1 . I know people who say they don’t watch television, and I always nod and agree. Reading requires intelligence, and television is merely entertainment, right?
I’m going to Scotland this year, and three different people told me I must watch “Outlander” before I go, which is like “Game of Thrones” for fans of romance novels. I watched the first four hourlong episodes back to back. When I stood up from the couch I felt sick, and it wasn’t just the cookies, popcorn and peanut butter sandwiches I’d had without noticing. It was dark outside, and I felt ashamed. I had spent half a day on the couch. Research for Scotland? Not exactly.
A few days later I had a library book due: The National Book Award winner The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez. I needed to finish it, so I read the last half straight through. I was absorbed in Nunez’s New York City, worrying about the heroin’s career and her future. I finished the book with tears in my eyes and stood up feeling, well, great.
I had wasted another four hours on my couch. I hadn’t eaten as much junk food because I needed my hands free—and not sticky—so I could turn pages and return the book to the library relatively clean, but I hadn’t moved and once again it was dark outside. Why did I feel so much better and guilt-free?
All the research says reading a book is good for you. It reduces stress, promotes comprehension and imagination, relieves depression, helps you sleep and may contribute to preventing Alzheimer’s. The act of physically turning a page creates a momentary pause for understanding to sink in. Our brains have to work to translate the black squiggles (弯弯曲曲的线条) on the page into words and then interpret the meaning and intent of those words. When a character is described as tall with brown hair, a reader creates her own picture. TV takes all that imagination away.
But there’s a lot of good TV now. I’d like to say the answer to TV versus books must be, as Aristotle said, “Moderation in all things,” though he never had a television or a computer and had to read his scrolls (长卷纸) by candlelight. I agree that too much television is bad for you. I know I feel better if I read, but it won’t stop me from watching too: My second DVD of “Outlander” has just arrived, and as soon as I get this essay done, the rest of my day is free.
1. By “I always nod and agree” (paragraph 1), the author implies that _______.| A．she should be polite to get the conversation to go on |
| B．she is reluctant to admit that she watches television |
| C．she believes those who say they don’t watch TV |
| D．she doesn’t think highly of TV either |
| A．from morning till night | B．one after another without a break |
| C．leaning against the back of the couch | D．looking at the opposite direction |
| A．she didn’t feel hungry for any snacks |
| B．the TV series got her to cancel her trip to Scotland |
| C．the television series was no more attractive than the book |
| D．she regarded reading as more rewarding than watching TV |
| A．Reading is active while watching TV is passive. |
| B．Reading involves physical exercises while watching TV doesn’t. |
| C．Reading stimulates the brain to concentrate while watching TV doesn’t. |
| D．Reading is good for one’s mental health while watching TV is bad for it. |
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. |
3 . That everyone’s too busy these days is a cliche. But one specific complaint is made frequently: There’s never any time to read. A professional reader, the novelist and critic Tim Parks, wrote in a New York Review of Books essay: “Every moment of serious reading has to be fought for, planned for.” Parks wrote that in June; last month, I finally found time to read it.
What makes the problem thornier is that the usual time-management techniques don’t seem sufficient. The web’s full of articles offering tips on making time to read: “Give up TV” or “Carry a book with you at all times”. But in my experience, using such methods to free up the odd 30 minutes doesn’t work. Sit down to read and the flywheel of work-related thoughts keeps spinning — or else you’re so exhausted that a challenging book’s the last thing you need. “The modern mind,” Parks writes, “is overwhelmingly inclined toward communication ... It is not simply that one is interrupted; it is that one is actually inclined to interruption.” Deep reading requires not just time, but a special kind of time which can’t be obtained merely by becoming more efficient.
