1 . 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.

2. What does the underlined phrase “an added meaning” in paragraph 3 refer to?

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.

3. What does the author call on other writers to do?

A．Sponsor book fairs.	B．Write for social media.
C．Support libraries.	D．Purchase her novels.

4. Which can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Reading: A Source of Knowledge

B．My Idea about writing

C．Library: A Haven for the Young

D．My Love of the Library

3 . Teens and younger children are reading a lot less for fun, according to a Common Sense Media report published Monday.

While the decline over the past decade is steep for teen readers, some data in the report shows that reading remains a big part of many children’s lives, and indicates how parents might help encourage more reading.

According to the report’s key findings, “the proportion (比例) who say they ‘hardly ever’ read for fun has gone from 8 percent of 13-year-olds and 9 percent of 17-year-olds in 1984 to 22 percent and 27 percent respectively today.”

The report data shows that pleasure reading levels for younger children, ages 2—8, remain largely the same. But the amount of time spent in reading each session has declined, from closer to an hour or more to closer to a half hour per session.

When it comes to technology and reading, the report does little to counsel(建议) parents looking for data about the effect of e-readers and tablets on reading. It does point out that many parents still limit electronic reading, mainly due to concerns about increased screen time.

The most hopeful data shared in the report shows clear evidence of parents serving as examples and important guides for their kids when it comes to reading. Data shows that kids and teens who do read frequently, compared to infrequent readers, have more books in the home, more books purchased for them, parents who read more often, and parents who set aside time for them to read.

As the end of school approaches, and school vacation reading lists loom(逼近) ahead, parents might take this chance to step in and make their own summer reading list and plan a family trip to the library or bookstore.

1. What is the Common Sense Media report probably about?

A．Children’s reading habits.

B．Quality of children’s books.

C．Children’s after-class activities.

D．Parent-child relationships.

2. Where can you find the data that best supports “children are reading a lot less for fun”?

A．In paragraph 2.	B．In paragraph 3.
C．In paragraph 4.	D．In paragraph 5.

3. Why do many parents limit electronic reading?

A．E-books are of poor quality.

B．It could be a waste of time.

C．It may harm children’s health.

D．E-readers are expensive.

4. How should parents encourage their children to read more?

A．Act as role models for them.

B．Ask them to write book reports.

C．Set up reading groups for them.

D．Talk with their reading class teachers.

5 . From cottages surrounded by impressive gardens to days spent exploring sandy beaches and deep woods filled with wildlife, in My Family and Other Animals, English writer Gerald Durrell provided a vivid account of his family’s time on the Greek island of Corfu in the 1930s.

Come for the arresting descriptions of Corfu landscapes and stay for Durrell’s laugh-out-loud tales of his unusual family. This book, Durrell wrote humorously in the introduction, “was intended to be a nostalgic(怀旧的)account of natural history, but in the first few pages, I made the mistake of introducing my family.”

Durrell, later known for his zoo keeping and the preservation of wildlife, was just a child during his family’s five-year stay in Corfu. He is 10-year-old Gerry in the book—curious, passionate about animals and a detailed storyteller of his strange family: his imaginative elder brother Larry with his literary ambitions, lovestruck sister Margo, sporty brother Leslie and his ever-calm, loving mother.

Durrell’s attention to detail is what makes the book so winning, with every sight, sound and smell of the island brought to life. One minute you’ll be laughing as Larry’s clever literary friends walk down to the daffodil-yellow cottage, the next you’ll be catching your breath as Durrell describes swimming at night in the Ionian Sea: “Lying on my back in the silky water, staring at the sky, only moving my hands and feet slightly, I was looking at the Milky Way stretching like a silk scarf across the sky and wondering how many stars it contained.”

My Family and Other Animals is quite difficult to classify, being one part travel, one part autobiography, one part natural history, and one part comedy, with a thread of descriptive language running throughout that sometimes raises it nearly to poetry.

As a real delight to read, it’s the perfect literary escapism for any adult or older teenager who is currently walking down a tough road in life.

1. Which word best describes Durrell’s life in Corfu?

A．Diverse.

B．Busy.

C．Risky.

D．Tough.

2. What does the underlined sentence mean in paragraph 2?

A．I just introduced my family by mistake.	B．I shouldn’t have introduced my family.
C．I gave false information about my family.	D．I couldn’t help introducing my family.

3. What are paragraph 4 and 5 mainly about?

A．Durrell’s rich imagination.	B．Some interesting plots of the book.
C．The book’s writing feature.	D．Some vivid descriptions of the island.

4. What is the purpose of this text?

A．To share an experience.	B．To introduce a writing style.
C．To recommend a book.	D．To describe an unusual place.

7 . When I was young, a friend and I came up with a “big” plan to make reading easy. The idea was to boil down great books to a sentence each. “Moby-Dick” by American writer Herman Melville, for instance, was reduced to: “A whale of a tale about the one that got away.” As it turned out, the joke was on us. How could a single sentence convey the essence (精髓) of a masterpiece with over five hundred pages?

