2 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. reminder B. partner C. non-fiction D. setting E. survival F. acknowledges G. tastes H. symbolic I. value J. meaning K. grasps

What makes the perfect winter read?

As the weather turns and the sky darkens, autumn and winter can often feel like the perfect time for curling up with a good book.

But I wonder if it’s just me who finds that my reading     1     seem to change along with the seasons? The books I might choose to read in some sunny garden are very different from the ones I want when the wind is blowing outside and a few precious hours of watery daylight are the best we can hope for.

I always     2     writing that evokes (唤起) time and place, and in the midst of the coldest, darkest part of the year, I want more than ever for a book to be “a ball of light” in my hands, as Ezra Pound famously once put it — a(n)     3     of life and love.

I also need a certain degree of comfortness in a winter read — something that will keep me warm when the weather won’t! Give me gothic (哥特式的) building in the snow, with heroines whose passions burn brightly. Or let me escape completely, into some fantasy     4     — but I’d still like my forests icy and pine smelling. Give me stories of     5     and re-birth. Remind me that this time of year has     6    , too.

Katherine May’s beautiful, poetic deep thought on the season, Wintering, does precisely this. Seemingly, it’s     7    , combining aspects of her life with more universal thoughts on how we might winter well. But there’s a lyrical (抒情的),     8     quality to the writing that confuses plain concepts like “genre”. She     9     that in winter we need different tools to get us through the season and it also offers one such tool, since Wintering itself is the perfect guide book and     10     to see you through until spring.

That’s why books that help me see the beauty of the season will always be high on my list of winter reads.

3 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Do note that there is one word more than you need in each passage.

A. nesting       B. signals       C. accessible     D. overnight       AB. decisively       AC. illiterates AD. literally       BC. unaware       BD. motivated       CD. accused     ABC. terrifying

The good news is that today’s teenagers are greedy readers and productive writers. The bad news is that what they are reading and writing are text messages.

It’s an unmissable trend. Even if you don’t have teenage kids, you’ll still see other people’s offspring wandering around, their eyes averted, tapping away, totally     1     of their surroundings. Take a group of teenagers to see the eight wonders of the world. Chances are that they’ll     2     be texting all the way, even if it means missing all those awe-inspiring moments. Show a teenager Jan Vermeer’s The Girl with a Pearl Earring. You might get a quick glance before a buzz     3     the arrival of the latest SMS.

Now before I am     4     of throwing stones in a glass house, let me confess. I probably send about 50 texts a day, and I receive what seem like 200. But there is difference, I also read books. It’s a quaint old habit I picked up as a kid, in the days before cellphones began     5     in the palms of the young.

According to a survey carried about in 2019, half of today’s teenagers don’t read books except when they’re made to. What is more     6     to me as a high school teacher is the fact that almost two-thirds of high school freshmen read for pleasure for less than an hour per week. Nearly half of seniors don’t read for pleasure at all.

Why does this matter? Because, to some extent, this texting craze can and will produce a large number of cultural    7     who are cut off from the civilization of their ancestors if we don’t take some necessary measures.

So how can we encourage our teenagers to read books? Whether in the classroom or at home, one of the best ways to promote reading is by reading together. Another way to encourage reading is to help teenagers set a goal to read a certain number of books or read books from a certain genre. This will help them stay focused and     8     to read. For instance, if your child loves playing football, read the storybook related to football. Or if your child loves going on walks, take along some picture books to read along the way. By making reading more     9     and fun, we can foster a love of reading in them.

But don’t expect children to fall in love with reading     10    . When it comes to reading, trust the process.

5 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. struggling       B. focused       C. threatened       D. release       E. predict     F. alarming G. maintained     H. dramatically       I. approaches       J. concerned       K. entirely

The Future of Publishing: E-publish or die?

The iPad and its kind are both good and bad for book publishers.

Like many other parts of the media industry, publishing is being     1     reshaped by the growth of the Internet. For years, e-books have     2     to cut sales of the old-fashioned kind. In response, publishers are trying to support their traditional business while preparing for a future in which e-books will represent a much bigger chunk of sales.

For some time, publishers have operated a “wholesale” pricing model with Amazon. This has enabled Amazon to set the price of many new e-books at $9.99. Amazon has     3     prices low in order to boost demand for its Kindle.

However, publishers are     4     that this may make consumers expect lower prices for all kinds of books. And they worry the downward trend will further cut their thin margins and make     5     bricks-and-mortar booksellers(实体书商)suffer more. Some in the industry even     6     that publishers will suffer a similar fate to that of music companies, whose fortunes disappeared when songs can be cheaply sold online. This is particularly     7     for publishers because digital margins are almost as thin as print ones.

