1 . 18-year-old Alison Sanger is an amazing student. Maybe too amazing— the book opens with Alison lying to her mother about having food poisoning so she can take a test on Shakespeare. More than getting good grades, her true motivation is to beat her opponent, Ethan Molloy.

Ethan has gone toe-to-toe with Alison on everything throughout school. They’re both honors students. They are co-vice presidents of the senior class. They both hope to get into Harvard. The fact that Ethan and Alison seem to always do everything at the same time turned into a competition a long time ago. Whoever does worse on an exam must do an unpleasant task of the winner’s choosing. If someone misses the exam, they forfeit.

This unfriendly competition is so famous that everyone at Fairview knows about it, students and staff. They’re even more annoyed by it than Alison. The principal takes matters in hand by asking the two to co-plan a previous class’s ten-year reunion after someone else dropped the ball. As you might imagine, tensions arise and passion is aroused. In a certain way, What’s Not to Love is a little like The Hunger Games. Like Katniss with Peeta, Alison is constantly evaluating her own emotions against Ethan’s supposed strategy.

While reading this book, I was forced to wonder exactly how healthy this relationship was. I assumed everyone’s intentions in the book were honorable—the authors themselves turned out all right in the end, and I’m incredibly glad for that. Wibbroka fans will not be disappointed—What’s Not to Love is story of soulmates and passion; its short chapters and tight pacing carry the reader along all the way to the satisfying conclusion. Despite its faults—which the text itself calls to attention—fans of enemies-to-lovers stories like How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days will feel right at home here.

1. Why does Alison lie to her mother?

A．To treat her food poisoning.

B．To prove that she’s also amazing.

C．To be able to be tested on schedule.

D．To please her friend with good grades.

2. What does “forfeit” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Compete.	B．Withdraw.
C．Cooperate.	D．Succeed.

3. How does the principal’s attempt to help the two girls end?

A．They prove their abilities separately.

B．They get the final result of their competition.

C．They set up a better relationship between them.

D．They use it as another chance to continue the competition.

4. What does the author think of the book?

A．Worth reading.	B．Useless.
C．Unreasonable.	D．Perfect.

2 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. stranded        B. unsettling       C. vast        D. alternating        E. titled        F. breaking G. unparalleled       H. unfolding       I. sprung       J. distress       K. solidity

Finding Comfort in War and Peace

Over the past 15 years, Yiyun Li, a Chinese-American author, has read War and Peace at least a dozen times. Her hardback copy of Leo Tolstoy's 1,200 - page saga bristles with colored notes, like some exotic lizard's spine. The novel is not just a masterclass in fiction, Ms. Li believes, but a cure for     1    . At the most difficult times in her life, she says, she has turned to it again and again, reassured by its "    2    " in the face of uncertainty.

War and Peace - originally     3     The Year 1805 - is widely considered the world's greatest novel. It is also among the most daunting(令人敬畏的), acknowledged Richard Pevear, one of its translators, "as     4     as Russia itself." Its huge canvas(画布)encompasses(包含)not just Napoleon's wars against the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires from 1805 to 1812, but a cast whose actions and emotions span the breath of human consciousness. As a literary critic has noted, Tolstoy is the supreme novelist of human conflicts. His epic(史诗)is a(n)     5     examination of how people respond to the pressure of both wars and ordinary life.

So large is Tolstoy's world, Ms. Li reckoned, that there could be no better companion for people     6     in isolation. She thought of virtual book club to sustain readers through the lockdown. Participants around the globe would plough through this book together and share their thoughts on social media. It would be an anchor in     7     times. To their amazement, when it began in mid-March 3,000 people on six continents signed up.

Other book clubs have     8     up to discuss great literature during the pandemic. But Tolstoy's novel reflects the atmosphere of life in quarantine better. Its     9     structure, shifting between battlefields and the salons of Russian high society, mirrors the disorienting split in readers' own attention - between their own personal, stilled states and the calamity(灾祸)    10     outside.