Blinkist, a website and an app, now summarizes nonfiction titles in the form of quick takes labeled “blinks”. The end result is more than one sentence, but not by much. Sarah Bakewell’s “At the Existentialist Café” is broken into 11 screens of information; Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” fills 13.

Blinkist has been around since 2012. It calls its summaries “15-minute discoveries” to indicate how long it takes to read a Blinkist summary. “Almost none of us,” the editors assure us, “have the time to read everything we’d like to read.”

But I think a book is something we ought to live with, rather than speed through and categorize. It offers an experience as real as any other. The point of reading a book is not accumulating information, or at least not that alone. The most essential aspect is the communication between writer and reader. The idea behind Blinkist, however, is the opposite: Reading can be, should be, measured by the efficient uptake (吸收) of key ideas.

No, no, no. What’s best about reading books is its inefficiency. When reading a book, we need to dive in, let it take over us, demand something of us, teach us what it can. Blinkist is instead a service that changes books for people who don’t, in fact, want to read. A 15-minute summary misses the point of reading; speed-reading with the app isn’t reading at all.

1. What does the underlined part “the joke was on us” in Paragraph 1 mean?

A．We were actually joking.	B．We were laughed at by others.
C．We were underestimating’ ourselves.	D．We were just embarrassing ourselves.

2. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．What Blinkist is.	B．Why Blinkist is popular.
C．How to use Blinkist.	D．Where you can use Blinkist.

3. What is an ideal pattern of reading according to the author?

A．Obtaining key ideas efficiently.	B．Further confirming our beliefs.
C．Accumulating information quickly.	D．Deeply involving ourselves in books.

4. What is the author’s attitude to Blinkist?

A．Positive.

B．Negative

C．Uncaring.

D．Tolerant.

9 . A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps, for there is the companionship of books as well as of men.    1    

A good book may be among the best of friends. I's the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions.    2    It always receives us with the same kindness, amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and supporting us in age.

    3    They do so just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration which they both have for a third. There's a proverb, “Love me, love my dog.” But there is more wisdom in this: “Love me, love my book.” The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think , feel , and sympathize with each other through their favorite author.

Books introduce us into the best society.    4    We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were actors or actresses with them in the scenes which they describe.

There is a story of two men: one was a king, who dreamed every night that he was a beggar; the other was a beggar, who dreamed every night that he was a prince , and lived in a palace.    5    But when we read, we : may not only be kings and live in palaces, but, what is far better, we may transport ourselves to the mountains or the seashore, and visit the most beautiful parts of the world, without tiredness ,inconvenience or expense.

A．Imagination is sometimes more vivid than reality.

B．Books are to mankind what memory is to a man.

C．Nothing in books can long survive but what is really good.

D．It doesn't turn its back upon us in times of difficulty or hardship.

E．They bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived.

F．And one should live in the best company whether it may be of books or men.

G．Men discover their liking for each other by the love they each have for a book.

10 . A new study has found that a child’s reading speed can be improved by simply increasing the space between letters within a piece of text. The research, led by Dr Steven Stagg of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), examined the benefits of letter spacing and coloured overlays (颜色标注) among children.

Two groups of children, dyslexic (有阅读障碍的) and non-dyslexic children, were asked to read four texts with either standard or extra-large letter spacing, both with and without a coloured overlay. They were instructed to read the text out loud while being recorded. The recording was used to measure the number of errors they made — specifically missed words, added words, wrong words, and pronunciation — as well as the participants’ reading time.

The study discovered that text with increased space between letters provided a benefit for both groups. On average, the dyslexia group showed a 13% increase in reading speed, while the group of non-dyslexic children showed a 5% increase. In addition to improving reading speed, it also resulted in a significant decline in the number of words missed by the children with dyslexia. However, the study found that coloured overlays had no significant impact on reading speed or the reduction of errors for either group.

Dr Stagg, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at ARU, said, “We believe extra-large letter spacing works by reducing what is known as the ‘crowding effect’, which can hamper the recognition of letters and reduce reading speed.”

“Our findings strongly suggest that teachers can be confident that all children would be helped by increased letter spacing in reading materials.” Dr Stagg added. While we found that coloured overlays provided little benefit, we suggest children should be encouraged to use overlays if they find these help their reading. Coloured overlays may not increase reading speeds, but they may extend reading stamina (持久力). Previous research suggests their benefits may not become apparent if reading time is less than 10 minutes and the short reading duration of the tests in our study may have put coloured overlays at a disadvantage.

1. Which of the following best describes the research process in paragraph 2?

A．Illustrate, group and report.	B．Read, instruct and measure.
C．Question, assume and prove.	D．Categorize, record and count.

2. What can we learn about increased letter spacing from paragraph 3?

A．It reduces reading errors.	B．It sharpens reading skills.
C．It arouses reading interest.	D．It enhances reading comprehension.

3. What does the underlined word “hamper” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Obtain.

B．Prevent.

C．Change.

D．Involve.

4. What can be inferred about coloured overlays from paragraph 5?

A．They might work better in short reading.

B．They might not be recommended by experts.

C．They might not have been evaluated fairly.

D．They might have some disadvantages.