Some publishers try delaying the     8     of electronic versions of new books for months after the print launch to increase print sales. Some are starting to build their own online target reader groups. Sourcebooks, a medium-sized publisher that has developed an online group     9     on poetry, found that book sales rose by 50% after poems had featured on the site.

The publishing firms that survive the tough transition will be those who use flexible     10     and learn quickly to think. Not all of them can turn that particular page successfully.

7 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. ground B. discourage C. massively D. collapse E. disapprove F. private G. contain H. survive I. escape J. slightly K. former

Loans at public libraries fell dramatically during the pandemic, while website visits rose. If the service is to     1     further cuts, it needs users.

Libraries are romantic yet plain places. The romance is that of reading, and the wealth of human imagination they     2    . The plain side of libraries is more physical. This is the world of buildings, shelving, books, library cards, computers-and people whose minds are ready to be opened. It would be hard to find anyone who actively     3     of, or question the principles of self-improvement libraries stand for. But when it comes to practicalities, Britain’s libraries are on less solid     4    . The sector has been cut     5     in the past decade, with around 800 libraries across England disappearing.

The first Covid lockdown caused a new increase of interest in reading, as the idea took hold that people forced to stay at home would spend more time with books — both to find out more about the pandemic and to     6     from it. But the latest data regarding libraries are worrying for anyone who values them as bricks-and-mortar (实体店) places to go. The number of physical visits also tended to     7    , from 214.6m to 59.7m, compared with the fact that website visits grew by 18% to 154.7m. Of course, this is the behavior that one would expect during a pandemic. Many libraries were closed during this period, when the government chose to     8     people from unnecessary mixing.

Meanwhile,     9     libraries at home, whether large collections or single, untidy bookshelves, appear to be booming, with more ones springing up. But the hope must be that visits and loans at public libraries will soon return to their     10     level too. Like any other service, libraries need users. This has something to do with the romantic notion of the reader as explorer. Books can be treasured possessions, but there is also something special about that ONE copy to arrive in your hand.

8 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. claim   B. distinguish   C. reliable   D. obvious   E. echoes   F. craze G. inevitably   H. additional   I. enormous   J. consume   K. category

Choosing the Right Book

“Never apologize for your reading taste. ” Betty Rosenberg

How many books can you     1     in a 90-year lifespan? If I’m 32 (I am), that leaves 58 (hopefully good) years in my life. And if I read, on average, 20 books per year, that gives me 1,160 books to pore over (仔细阅读) the next several decades. The number may seem like a lot, but considering that there are nearly 130 million books out there and another 600, 000     2     books released every year, 1, 160 books means that I will be able to get through 0. 000003 percent of all published books by the time I hit 90. Then how does a reader decide which one to pick up? This question often occurs to me both because of my work as a librarian and because I am a reader myself.

The first rule is to read what you like. This may seem like odd advice to begin with because isn’t it     3    ? Not really. Far too many people allow their reading to be guided by the tastes of others. They limit themselves to bestseller lists or the latest publishing     4     to read the “right” books. How many people’s love of reading has been spoiled by attempts to cram (塞满) themselves with literary tomes (巨著), as if they are the pinnacle (顶峰) of one’s reading tastes?

It is also important to understand why you read. Reading for entertainment results in very different choices than reading for growth. It can be tough to     5     between the “fun” books and “knowledge” books. For the sake of clarity, in the list below I run through four questions to help you think through which     6     a book might fall into:

Is the book classified as nonfiction?

Is the author known for their writing style?

Is there a central idea the author is attempting to prove?

Has the book laid     7     to one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards?

If you can answer “yes” to any one of these questions, the book falls into the “knowledge” type.     8    , upon completion of a book, you may find that it has shifted from one category to the other, which is fine. These guidelines still serve as a framework for helping you think through the types of books you want to dedicate your time to.

Reading is a wonderful journey full of     9     variety. Try things out! Once you have settled into your reading groove (节奏), select something totally different for a change. Betty Rosenberg’s quote always     10    in my mind. I prefer to enjoy my reading, and you should too!

10 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. instinctive B. weakening C. referring D. exhibited E. symbolic F. popularity G. returning H. connections I. emerged J. immediacy K. mere

A recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London, suggests that we may well be in the midst of a great change in the way we read and think. The scholar found that people using the sites     1    “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely     2     to any source they'd already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would move to another site. Sometimes they'd save a long article, but there is no evidence that they ever want back and actually read it.

Thanks to the existence of text on the Internet, not to mention the     3     of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it's a different kind of reading.” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University, “We are how we read.” Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts     4     and efficiency above all else, may be     5     our capacity for the kind of reading that     6     when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose common.

When we read online, she says, we tend to become     7     decoders of information. Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental     8     that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged. Reading, explains Wolf, is not a(n)    9     skill for human beings. It is not rooted in our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the     10     characters we see into the language we understand.