| A．The novel is much too long. | B．The novel is very interesting. |
| C．He seldom reads such a novel. | D．He hasn’t read the novel yet. |
2 . Julia Whelan climbed into the recording room in her home office. In preparation, she had avoided alcohol the night before, had avoided milk since waking at 6 a.m. and had run through the warm-up voice exercises.
Whelan, 38, is the calm, confident female voice behind more than 400 other audiobooks, as well as the narrated versions(叙事版本) of many articles. Once she has taken on a project, she reads through the book once or twice, deciding on themes to highlight when she gets into the recording room by using different tones and accents, and emphasizing certain words. “Narrating a book really is a performance,” she said, “and it can be harder to do than acting, because I can’t use my eyes or facial expressions to convey something to the audience.”
As she spent time subsuming herself in the writing of others, she began to think more about her own creative ambitions. Just before the pandemic, she began “Thank You for Listening,” combining her writing with the experiences she has collected as a narrator.
Writers say that Whelan has helped them understand their own work. “When I listen to Julia read my stories, it sounds like she is calling you over to tell you a great story,” said Nuzzi, whose work has been narrated by Whelan. “When I write now, I try to think like that, that I am calling a reader over to tell him a great story. It has completely changed my approach.” Whelan said that she also learns about her writing when she experiences it as a narrator. “There is something about it that changes when you’re performing it,” she said. “I read the book out loud during every stage of its revisions but it’s different when you sit down and have the microphone in front of you, when I finally am in all the characters and the story comes to life.”
1. Before recording a book, Whelan __________.| A．acts out its narrated version |
| B．builds up strength through exercise |
| C．determines the focus of its subject |
| D．varies its emphasized words |
| A．dismissing | B．involving | C．maintaining | D．presenting |
| A．It enables her to think in readers’ view. |
| B．It inspires her to be absorbed in the story. |
| C．It provides her with diverse life experiences. |
| D．It reminds her to pursue her creative ambition. |
| A．Excellent narration is based on convincing stories. |
| B．Narrating is a more rewarding ambition than writing. |
| C．An influential writer is definitely a wonderful narrator. |
| D．Experiences as a narrator can change the writing approach. |
How Reading Saved Me
During my first decade in prison, I busied myself with exercising and hanging out in the big yard. I hardly grew as
Through my journey in college, I became engaged in reading and writing, striving to escape prison life by expanding my mind beyond the environments I
Throughout the country, prison officials have rejected or tried every means
Without college and without access to books and materials
| A．The woman saved the man some trouble. | B．The woman regretted littering the reading list. |
| C．The man placed the reading list on a desk. | D．The man emptied the waste paper basket. |
| A．She has no interest in reading novels. | B．Science fiction is her favorite kind of novels. |
| C．She is in low spirits and nothing interests her. | D．She prefers novels to any other reading materials. |
6 . The middle-aged woman with the black sweater around her shoulders had assumed an accurately adjusted posture: feet shoulder-width apart, arms slightly bent, fists loosely tightened, muscles relaxed yet alert.
She was not preparing for a tae kwon do match, but performing her personal version of the underground battle engaged in daily by millions of New Yorkers: reading, attentively, on a sardine-can D train heading swiftly toward Brooklyn in the evening rush.
“I am a New Yorker,” the woman, Robin Kornhaber, 54, told me as if those five crisp words explained everything. “I can do anything on the subway.”
Reading on the subway is a New York custom, for the masters of the intricately (错综复杂地) folded newspaper like Ms. Kornhaber, who lives in Park Slope and works on the Upper East Side, as well as for teenage girls thumbing through magazines, aspiring actors memorizing lines and immigrants taking comfort in paragraphs in a familiar tongue. These days, among the worn covers may be the occasional Kindle, but since most trains are still devoid of Internet access, the subway ride remains a rare low-tech interlude (插曲) in a city of multitasking workaholics. And so, we read.
Even without a seat, even while pressed with strangers into human panini, even as someone plays a keyboard harmonica and makes a loud noise with a cup of change, even when stumbling home after a party.
There are those whose commutes are carefully timed to the length of a Talk of the Town section of The New Yorker, those who systematically page their way through the classics, and those who always carry a second novel in case they unexpectedly make it to the end of the first on a slow F train. There is a lawyer from Brooklyn who for the past two months has catalogued what she and other commuters are reading on a blog, “The Subway Book Club,” and a student at the New School who spent the summer passing out 600 donated books to subway riders to spread her passion for reading.
