1 . How to read more and learn more
Today, more and more Chinese people enjoy sending and receiving messages on the phone. It can help them to get the latest news and communicate with friends. But I think I should read more books besides the textbooks, the more, the better. It can open my eyes and improve my language skills.
◆ Clear your purpose for reading
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No matter what you are reading, it is important to enjoy what you read. Your friends may tell you the books they love, but those books might not necessarily be the ones you enjoy.
◆ Give up books that you don’t enjoy
You may have chosen books that you are interested in, and they are right to your purpose. But while you are reading them, there may still be some books that you don’t enjoy reading. Whenever you realize that you aren’t enjoying the book you are reading, give it up.
◆ Set a reading goal
It is interesting that I read the books borrowed from libraries faster than those I bought. The reason is the books I bought don’t have a due date! I don’t need to return those books.
| A．Read only what you are interested in |
| B．Read the books borrowed from others. |
| C．Remember reading shouldn’t be a chore (烦恼事). |
| D．Of course, it also can help me to get good grades. |
| E．We need to get the latest news and communicate with friends. |
| F．Before you start reading, ask yourself why you are reading this book. |
| G．Having a reading goal helps you work out how much reading you need to do in a week or even a day. |
2 . In 1916, two girls of wealthy families, best friends from Auburn, N. Y. — Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood — traveled to a settlement in the Rocky Mountains to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. The girls had gone to Smith College. They wore expensive clothes. So for them to move to Elkhead, Colo. to instruct the children whose shoes were held together with string was a surprise. Their stay in Elkhead is the subject of Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden, who is a magazine editor and Dorothy Woodruff’s granddaughter.
Why did they go then? Well, they wanted to do something useful. Soon, however, they realized what they had undertaken.
They moved in with a local family, the Harrisons, and, like them, had little privacy, rare baths, and a blanket of snow on their quilt when they woke up in the morning. Some mornings, Rosamond and Dorothy would arrive at the schoolhouse to find the children weeping from the cold. In spring, the snow was replaced by mud over ice.
In Wickenden’s book, she expanded on the history of the West and also on feminism, which of course influenced the girls’ decision to go to Elkhead. A hair-raising section concerns the building of the railroads, which entailed (牵涉) drilling through the Rockies, often in blinding snowstorms. The book ends with Rosamond and Dorothy’s return to Auburn.
Wickenden is a very good storyteller. The sweep of the land and the stoicism (坚忍) of the people move her to some beautiful writing. Here is a picture of Dorothy Woodruff, on her horse, looking down from a hill top: “When the sun slipped behind the mountains, it shed a rosy glow all around them. Then a full moon rose. The snow was marked only by small animals: foxes, coyotes, mice, and varying hares, which turned white in the winter.”
1. Why did Dorothy and Rosamond go to the Rocky Mountains?| A．To teach in a school. | B．To study American history. |
| C．To write a book. | D．To do sightseeing. |
| A．They enjoyed much respect. | B．They had a room with a bathtub. |
| C．They lived with the local kids. | D．They suffered severe hardships. |
| A．The extreme climate of Auburn. | B．The living conditions in Elkhead. |
| C．The railroad building in the Rockies. | D．The natural beauty of the West. |
| A．A news report. | B．A book review. | C．A children’s story. | D．A diary entry. |
3 . Climate Science fiction (cli-fi) authors have been exploring the impact of weather-gone-wild for decades. Here are a few of them that still ring true today.
The Crystal World
J. G. Ballard is often considered the godfather of cli-fi. The famous British author’s novels of the 1960s, including The Burning World, The Drowned World and The Wind From Nowhere, imagine terrible climate-based disasters.
But they’re all too gentle in nature compared with his first truly mature work, The Crystal World. In a sense, The Crystal World is a horror novel-instead of the horror happening to a person, it’s happening to Earth.
Hothouse
Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse—a series of short stories published in 1962-remains one of the most extreme visions of climate change. In it, Earth of the furthest future has changed so completely that it’s nearly unrecognizable. Humans struggle to survive in this strange world of heat waves—which, admittedly, isn’t very scientifically possible but is all the more wonderful because of Aldiss’ unbound imagination.
