1 . Anthony Wood remembers sitting in the classroom one snowy morning as his teacher eyed the flakes(雪花) flying outside the window. “Please boys and girls”, she said, “pray that it stops snowing.” How little she grasped the mind of children, Mr. Wood observes, “We were praying，alright -- praying that it would snow-until June.”
Everyone knows children loves snow. Mr. Wood’s new book is meant for adults who remain passionate. It is less a systematic history than a discussion through various snow-related subjects -- beginning with the snowflake itself, which the author describes poetically as “the DNA of God”. Monster snowstorms interest Mr. Wood, such as the great white hurricane of 1888, during which hundreds of people in the north-eastern United States died of severe coldness. Winter storms that prevented the transportation from functioning normally were disasters for cities like New York and Philadelphia. But snow also contributed to the development of subway systems.
His chapters touch on the impact of unpredictable snowfall on the water crisis in California and on winter fun everywhere. He offers some frustratingly disconnected guesses about how climate change will alter future snowfalls. The short answer is that there will probably be more snow in places where the amount of water in the air increases, and less where temperatures become too high to keep it.
And he reflects, if briefly, on snow’s delights and unusual charm. Why do people either love it or hate it? Many long for it, Mr Wood proposes, because of the splendid isolation(隔离) that it brings. It can direct attention inward, and help people return to themselves.
1. Why is Anthony Wood’s memory mentioned in Paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the topic. | B．To make a comparison. |
| C．To draw a conclusion. | D．To take an example. |
| A．It focuses on the history of snow. |
| B．It explains why children loves now. |
| C．It covers a wide range of topics about snow. |
| D．It only talks about the disaster caused by snow. |
| A．Pessimistic. | B．Unclear. | C．Objective. | D．Critical. |
| A．A biography of Anthony Wood. | B．An essay on climate change. |
| C．A fiction about snow. | D．A review of a book. |
2 . The Door-to-Door Bookstore, whose author is Carsten Henn, translated from the German by Melody Shaw, is an undoubtedly emotional, inspiring novel about friendships between generations developed through books.
Carl Kollhoff, a 72-year-old bookseller in southern Germany, is beloved among his customers for finding just the right books for them. But his role is threatened when a new boss is determined to push out the star employee.
One of the limited highlights of Carl’s life is to deliver books every evening to a handful of shut-in customers. The selections are made by their stated preferences—for happy endings, tragedy, philosophical works and so on. Trouble happens when a pretty wise (and a little annoying) motherless 9-year-old girl tags along with him on his rounds. She decides Carl is not actually giving his customers what they really need, and comes up with a plan to correct this.
Like Carl’s backpack, Henn manages to fill his novel with books without weighing it down. Chapter titles suggest that classics are involved: The Stranger, The Red and the Black, Great Expectations. Carl, who is terrible with names, assigns a literary character to each customer—Mr. Darcy, Mrs. Longstocking, The Reader—to help him keep them straight.
We gradually come to know these townsfolk: the abused wife, and the ambitious writer with the soothing voice who is paid to read classics to cigar factory workers.
The Door-to-Door Bookstore is also filled with amusing observations. Carl divides readers into hares (野兔), who race through books; fish, who allow books to carry them along on their current; curious lapwings (鸟头麦鸡), who jump ahead to see the ending first; and tortoises, who fall asleep each night after a single page and take months to get through a book, having to turn back repeatedly to check what they’ve forgotten.
Readers will have fun finding themselves in these pages.
1. Where is the text most probably taken from?| A．A review of a book. | B．An essay on literature classics. |
| C．An introduction to a bookstore. | D．A biography of Carl Kollhoff. |
| A．The takeover of a family business by a young girl. |
| B．The friendship between Carl and a 9-year-old girl. |
| C．Carl’s struggle to find the right books for his customers. |
| D．The competition among different bookstores in Germany. |
| A．To compare the book with them. | B．To stress the importance of them. |
| C．To help readers understand the book. | D．To show their popularity. |
| A．Readers will relate to the characters and situations in the novel. |
| B．Readers will find satisfaction in correctly guessing the endings of the books. |
| C．Readers will enjoy the different ways people read books. |
| D．Readers will be amused by the diverse personalities of the customers. |