In fact, “becoming more efficient” is part of the problem. Thinking of time as a resource to be maximized means you approach it instrumentally, judging any given moment as well spent only in so far as it advances progress toward some goal. Immersive reading, by contrast, depends on being willing to risk inefficiency, goallessness, even time-wasting. Try to slot it as a to-do list item and you’ll manage only goal-focused reading — useful, sometimes, but not the most fulfilling kind. “The future comes at us like empty bottles along an unstoppable and nearly infinite convey or belt,” writes Gary Eberle in his book Sacred Time, and “we feel a pressure to fill these different-sized bottles (days, hours, minutes) as they pass, for if they get by without being filled, we will have wasted them”. No mind-set could be worse for losing yourself in a book.
So what does work? Perhaps surprisingly, scheduling regular times for reading. You’d think this might fuel the efficiency mind-set, but in fact, Eberle notes, such ritualistic behaviour helps us “step outside time’s flow” into “soul time”. You could limit distractions by reading only physical books, or on single-purpose e-readers. “Carry a book with you at all times” can actually work, too-providing you dip in often enough, so that reading becomes the default state from which you temporarily surface to take care of business, before dropping back down. On a really good day, it no longer feels as if you’re “making time to read,” but just reading, and making time for everything else.
1. The usual time-management techniques don’t work because _________.| A．what they can offer does not ease the modern mind |
| B．what challenging books demand it repetitive reading |
| C．what people often forget is carrying a book with them |
| D．what deep reading requires cannot be guaranteed |
| A．update their to-do lists | B．make passing time fulfilling |
| C．carry their plans through | D．pursue carefree reading |
| A．encourage the efficiency mind-set | B．develop online reading habits |
| C．promote ritualistic reading | D．achieve immersive reading |
| A．reading becomes your primary business of the day |
| B．all the daily business has been promptly dealt with |
| C．you are able to drop back to business after reading |
| D．time can be evenly split for reading and business |
4 . The Hardest Novel I’ve Ever Read
For the last three months, I have glared at its fat heavy form on my floor with a vague sense of personal failure. I have opened Ulysses twice, determined to finish it, and managed to get all the way to page 46. I have read so little both times that I have never bothered using a bookmark.
Why do I get stuck?
There are a few other “worthy” works of literature I have yet to read, including Infinite Jest and War and Peace.
The English writer Virginia Woolf thought Ulysses was nonsense as she complained in her diaries about the pressure to finish reading it. By contrast, Vladimir Nabokov, the author who wrote Lolita expressed deep love for it.
Some people love Ulysses, so where am I getting wrong? My ultimate hope is that the struggle will be worth the effort and I can proceed victorious onto page 800 or so, on my third fourth, eighteenth try. Something tells me I will get there in the end.
| A．I’m not entirely sure myself |
| B．A lot of them are weighty tomes (巨著), but I like big books |
| C．It seems that reading Ulysses is a big different experience for everyone. |
| D．Even when staring at pages without absorbing a word, I thought nice thoughts about it |
| E．They, however, only cause me a slight sense of shame that I have not read or enjoyed them |
| F．I have been amused and charmed by the first two or three chapters, and then puzzled and bored. |
5 . World Book Day was created by UNESCO on 23rd April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading. It is marked in over 100 countries around the globe. In an effort to move celebrations of reading into the evening and focus more on adults instead of children, World Book Night starts in the UK in 2011.
 |  At The Reading Agency, we want to create a world where everyone is reading their way to a better life. Research shows that reading for pleasure can promote better health and wellbeing, aids in building social connections and relationships with others and is associated with a range of factors that help increase the chances of social mobility. World Book Night is about encouraging more people to become readers. By participating on 23 April, whether on your own or with others, you’ll be playing a part in contributing to our mission of coping with life’s big challenges through the proven power of reading. What are the benefits of reading for pleasure? 19% of readers say that reading stops them from feeling lonely. Higher literacy skills are associated with a range of positive societal benefits, including having a stronger sense of belonging to society and being more likely to trust others. Studies have found that reading for pleasure enhances empathy (共情), understanding of the self, and the ability to understand one’s own and others’ identities. Regular readers for pleasure reported fewer feelings of stress and depression than non-readers, and stronger feelings of relaxation from reading than from watching television or engaging with technology intensive activities. … |
| A．To deal with challenges in life. |
| B．To introduce the power of reading. |
| C．To encourage more adults to become readers. |
| D．To promote people’s physical and mental health. |
| A．In a newspaper. | B．In a magazine. | C．In a website. | D．On TV. |
| A．BOOKS | B．IMPACT | C．RESOURCES | D．GET INVOLVED |
6 . Given that most little girls love to dress up as princesses, it is difficult to imagine what might be wrong with that. But one author has written an entire book on how she believes the fairy tale fantasies send a dangerous message.