The Ice Schooner
The climate change in Michael Moorcock’s 1969 novel The Ice Schooner is man-made in a different way: It’s caused by a long, extreme winter that settles around Earth following a nuclear war. The book presents a world where a new ice age has resulted in a frozen planet. There’s nothing scientific about Moorcock’s setting. But it does warn, in its own way, of the disastrous climate change that humanity can bring to the world.
Ice
Anna Kavan’s Ice, like Ballard’s The Crystal World, is filled with far more symbolism than the typical early cli-fi novel. In the freezing environment of Kavan’s 1967 book, a nuclear war has led to massive global climate change that has turned the world into another Siberia.
1. Which book contains the most frightening scenes?| A．The Burning World. | B．The Drowned World. |
| C．The Crystal World. | D．The Wind From Nowhere. |
| A．Anna Kavan. | B．Brian Aldiss. |
| C．J. G. Ballard. | D．Michael Moorcock. |
| A．They are based on scientific evidence. | B．They were published in the same year. |
| C．They are about heat waves in the world. | D．They imagine the results of a nuclear war. |
4 . “I’m not a reader.” It’s a common reply that Julia Torres, a teacher-librarian in Denver Public School, has heard throughout her 16-year career. She’s seen students tear up books, throw them away or check them out only to immediately return them all because they didn’t have confidence in their ability to read.
As a librarian, Torres feels strongly that libraries should be spaces of liberation, places where students can develop a love of reading at any stage. Reading is a skill that everyone can grow to love, but too many negative experiences during a child’s literacy (读写能力) education can result in boredom, lack of interest or even anger. When a student has a poor experience like being shamed for their reading choices, they can begin to associate reading with painful feelings of insecurity, shame and stress.
To prevent reading disorder (阅读障碍) practices, as Torres notes, librarians first can build an inclusive (内容丰富的) library where classified collections can make it easier for students to find out the books they want and also help identify gaps in the collections. Reevaluating librarians’ role is necessary, which allows students to take control of the library and have a say in what’s purchased for the collection, directly exciting students’ reading interest. Instead of hosting traditional book fairs where students have to pay for books, it is better to open up a True Book Fair, where students are invited to choose books intentionally to their interests without any costs. Librarians are recommended to read what students are reading. Another two important approaches to preventing reading disorder are to take a look at the library policies and redefine (重新定义) what counts as reading. It is necessary to get rid of fines, check-out limits, security gates, and punishment policies. Plus, students are encouraged to listen to audiobooks or read picture books. Find a way to teach important skills like comprehension or critical thinking with the texts that excite and interest students.
1. What does the underlined sentence “I’m not a reader” in Paragraph 1 infer?| A．Some students are not interested in reading. |
| B．Some students have no ability to read books. |
| C．Some students don’t borrow books from the library. |
| D．Some students haven’t tried to read for entertainment. |
| A．Getting rid of library rules. | B．Making their own choices. |
| C．Librarians’ recommendation. | D．Reducing charges caused by reading. |
| A．What leads to students’ difficulty in reading. |
| B．How negative reading experiences affect students. |
| C．How to reduce reading disorder as student librarians. |
| D．Why to decrease reading disorder as student librarians. |
| A．To do a research on reading disorder. |
| B．To offer suggestions to the librarians. |
| C．To analyze why reading disorder forms. |
| D．To draw attention to reading disorder prevention. |
| 电子阅读方式的优点 | 电子阅读方式的缺点 |
| 1. 方便快捷 2. 信息量大 3. 节省纸张 | 1. 不利于培养良好的阅读习惯 2. 不利于身体健康 3. 影响视力 |
| 你的看法…… | |
注意：
1. 词数100左右； 2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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6 . In August 2020, Kate Wilson, a 16-year-old from Shrewsbury, posted on the social media video platform TikTok a series of sentences from books she had read. Set to a piece of soft music, the short video plays out as Wilson holds up copies of the books. "You have been the last dream of my soul," from A Tale of Two Cities. "Whatever our souls are made his and mine are the same," from Wuthering Heights. It has been viewed more than 1.2 million times.
These posts, called BookTok, can attract millions of views, and light an appreciation of books in young readers again, "I started reading again after six years when I came across BookTok for the first time last October," says Mireille Lee, 15.
