2 . Books for Children

Fleabag and the Ring’s End Beth Webb More stories of Fleabag, the talking cat--star of this wonderful set of 3 books. Ages 8-13, 208 pages, paper-back 07459 44116, ￡3.99	The little White House Elizabeth Goudge A fairy tale and winner of the Carnegie Medal. Ages 8-12, 240 pages, paper-back 07459 45783, ￡4.99
My Very First Christmas Book Lois Rock and Alec Ayliffe A big, bright book, which presents the story simply, and delightfully for very young children. Ages 0-3, 12 pages, 200mmx200mm, board 07459 40560, ￡4.99	First Festival: Christmas Lois Rock An all-in-one book to help grown-ups and children prepare their Christmas celebration together. Presents, activities and customs. Ages 5-8, 48 pages, 290mmx250mm, hardback 07459 39074, ￡8.99
Star of Wonder Pat Alexander A wonderful collection of Christmas stories and poems. Full of lively pages to read and enjoy. Ages 7-12, 224 pages, paperback 07459 39323, ￡4.99	The Not-So-Wise Man Alan MacDonald and Andrew Rowland We all know about the 3 Wise Men who traveled to Bethlehem and discovered the baby Jesus Christ. This is the tale of another one, who always missed the point. Ages 5-9, 32 pages, 270mm×210mm, hardback. 07459 38922, ￡8.99

1. If you want to make a Christmas plan together with your children, which book do you prefer?

A．Star of Wonder	B．The Not-So-Wise Man
C．First Festival: Christmas	D．My Very First Christmas Book

2. Which number would you dial if you want to order a book for your 2-year-old child?

A．07459 40560.	B．07459 38922.
C．07459 45783.	D．07459 44116.

3. If your child wants to read stories of animals, whose book will be your choice?

A．Pat Alexander.	B．Beth Webb.
C．Lois Rock.	D．Elizabeth Goudge.

3 . How to Improve Speed Reading Skills

Speed reading is one of many skills that can improve your reading comprehension and shorten your study time.    1    

Look at groups of words, not single words.    2     However, if you can get into the habit of reading groups or chunks of words at one time, then you can read much faster. Start by trying to look at a group of three or four words at once, then work up to looking at an entire line of works. Focus on words that give the sentence meaning, such as the nouns and verbs and pay less attention to the filler words, such as a, the, and, etc.

Scan for keywords.

Scanning is a highly effective way of extracting answers from a text without really reading it. If you know exactly what you are looking for﹣a name, a date, a statistic, or a specific word-you can find it quickly by skipping over large chunks of the text. To scan, first visualize the word, number, or phrase you would like to find.    3     The information you are looking for should pop out at you.

    4    

You can train yourself to read faster by timing yourself as you go. Start by getting your base time. Set a timer for fifteen minutes, and speed read as you normally do.    5     Do not count the words, just the pages or paragraphs. Record your figures: for instance, you night write "15 min/6.5 pages."

A．Race the clock.

B．Cheek your comprehension.

C．Here are some speed reading techniques.

D．Then, run your eyes rapidly over the text.

E．When the timer goes off, cheek to see bow far you have got.

F．If you read a text one word at a time, then this will slow your reading speed down.

G．One of the reasons is that you have to pause to understand what a passage is saying.

4 . Londoners are great readers. They buy vast numbers of newspapers and magazines and of books — especially paperbacks(平装本), which are still comparatively cheap in spite of ever-increasing rises in the costs of printing. They still continue to buy “proper” books, too, printed on good paper and bound(装订)between hard covers.

There are many streets in London containing shops which specialize in book-selling. Perhaps the best known of these is Charring Cross Road in the very heart of London. Here bookshops of all sorts and sizes are to be found, from the celebrated one which boasts of being “the biggest bookshop in the world” to the tiny, dusty little places which seem to have been left over from Dickens’ time. Some of these shops stock(贮存), or will obtain, any kind of book, but many of them specialize in second-hand books, in art books, in foreign books, in books on philosophy, politics or any other of the myriad(无数的)subjects about which books may be written. One shop in this area specializes only in books about ballet!

Although it may be the most convenient place for Londoners to buy books, Charring Cross Road is not the cheapest. For the really cheap second-hand volumes, the collector must venture(敢于去) off the beaten track, to Farringdon Road, for example, in the East Central district of London. Here there is nothing so impressive as bookshops. Instead, the booksellers come along each morning and pour out their sacks of books onto small barrows(流动集售货车)which line the gutters(贫民窟). And the collectors, some professionals and some amateurs(业余爱好者), have been waiting for them. In places like this one can still, occasionally, pick up for a few pence an old volume that may be worth many pounds.

1. “Londoners are great readers” means that ________.

A．Londoners are great because they read a lot

B．There are a great number of readers in London

C．Londoners are readers who read only great books

D．Londoners read a lot

2. Charring Cross Road ________.

A．is in the suburbs of London

B．is famous for its bookshops

C．contains various kinds of shops

D．is the busiest street in London

3. If you want to buy really cheap second-hand books, you must ________.

A．venture in a most busy street

B．venture away from a busy street

C．take the risk of going to the beaten track

D．take the risk of wasting time to hunt them in less noticeable streets

4. The book sellers on Farringdon Road ________.

A．keep fine bookshops

B．keep only small bookshops

C．sell books on hand-carts

D．sell the same books as the bookshops on Charring Cross Road

5. The best topic for this passage is“_______”.

A．Bookshops in London

B．The biggest bookshop in the world

C．Charring Cross Road

D．Buying books in London