And then there are those reading the readers, imagining their story lines. That man in a suit studying “Rosetta Stone Level 3 Italian” on the No.2 train must be preparing to meet his fiancée’s family in Tuscany. The woman reading a young-adult novel at 81st Street is probably a teacher preparing for class.
1. Which of the following is the best title of the passage?| A．New York Rush | B．Reading Underground |
| C．Underground Battle | D．Subway Escape |
| A．Robin Kornhaber is a little bit nervous on the train |
| B．Robin Kornhaber is physically prepared for train ride |
| C．Robin Kornhaber is a typical New York train rider and reader |
| D．Robin Kornhaber stands for New Yorkers who rely heavily on subway |
| A．It is a culture for New Yorkers to read underground. |
| B．Some people will make guesses at those reading on the train. |
| C．People have no Internet access on most underground trains in New York. |
| D．People must make a careful schedule if they are to read underground. |
| A．sardine-can D train | B．human panini |
| C．tae kwon do match | D．keyboard harmonica |
7 . 
| A．Leave the book on Jenny’s doorstep. | B．Call the delivery service for help. |
| C．Go to the post office to mail the book. | D．Leave a note for Jenny to pick the book up. |
| A．share ideas on the titles they fancy reading | B．check out the new books on sale |
| C．list the books they would like to swap | D．advertise their favorite books |
| A．Swapping is restricted to books and related items. |
| B．Swapping is organized and run on a voluntary basis. |
| C．Swapping is open to school-aged children only. |
| D．Swapping sets a great challenge for the participants. |
8 . The Market for Self-help Books Is booming
Bookshops in China are filled with works offering advice on self-betterment. Topics range from coping with shyness (“How to Make Friends with Strangers in One Minute”) to succeeding in business (“Financial Management in Seven Minutes”). The title of one recent bestseller urges: “Don't Opt for
Although China's leaders keep stressing the need for China to be
Chinese readers appear more eager for such imports than people in many other countries that are
China has a long tradition of reading for
Perhaps the self-help industry has come full
| A．desire | B．comfort | C．smoothness | D．goal |
| A．features | B．illustrations | C．covers | D．contents |
| A．reliable | B．accessible | C．calculable | D．predictable |
| A．be made up of | B．consist of | C．take over | D．account for |
| A．self-interested | B．self-motivated | C．self-reliant | D．self-disciplined |
| A．adaptations | B．editions | C．translations | D．versions |
| A．culturally | B．geographically | C．historically | D．economically |
| A．maintained | B．toured | C．travelled | D．backed |
| A．modes | B．lists | C．patterns | D．titles |
| A．affordable | B．practical | C．feasible | D．academic |
| A．aim | B．similarity | C．relevance | D．root |
| A．quality-directed | B．job-centered | C．skills-oriented | D．exam-focused |
| A．realization | B．fulfillment | C．destination | D．circle |
| A．After all | B．Above all | C．All in all | D．In all |
| A．Methods | B．Strategies | C．Techniques | D．Art |
9 . The red phone box in Britain is a perfect example of the British traditional culture. However, with the fast development of mobile phones, it has lost its place in people’s everyday life. In order to save their loved red phone boxes, people have come up with many ideas, for example, to turn them into toilets or art houses.
In a village in Somerset, a place in South West England, villagers have found a new way to save their red phone box.
People can put the books that they have read inside the phone box, and take away the books that they’d like to read.
| A．It was used as an inventory to store books. |
| B．The books are of different kinds, ranging from cooking books to the classics. |
| C．They turned it into a mini library to cope with the shortage of libraries in their area. |
| D．However, not everyone can get access to the library. |
| E．The books in the library are always changing. |
| F．Anyone is free to come to read books there. |
1.
| A．In the 19th century. | B．In about 1800s. |
| C．In the 18th century. | D．In about 2400 BC. |
| A．The language used. | B．The targeted readers. |
| C．The reputation. | D．The length. |
| A．The evolution of self-study books. |
| B．The importance of self-study books. |
| C．The difference among self-study books. |
| D．The famous writers of self-study books. |
