1 . To develop one’s taste in English, the most effective way is to read a wide variety of English books. Yet one may be at a loss to choose the right books, especially as a beginner. As a native Spanish, I would like to share some of my experience.

My first English novel was Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, recommended by many English teachers and professors as an ideal book for English learners. But my experience was somewhat disastrous. I had great difficulty in understanding the novel, let alone enjoying it. It’s not the vocabulary that troubled me, but rather the way Austen makes sentences, and her way of thinking, which seemed too hard for me at that time. My enthusiasm was much recovered after reading Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms. No long and complicated sentences. And I particularly liked his brief and straightforward (简洁的) style. So my first suggestion is, as a beginner, you’d better choose contemporary novels instead of classical ones.

However, if you limit yourself to novels you will miss a lot of treasures. English essays can at once inform you, entertain you, and improve your taste in English. The best example is Bertrand Russell’s work. His simple language enables his philosophy within the reach of ordinary people. Here comes my second suggestion — essays are necessary.

Never follow others’ suggestions and opinions blindly, however famous or influential (有很大影响的) the person might be. We should be open to various ideas, but always think and determine by ourselves. As a saying goes, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison”. With that in mind, we are bound to find out our favorite writers through reading and develop our fine taste in English.

1. What made the first English novel that the author read hard to understand?

A．Complicated conversations.	B．Sentences and Austen’s thinking style.
C．The old-fashioned vocabulary.	D．Not knowing the social background.

2. Which word can best describe the author’s first English novel reading experience?

A．Enjoyable.

B．Unique.

C．Terrible.

D．Inspirational.

3. What advice does the author give in the last paragraph?

A．Don’t be affected by others’ ideas easily.	B．Read books that are instructive.
C．Choose books that challenge us most.	D．Compare books before buying.

4. What is the author’s purpose of writing the passage?

A．Give comments on literature works.

B．Tell beginners how to choose English books.

C．Encourage people to read more English books.

D．Recommend first class books to English learners.

3 . Jose Alberto Gutierrez’s life would never be the same again after finding a copy of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy in the garbage 20 years ago. It happened while he was driving his garbage truck through wealthier neighborhoods at night and seeing deserted books. It sparked his desire to start rescuing books from the garbage. He took home between 50 and 60 books every morning after his nine-hour shift. Eventually, he turned his book collection into a community library.

Colombia’s capital city of Bogota has 13 million residents and 19 public libraries. However, these libraries tend to be far away from where rural and poorer communities live. The option of buying new books is non-existent for families struggling to make ends meet. Having access to a library of books and being taken away to another world while immersed in a book is a luxury for the kids who visit Gutierrez’s library.

Gutierrez grew up poor, and his family could not afford to educate him beyond primary school. Nevertheless, his mother was a keen reader and read stories to him every night. Her love for books left a deep impression on Gutierrez, who never let a lack of formal education stop him from reading classics by the likes of Victor Hugo, Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Today, his community library, called “The Strength of Words”, occupies most of his home and is piled from floor to ceiling with fiction and non-fiction titles. Everything from school textbooks to story books can be found in his collection of more than 20,000 books!

The Strength of Words library opens every weekend. It is not just school-going children who are enjoying the benefits of The Strength of Words library. Adults are also welcome to expand their horizons and develop new skills to build a better life for themselves.

Despite having done so much for his community, Gutierrez is not yet content to call it a day. He continues to search through bins for reading material and has even travelled to book fairs in Mexico and Chile to sell his idea of building library from unwanted books.

1. What inspired Gutierrez to build the community library?

A．Famous novelists he liked very much.

B．The dilemma he faced on the night shift.

C．Abandoned books he came across at work.

D．The hobby he has taken up since childhood.

2. What is mainly talked about in paragraph 3?

A．Gutierrez’s mother was a good reader.

B．Gutierrez was greatly influenced by his mother.

C．Gutierrez led a difficult life during his childhood.

D．Gutierrez had a disadvantage of poor education.

3. Which of the following can best describe Gutierrez?

A．Responsible and ambitious.	B．Humble and thoughtful.
C．Committed and sensitive.	D．Creative and courageous.

4. What does Gutierrez’s story tell us?

A．A book holds a house of gold.

B．Constant dropping wears the stone.

C．Good things come to those who wait.