Jennifer L Hardstein is behind the recently-published Princess Recovery: A How-To Guide to Raising Strong, Empowered Girls Who Can Create Their Own Happily Ever Afters. The child and adolescent psychologist believes that children as young as two are taking away unrealistic ideals from fairy tale books and Disney cartoons that can affect their self-esteem later on.
In her book, Dr. Hardstein theories that traditional stories like Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella promote the idea that if a girl is pretty enough and has fancy clothes and shoes, she find love and popularity. The author refers to this phenomenon as the “Princess Syndrome”
These kinds of messages, she says, have a huge impact on a girl's self-confidence and make it hard for children to understand as they grow up, that intelligence, generosity and passion are more important value. During an appearance on CBS' Early Show, Dr. Hardstein explained: “Girls are getting this message everywhere that. … what their worth is based on is how they look and the things that they have and it's very superficial (肤浅的)”
Her book teaches parents how to let their toddlers (幼儿) enjoy the Disney moves and their teenagers watch figures in reality shows while encouraging a discussion about the messages projected by the media. Speaking on the show she said: “Parents think their kids will understand the messages that they receive all the time but actually they don't.”
As well as warning of the dangers of “Princess Syndrome” her book advise parents how to guide and empower their children from an early age. Dr. Hardstein warns of the influence of toys like Barbie dolls and teenager celebrities who might wear heavy make-up.
Princess Recovery, she assure parents, will bring “balance, confidence, and self-sufficiency into your daughter's life while giving her a modern, energetic childhood.”
1. According to Jennifer L Hardstein, the fairy tale fantasies _______| A．are dangerous because girls in them greys up like princesses |
| B．are difficult to understand due to people's wrong imagination |
| C．enable girls to be strong and empowered like princesses |
| D．contain unrealistic ideals affecting young kids' self-esteem later |
| A．Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella should be abandoned totally |
| B．girls find love and popularity with beauty and fancy clothes |
| C．intelligence, generosity and passion are more important value |
| D．it is superficial to look pretty and have fancy clothes and shoes |
| A．Disney movie's and reality shows should be completely forbidden. |
| B．Discussions help kids understand messages projected by the media. |
| C．Young children should ' play with toys such as Barbie dolls. |
| D．Heavy make-up is harmful for the health of teenager celebrities. |
| A．introduce a new term called the “Princess Syndrome” | B．guide parents how to deal with the fairy tale fantasies |
| C．introduce and advertise a new book on child raising | D．warning of the dangers of the “Princess Syndrome” |
7 . 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 |
8 . We have a crisis on our hands. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who’s responsible? Actually, it’s more like, what is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it — Facebook, Twitter. You can write your own list.
There’s been a warning about the immediate death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, first it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived; in fact it not only survived, it has developed quickly. The world is more literate than ever before — there are more and more readers, and more and more books.
The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example. Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book.
As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Inter-connectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past.
On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization. One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long “digest” of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation (碎片化) of reading. There is the danger that the high-speed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span — that we will be incapable of reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration.
In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world.
In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.
