were always my favorite,”he said.“I love you, and I’m going to miss you.”
With that, he shooed（用“嘘”声驱赶）me into the car and then left for the house, tears in his eyes.
I was floored by his response—and then felt proud, pleased and grateful. Yet some small part of me also wondered why it had taken him so long to express his love.
I can accept now that it wasn’t possible for him to be warm—his feelings were buried too deeply under the layers of a tough life. Thanks to my father’s once-in-a-lifetime hug, I’ve come to realize something he never could. A hug is more than simple physical touch. It is a lightning-like connection between two people. A link that expresses love, encouragement, comfort-all the emotions that can strengthen a relationship, even turn a life around.
1. According to the author, his father didn’t show his feelings easily because of all the following reasons EXCEPT _____.| A．he didn’t think it important to show his love |
| B．he always worked around the house and paid no attention to his kids |
| C．he himself grew up without love from his own father |
| D．he thought the best way to show feelings was to spend time together |
| A．frightened | B．flooded |
| C．hit | D．confused |
| A．hide his feelings for his kids as deeply as his father did |
| B．offer physical touch like hugs to his own kids quite often |
| C．not spend time working around the house with his own kids |
| D．not understand his father’s love for him for the rest of his life |
| A．mention the importance of a hug in our life |
| B．tell us an unhappy childhood without father’s care |
| C．share a touching story of the author and his father |
| D．show the difficult relationship between child and parents |
【推荐1】According to the Nordic (北欧的) legend, “ship worms will not go deep into the wood which has been painted with the seal-tar.” Scholars still debate the meaning of “seal” in “seal-tar”. one is that they mixed tar (清漆) with animal fat. Some experiments suggest this may keep ship worms away. It is clear that tar was an important technology. New findings suggest that a vast industry making it appeared at the beginning of the Viking Age, helping enable their wild ambition.
The oldest tar pits (坑) in Sweden date from around 100 A.D. to 400 A. D. The first were discovered in the early 2000s close to an ancient village suggesting that tar was initially for painting houses and household items. It was made by putting pine wood into pits a metre or two wide, setting it on fire and covering it with fuels to encourage a slow burning. In this way, the wood’s resin (树脂) would turn to tar.
However, as Andreas Hennius, an archaeologist (考古学家) reports, around the eighth century something occurred. The pits got bigger — reaching eight to ten metres in diameter — and moved far into the forest. These pits could have made around 300 litres of tar in a single production.
Mr. Hennius argues that the builders needed all this for ships. The eighth century was when sails arrived in northern Europe. That is no coincidence. Tar has been found on all parts of ships, whether big or small. It was used to make ships safe from water. It was also mixed with other paints to give sails color and offer protection from the sun. This expanded opportunities for long-distance trade, and the large, swift attacks defining the Viking Age.
1. What is the recent discovery according to the passage?| A．The function of tar. | B．The actual meaning of “seal”. |
| C．The times for large-scale tar production. | D．The major role of tar making industry. |
| A．The tar production started as an industry first for ship building. |
| B．The pits around the forest were not suitable for mass production. |
| C．Tar became an industry thanks to adequate supply of fuels around. |
| D．The pits were discovered over 2000 years after their first construction. |
| A．tar was commonly painted on ships | B．other paints could protect ships |
| C．more pine wood was around the pits | D．there were bigger pits than before |
【推荐2】Awe is not an everyday emotion. You don't wake up awestruck. A satisfying lunch doesn't leave you filled with awe. Even a great day is unlikely to leave you in a state of breathtaking, all-knowing fear and trembling.
Then what is awe? Psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt suggested that awe typically includes feelings of grandness. That means awe is inspired by something larger than a person's self or experience. And it usually helps expand the person's understanding of the world. For example, awe might come from seeing a mountain taller than you thought a mountain could be. Or it might come from listening to a symphony that contains both shockingly loud and touchingly quiet notes. People can be awe-inspiring, too: think of meeting a political leader whose power seems limitless.
In order to find out more about the mysterious feeling, the psychologists laid out a research plan. In the years since, they and other researchers have been testing awe. What is it? How does it work? What seems awesome, and why? For the first time, they're starting to understand both what awe does to us and what it might do for us.