D．One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

5 . It is very challenging when it comes to trying to master the English language. However, there are some things you can do to improve your English learning. The following books are an excellent way for people trying to learn English or get better at it.

Oxford Picture Dictionary

This is a great book for those who like to learn things visually. You can use the pictures to learn many new words each day. There is also a bilingual version for those who want to learn using their own native language.

Word Power Made Easy.

This useful dictionary provides one of the best ways to learn over l,000 of the words which are most commonly used in English. The book has many interesting activities and games and gives tips on avoiding spelling errors.

NTC Vocabulary Builders

Students who are more advanced in the English language will greatly like the NTC Vocab-ulary Builders. If you want to build your English vocabulary, then this book is a good choice.

English Vocabulary in Use

This is one of the best-selling books by Cambridge University Press. The book is good for students of the English language of all levels who want to have a wider vocabulary. You can choose to learn British English or American English. Improving your English is one of the best ways to make sure that you will do great in life. It can open many doors for you. For those who are not native English speakers, these books will come in handy. With hard work, anyone can be a master of the English language.

1. What is special about Oxford Picture Dictionary?

A．It is designed for language beginners.	B．It offers advice on language learning.
C．It provides many pictures to help learn language.	D．It gives learners a lot of interesting daily tasks.

2. Which book provides ways to stay away from mistakes in spelling?

A．Oxford Picture Dictionary.	B．Word Power Made Easy.
C．NTC Vocabulary Builder.	D．English Vocabulary in Use.

3. Who is the text written for?

A．Those who want to teach English.	B．Those who want to do great in life.
C．Those who want to take on new challenges.	D．Those who want to improve their English vocabulary.

6 . “You can either travel or read, but either your body or soul must be on the way.” The popular saying has inspired many people to read or go sightseeing. Traveling, just like reading, is a refreshing journey, and a temporary retreat from the busy world. Here are four books we recommend that you take on your trip.

Destination: Kenya, Africa
Recommended book: West with the Night, 19429, by Beryl Markham

This book is about a direct, stylish and engrossing story of a marvelous life well-lived. Markham described her childhood in Kenya and her experiences as a bush pilot in the 1930s—evoking the landscape, people, and wildlife in rich detail.

Destination: Central Europe
Recommended book: Life is Elsewhere, 1969, by Milan Kundera

Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” The book describes a young artist’s romantic but miserable life, about how he reads, dreams and has a relationship. The book invites you to deeply reflect on your current life.

Destination: Provence, France
Recommended book: A Year in Provence, 1989, by Peter Mayle

Provence, well-known for its lavender (薫衣草), is not only a tourist attraction, but more a symbol of a lifestyle. The book doesn’t teach you how to deal with the hardships in life, but to avoid them happily. With a cup of wine and a rocking chair, time flows slowly here. The author and his wife are living a reclusive life here. When you make a trip following the author’s footsteps, you may encounter him in Provence.

Destination: Istanbul, Turkey
Recommended book: My name Is Red, 1998, by Orhan Pamuk

The book, featuring a peak masterpiece of the Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Orhan Pamuk, has been translated into more than 50 languages and published around the world. It tells a story of a young man, who has been away from home for 12 years, coming back to his hometown in Istanbul. What embraces him is not only love, but a series of murder cases as well. The book inspires people to have a deeper thinking on life.

1. If you want to explore Central Europe, you would like to take ________ book on your trip.

A．Beryl Markham’s	B．Milan Kundera’s
C．Peter Mayle’s	D．Orhan Pamuk’s

2. What is Provence famous for?

A．Lotus.

B．Wine.

C．The rocking chair.

D．Lavender.

3. Which book will attract people who are interested in the Nobel Prize in Literature?

A．Life Is Elsewhere.	B．West with the Night.
C．My Name Is Red.	D．A Year in Provence.

8 . Reading more is one of the top goals that many people set for themselves.     1     If reading is a habit you'd like to get into, there are a number of ways to cultivate it.

Make a list. Keep a list of all the great books you want to read. You can keep this in your journal, in a pocket notebook, wherever.     2     Keep a running list, and cross out the ones you have read.

Find a quiet place. Find a place at your home where you can sit in a comfortable chair and read a good book without interruptions. There should be no television or computer near the chair to minimize distractions.    3    .

    4     If you really want to read more, try cutting back on TV or Internet consumption. This may be difficult for many people. Still, every minute you reduce of the Internet and TV, you could use it for reading. This can create hours of book reading time.