Adam Silvera’s 2017 novel They Both Die at the End is one of the books to have benefited from the BookTok effect. In March, it shot to the top of the teen fiction charts, selling more than 4,000 copies a week. The book has sold more than 200,000 copies in the UK after thousands of posts about it.
Publishers are watching with interest. Publisher Horrox says: "There’s something about the fact that it is under a minute. People who are consuming this content watch a 32-second video and someone’s like: ‘This book has romance, and it’s really heartbreaking. Thankfully, it’s only a fiction.’ And then the viewers think: 4Oh, OK. Those are all things that I’m interested in. I’ll go and buy By December 2020, Wilson was being contacted regularly by publishers, who had realized that TikTok "really does sell books".
Jenny, who is 22, says: "I thought TikTok was ridiculous last year before the first lockdown. I really did think it was just for 14-year-olds, but BookTok is such a lovely community. There are people who like the same books as me, and I can talk about the books that I like. It just seems a little bit magical."
1. Why did the author mention the story of Kate Wilson?| A．To lead to the main topic. |
| B．To introduce some books. |
| C．To encourage more people to read classics. |
| D．To compare her with other teen influencers. |
| A．The young. | B．The authors. | C．The workers. | D．The publishers. |
| A．Critical. | B．Supportive. | C．Puzzled. | D．Objective. |
| A．How to select a book from TikTok. |
| B．Teens begin to read books in BookTok. |
| C．Where to find BookTok during the lockdown. |
| D．The Rise of BookTok meets the teen influencers. |
7 . Many people like reading books for fun. Actually reading is good for more than just entertainment.
◆Reading can improve intelligence.
People who exhibit strong reading skills early in life grow up to be more intelligent. That was the finding of a study that measured the cognitive（认知的）development of many sets of twins.
◆Reading helps increase empathy（共鸣）.
Reading can make you a kinder person. According to a study, people who consume literary fiction have an easier time sensing and relating to emotions（情感）in other people.
◆Reading lets you fall asleep more quickly.
Reading a physical book before going to bed is a great alternative to looking at your phone. Smartphone use at night makes it harder for people to fall asleep and leads to an overall decline in sleep quality. On the contrary, reading books can improve sleep quality.
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Reading doesn’t have to be a solitary（独自）activity. When parents read out loud to their children，they can not only pass on the benefits of reading but also encourage meaningful interactions. A recent study found that reading can promote the deepest connections between caretakers and children.
| A．Reading lets parents and kids have fun. |
| B．Reading can help families bond together. |
| C．They have the same family environment. |
| D．That’s because reading can have relaxing effects. |
| E．Sticking to reading can have many other positive effects. |
| F．This effect has something to do with the way such books are written. |
| G．In the tests twins with early reading skills were better at reasoning and imagining. |
8 . Stories are shared in many ways. They are described in books and magazines. They are read around the campfire at night. They are randomly distributed from stand-alone booths. But what else?
To revive literature in the era of fast news and smartphone addiction, Short Edition, a French publisher of short-form literature, has set up more than 30 story dispensers (分发机) in the USA in the past years to deliver fiction at the push of a button at restaurants, universities and government offices.
Francis Ford Coppola, the film director and winemaker, liked the idea so much that he invested in the company and placed a dispenser at his Cafe Zoetrope in San Francisco. Last month, public libraries in some other cities announced they would be setting them up, too. There is one on the campus at Penn State. A few can be found in downtown West Palm Beach, Fla. And Short Edition plans to announce more, including at the Los Angeles International Airport.
“Everything old is new again,” said Andrew Nurkin, director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, which is one of the libraries that set up the dispensers. “We want people to be easily exposed to literature. We want to advance literacy among children and inspire their creativity.”
Here’s how a dispenser works. It has three buttons on top indicating choices for stories that can be read in one minute, three minutes or five minutes. When a button is pushed, a short story is printed.
The stories are free. They are chosen from a computer category of more than 100,000 original submissions by writers whose works have been evaluated by Short Edition’s judges, and transmitted over a mobile network. Offerings can be tailored to specific interests, like children’s fiction or romance. Short Edition gets stories for its category by holding writing contests.