When psychologists first started studying awe, one of the unanswered questions was: What do we look like when we're feeling it? Emotions come with facial expressions.
Keltner and two workmates guessed that an awe-filled person would widen her eyes and raise her head, eyes and eyebrows, just a bit. And they were on track. When they asked people to perform awe, they found that people indeed often raised their eyebrows and widened their eyes. They also opened their mouths and dropped their jaws.
Another question was the purpose of the emotion. “We developed emotions to help us deal with and survive certain dangers," explains Craig Anderson, a student in Keltner's lab, “When people are scared, they freeze or run away. People that behaved like that tended to survive long enough." In the same way, awe should have some sort of reason for existing.
So far, it seems that the purpose of awe might draw people together. When people are awestruck, they feel like time has slowed down somehow, and when they feel so, they are more willing to use it to help others. The study also shows that awe promotes generosity. It improves people's moral decision making. A paper still under review indicates that awe can make people more modest, too.
“We actually experience awe a lot more often than we think," says one of the researchers, Rudd, “We meet something in the big wide world, our minds open as we look for an explanation, and as a result we open up to connecting to other people. But if you are keeping yourself in your own small world, it's going to be hard to experience that feeling. Just go out into newness and you're going to be more likely to run into something that's awe-inspiring.”
1. According to Keltner and Haidt, which of the following can most likely inspire awe?| A．Eating Beijing duck at Quanjude Restaurant. |
| B．Listening to a pleasant flute solo in a famous bar. |
| C．Enjoying a sound sleep after an extremely tiring day. |
| D．Seeing a huge elephant up close in its natural setting. |
| A．They came across unexpected data. | B．They were anxious about the result. |
| C．They changed their research methods. | D．They were right about what they had thought. |
| A．We should try to avoid awe because it can fill people with fear. |
| B．Awe is a complicated feeling and no one can understand it. |
| C．Awe is socially beneficial and we should be open to it. |
| D．We should try to feel awe because it helps us survive. |
| A．To move readers with touching stories about awe. |
| B．To explain what awe is and what it brings to people. |
| C．To show awe functions differently from other emotions. |
| D．To persuade readers to experience awe as much as possible. |
【推荐3】Time spent in a bookshop can be most enjoyable, whether you are a book-lover or merely go there to buy a book as a present. You may even have entered the shop just to find shelter from a sudden shower. Whatever the reason, you can soon become totally unaware of your surroundings.
The desire to pick up a book with an attractive dust jacket is irresistible, although this method of selection ought not to be followed, as you might end up with a rather dull book.
You soon become interested in some book or other, and usually it is only much later that you realize you have spent far too much time there and must dash off to keep some forgotten appointment—without buying a book, of course.
This opportunity to escape the realities of everyday life is, I think, the main attraction of a bookshop. There are not many places where it is possible to do this. A music shop is very much like a bookshop. You can wander round such places to your heart’s content. If it is a good shop, no assistant will approach you with the inevitable greeting: “Can I help you, sir?” You needn’t buy anything you don’t want. In a bookshop an assistant should remain in the background until you have finished browsing. Then and only then, are his services necessary. Of course, you may want to find out where a particular section is, but when he has led you there, the assistant should retire discreetly and look as if he is not interested in selling a single book.
You have to be careful not to be attracted by the variety of books in a bookshop. It is very easy to enter the shop looking for a book on, say ancient coins and come out carrying a copy of the latest best-selling novel and perhaps a book about brass-rubbing-something which had only slightly interested you up till then. This volume of the subject, however, happened to be so well illustrated and the part of the text you read proved so interesting that you just had to buy it. This sort of thing can be very dangerous. Apart from running up a huge account, you can waste a great deal of time wandering from section to section.
1. The underlined phrase “dust jacket” means_______.| A．a kind of clothes | B．a paper cover of book |
| C．a dusty book | D．a title of a book |
| A．the dust jackets are very attractive |
| B．you start reading one of the books |
| C．it is raining outside |
| D．you have to make sure you won’t buy a dull book as a present |
| A．all the books there are interesting | B．the assistant greets you in a warm way |
| C．your heart is satisfied | D．you feel that you are in a music shop |
| A．The Attraction of Bookshops | B．How to Spend Your Time |
| C．Bookshops and Their Assistants | D．How to select Books? |