Have a reading hour or reading day. If you turn off the TV or the Internet in the evening, you could have a set hour when you and maybe all the members of your family read each night.     5     It's super fun.

A．Read more good books.

B．Reduce television and the Internet.

C．If you want, you can sell a good book,

D．If you don't have a place like this, create one.

E．Or you could enjoy a reading day of your own.

F．Be sure to add to it whenever you hear about a good book.

G．A good book can teach you things beyond your daily horizons.

9 . You should try your best to create your own family library so that you and your family are always learning. "It is a great mistake to think that education is finished when young people leave school. Education is never finished even if you grow older," said Mrs Child in The Mother's Book. "Collecting a library of books in your home is really helpful to your family. ”

"What is really interesting about having so many books in your home is that a book you purchase has a chapter about the deeper knowledge of your favorite subject at school," said a university graduate. Researchers in a study tries to identify what parents do has an influence on how well their children do on standardized tests. One positive aspect they find is the availability of a large number of books at home. This has a stronger connection, especially when you read to your children every day. The more books your older kids have access to at home, the more likely they are just to be reading for fun, rather than having to wait for weekly trips to the library.

John Henry, one educated parent, said, "I have been homeschooling my children using the philosophy of A Thomas Jeffer son Education. This philosophy of learning is based on the reading of classic books. ” Clinton Fadiman said, "When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before； you see more in you than before. " Classic books also make you smarter and wiser! The wisdom comes in the examples in the lives of the characters.

"It is within your power to guide your youth in their reading and to cultivate in their hearts a desire for good books. It is the most unfortunate if a person is not possessed with the desire for good reading. The reading habit, like charity, should begin at home," said Mrs Child.

1. What does the author mainly want to show in paragraph 2?

A．Kids don't need to go to the library any longer.

B．Parents should set a good example at home.

C．It's necessary to create a family library.

D．It's important to let kids pass standardized tests.

2. How does the author explain the effect of reading classic books at home in paragraph 3?

A．By quoting others ’words.	B．By questioning.
C．By imagination.	D．By analyzing research data.

3. What can we learn from what Mrs Child said?

A．East or west, home is best.

B．One is never too old to learn.

C．He who makes no mistakes makes nothing.

D．Charity is the soul, rather than the virtues of hand.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．Where to Store Your Favorite Books at Home?

B．When to Read the Classic Books to Your Children?

C．Which Is Better, a Home Library or a Public Library?

D．Why Not Have Your Own Library of Books at Home?

10 . Recently, American President Trump announced his budget. One of the budgets would cut all money to The Institute of Museum and Library services and libraries across the United States. However, as far as I’m concerned, we need to save our libraries.

Libraries provide books and after-school programs for children. They help inspire a life-time love of learning and reading in children of all ages. The knowledge of the books in libraries is not available to the children at school. Without them where will kids with no Internet at home do their homework? Where will kids have a place to study or borrow books after school? Therefore, we need libraries for our kids. We need them so kids can grow up with a place, other than school, where learning and exploration is encouraged. Reading books can benefit children’s minds. Books allow them to imagine.

For adults, libraries serve as a place where they can use the Internet to apply for jobs, get job training, early voting centers as well as book clubs to help make new friends. It can also serve as a place to pick up a book and learn something new. Meanwhile, they can also rent a book and get away from it all.

Libraries save our information for the next generation. When we live in an age of alternative facts, where science is ignored in favor of personal feelings, we need libraries now more than ever. We need them to educate ourselves on the facts. We need them to have strong civic participation.

If you assent to me, you shouldn’t be silent on this issue. You can write or call directly to tell the president to save our libraries. You can also write to both your state Senators (参议员) and your district representative. Let them know this is good issue because all people use public libraries in their daily life.

1. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage？

A．There is no need for children to learn in libraries.

B．Children can learn knowledge that can’t be taught at school in libraries.

C．Libraries can provide a quiet space for children to have a rest.

D．The reference book in the libraries can help children imagine a new world.

2. What is the meaning of the underlined phrase “assent to”?

A．Fight against.	B．Agree with.
C．Think about.	D．Drop by.

3. Which is the best title for this passage?

A．Learn in our libraries	B．The function of libraries
C．Save our libraries	D．Grow up with our libraries