1. The following are all cited as advantages of e-books EXCEPT _________.| A．multiform content | B．environmental friendliness |
| C．convenience for readers | D．imaginative design |
| A．making things unimportant and less serious | B．reducing people’s attention span |
| C．making things funny like a joke | D．offering “single-sentence-long” novels |
| A．We are facing the problem of declining of reading due to the fast development of the Internet. |
| B．The single-sentence-long “digests” can help us read the great novels with ease. |
| C．People need the knowledge of modern technology in order to survive in the fast-changing society. |
| D．The author is concerned about the negative effect of technology on traditional culture. |
| A．Technology pushes the way forward for reading and writing. |
| B．Inter-connectivity is a feature of the new reading experience. |
| C．Technology is an opportunity and a challenge for traditional reading. |
| D．Technology offers a greater variety of the reading experience. |
9 . The books we read when we’re young have a special sort of power: they can inspire us to be brave and resilient (Matilda by Roald Dahi), take us on thrilling adventures (Divergent by Veronica Roth) and even introduce us to tragedy (The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson). They’re as formative as anything else in our young lives, and sometimes they’re the first place we encounter larger-than-life ideas. Consider the lasting cultural import of To Kill a Mockingbird or even the urgency of a newer best seller like I’ll Give You the Sun, Jandy Nelson’s 2014 novel centering on a contradictory issue. In The Magic Words, Cheryl B. Klein, an executive editor at Scholastic whose projects include the last two Harry Potter books, sets out to inform would-be writers on how great novels for young readers work.
The market for YA novels is booming: sales in the children’s and YA sector have been neck and neck with those of adult books in recent years, and adult authors, including Meg Wolitzer (Belzhar) and Carl Hiaasen (Razor Girl), are getting in on the phenomenon. Magic Words aims to be a master class. If you think it sounds silly, it isn’t. In the era of elevated self-help sensations like Marie Kondo and Breníé Brown, The Magic Words is of a piece.
Klein deconstructs the seemingly obvious clear plotlines, sympathetic characters to reveal the technical intricacies of some beloved classics. L. M. Montgomery surely didn’t whip up Anne of Green Gables as a cash-in endeavor. But for those who want to capitalize, Anne is instructive: what’s timeless and broadly appealing about Anne - her teenage heart and impulses——is what to examine. Once you understand that. Klein encourages you to get personal: What makes you ideal to write your story? And what does it mean to the reader?
On the latter question, The Magic Words is more than a handbook. It is also a timely social commentary on the responsibility YA writers have to young adults. Those who write to a younger demographic must start with an awareness of their readers——not only their age but also how they might connect with the issues, both the mundane bullies and the cultural tolerance that characters face. The narratives we tell young readers can influence how they understand and value the world around them. The magic isn’t in the words: it’s in how the words come together to reflect and affirm the realities of a diverse young-adult experience.
1. According to the first paragraph, it can be learned that ________.| A．The Bridge to Terabithia can inspire us to be brave and resilient |
| B．Matilda by Roald Dahi can take us on thrilling adventures |
| C．Divergent by Veronica Roth even introduce us to tragedy |
| D．To Kill a Mockingbird has lasting cultural significance |
| A．Anne is a master in the field YA novels. |
| B．Sales in the children’s and YA sector have been neck and neck. |
| C．Adult authors are getting in the field of YA novels. |
| D．The market for YA novels is booming. |
| A．full of absurd plots and complex narrative structure |
| B．one of the masterpieces of Klein |
| C．not only a handbook but also a timely social commentary |
| D．a novel composed of many letters |
| A．find someone to sponsor their writing | B．fully understand their readership first |
| C．develop a strategy to meet the market | D．copy the works of historical masters |
10 . A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men.
A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age.
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old 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.
A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could think out; for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant companions and comforters.
Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. What was then said and thought ages ago still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time have been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive but what is really good.
Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were to some degree actors with them in the scenes which they describe.
The great and good do not die, even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens.
1. The main idea of the first paragraph is that ________.| A．One should read good books |
| B．Books are like one’s best companions |
| C．One should make friends with good books |
| D．One should not live without books and friends |
| A．similarity | B．understanding | C．rewards | D．compassion |
| A．The Role of Books |
| B．The Influence of Books |
| C．The Companionship of Books |
| D．The Contribution of Books |