Short Edition set up its first booth in 2016 and has 150 machines worldwide. “The idea is to make people happy,” said Kristan Leroy, director of Short Edition. “There is too much unhappiness today.”
1. What do we know about the stories sent by dispensers?| A．They are easily read. |
| B．They are short in form. |
| C．They can be bought from booths. |
| D．They can be found in magazines. |
| A．Paragraph 3. | B．Paragraph 5. |
| C．Paragraph 6. | D．Paragraph 7. |
| A．To introduce French literature. |
| B．To get rid of smartphone addiction. |
| C．To make people have access to literature. |
| D．To reduce the financial stress of libraries. |
| A．Everything Old Is New |
| B．Online Reading: a Virtual Tour |
| C．Short Edition Is Getting Popular |
| D．Taste of Literature, at the Push of a Button |
9 . On a rainy afternoon, maybe one of the following books will keep you company leisurely, allowing you to spend your time alone as well as stepping into a different world.
Don’t Shed Your Tears for Anyone Who Lives on These Streets, by Patricio Pron
In April 1945, Italy, a writer disappeared at a conference and was found dead at another place. Thirty years later, a young man interviewed survivors from the conference, trying to uncover the truth about what happened and its consequences. This novel, by a well-known Argentine writer, explores art, crime and politics.
When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi
At thirty-six, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed (诊断) with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient. This autobiography finds hope and beauty in the face of death as Kalanithi attempts to answer the question “What makes a life worth living?”.
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Set in a small Alabama town in the 1930s, the story focuses on honest, highly respected lawyer Atticus Finch who puts his career on the line when he agrees to represent Tom Robinson, a black man accused of committing a crime.
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story by Bess Kalb
Bess Kalb saved every voicemail from her grandmother Bobby Bell who died at ninety. In this book, Bobby is speaking to Bess once more, in a voice as loving as it ever was in life and brings us several generations of brave women. They include Bobby’s mother, who traveled alone from Belarus to America to survive, and Bess’s mother, who always fought against convention.
1. What type of book is the first novel?| A．Sci-fi. | B．Biography. | C．Detective books. | D．History books. |
| A．To Kill a Mockingbird. |
| B．When Breath Becomes Air. |
| C．Don’t Shed Your Tears for Anyone Who Lives on These Streets. |
| D．Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story. |
| A．Bobby Bell. | B．Bess Kalb. | C．Bess’s mother. | D．Bobby’s mother. |
10 . I have a special place in my heart for libraries. I have for as long as I can remember. I was always an enthusiastic reader, sometimes reading up to three books a day as a child. Stories were like air to me and while other kids played ball or went to parties, I lived out adventures through the books I checked out from the library.
My first job was working at the Ukiah Library when I was 16 years old .It was a dream job and I did everything from shelving books to reading to the children for story time.
As I grew older and became a mother, the library took on a new place and an added meaning in my life. I had several children and books were our main source(来源) of entertainment. It was a big deal for us to load up and go to the local library, where my kids could pick out books to read or books they wanted me to read to them.
I always read ,using different voices ,as though I were acting out the stories with my voice and they loved it !It was a special time to bond with my children and it filled them with the wonderment of books .
Now, I see my children taking their children to the library and I love that the excitement of going to the library lives on form generation to generation.
As a novelist, I’ve found a new relationship with libraries. I encourage readers to go to their local library when they can’t afford to purchase a book. I see libraries as a safe haven(避风港) for readers and writers, a bridge that helps put together a reader with a book. Libraries, in their own way, help fight book piracy(盗版行为) and 1 think all writers should support libraries in a significant way when they can. Encourage readers to use the library. Share library announcements on your social media. Frequent them and talk about them when you can.
1. Which word best describes the author’s relationship with books as a child?| A．Cooperative. | B．Uneasy. | C．Inseparable. | D．Casual. |
| A．Pleasure from working in the library. |
| B．Joy of reading passed on in the family. |
| C．Wonderment from acting out the stories. |
| D．A closer bond developed with the readers. |
| A．Sponsor book fairs. | B．Write for social media. |
| C．Support libraries. | D．Purchase her novels. |
| A．Reading: A Source of Knowledge |
| B．My Idea about writing |
| C．Library: A Haven for the Young |
| D．My Love of the Library |
