All the wisdom of the times, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries, are easily and cheaply available to all of us in books, but we must know how to make use of this treasure. The unluckiest people in the world are those who have never discovered how satisfying it is to read good books.
I’m very interested in people and finding out about them. Some of the most amazing people I’ve met could only  be found in a writer’s imagination, then in his book, and then, again, in my imagination. I’ve found in books new friends and new worlds.
Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the writer’s or even goes beyond his. Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.
Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate(分开的), in some way they are connected with each other. The same ideas, or related(相关的) ones, appear in different places; the human problems that repeat themselves in life repeat themselves in books, but with different solutions(解决方法) according to different writings at different times. Books influence each other. They connect the past, the present and the future and have their own generations (age groups), like families. Wherever you start reading, you connect yourself with one of the families of ideas, and in the end, you not only find out about the world and the people in it, you find out about yourself, too.
Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on(专注于) books somebody tells you “ought” to read, you probably won’ t have fun. But if you put down a book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good time — and if you become, as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder, or more gentle, you won’t suffer during the process.
【小题1】Which of the following ideas may the writer of this article agree with?

A．You will never meet amazing people in your life unless you read.

B．You think actively instead of getting facts passively（被动地）when reading.

C．You will get much delight from any book that you are told to read.

D．You can relax yourself by reading because it involves little thinking.

【小题2】What can we learn from Paragraph 4?

A．We can often find something connected with ourselves in books.

B．Different writings at different times share the same characteristics.

C．The same problems will appear in different books with similar solutions.

D．Reading books which are written for your generation is more helpful to you.

【小题3】What’s the writer’s purpose of writing this article?

A．To advise us to enjoy ourselves by reading.

B．To encourage us to make full use of libraries.

C．To encourage us to find out solutions in books.

D．To advise us to discuss books with other people.

Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe is born 10 feet high and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it rolls over its legs under its body. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces its children to the reality(现实) of life.

In his book, A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond describes how a new-born giraffe learns its first lesson.

The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she puts herself directly over her child. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable(不合情理的) thing. She throws her long leg and kicks her baby, so that it’s sent sprawling(四脚朝天).

When it doesn’t get up, the process is repeated again and again. The struggle to rise is important. As the baby giraffe grows tired, the mother kicks it again. Finally, it stands for the first time on its shaky(摇晃的) legs. Then the mother giraffe kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, a baby giraffe must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with its group, where there’s safety.

Another writer named Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing stories about such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin.

Stone was once asked if he had found something that runs through the lives of all these great people. He said, “I write about people who sometime in their life have a dream of something. They’re beaten over the head, knocked down and for years they get nowhere. But every time they stand up again. And at the end of their lives they’ve realized some small parts of what they set out(着手) to do .”

1.What does the underlined part “a tall order” in Paragraph 1 mean?

A．A happy thing.                          B．A difficult task.

C．A big dream.                           D．A beautiful scene.

2.What does the book A View from the Zoo talk about?

A．A new-born giraffe’s first lesson.

B．A mother giraffe’s story.

C．The lives of some great people.

D．The way for a giraffe to stand up.

3.Why were some great people mentioned in the passage?

A．Because they all worked hard.

B．Because they all liked to read some special stories.

C．Because they were born with some illnesses.

D．Because they were similar to giraffes in some ways.

4.Which of the following statements is True according to the passage?

A．This passage is a description of giraffes’ living habits.

B．Baby giraffes can’t stand up until three months old.

C．Irving Stone spent a lifetime studying and writing stories about great people.

D．The great people can’t stand up after they’re knocked down for years.

5.What would be the best title for the passage?

A．How to Raise a Baby Giraffe.

B．Learning to Get Back Up.

C．Stories about the great people.

D．A Mother Giraffe and Its Baby Giraffe.

 

read, surprise, realize, if, sweep, interest, much, walk, price, develop, write, hand

It was my first day at Grade 6. And the first lesson was boring English. When I was doing nothing, Mr Gough, our new English teacher,   【小题1】   into the classroom.
To my    【小题2】 , he held up a book, The Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe, and asked if anyone had read it. I put my    【小题3】   up, because Poe was my favorite writer. Mr Gough asked    【小题4】  I really understood what the author tried to say in his book. My reply made him smile, and he asked me to  【小题5】 an essay on that subject.
After that, English classes became a new   【小题6】  for me. Mr Gough thought that students had to act out a play to understand it. “Don’t just  【小题7】  it,” he said.
As time passed, we  【小题8】  a real friendship. He encouraged me to be a writer in the future. When I left school, he said to me, “You have a gift, Tony, and one day you’ll come to   【小题9】   how useful it is. Make use of it if you want your life to be complete.”。
Years have passed. Now, every time I sit down to write something new, I think of Mr Gough. He was
 【小题10】 than just an English teacher, because he also taught me useful lessons in life.

Do you have any problems in your life and don’t know how to be happy ? If so, you will find Being a Happy Teenager written by an Australian writer Andrew Matthews.

In his book, Matthews tells us how to have a happy life and answers the questions of teenagers. There are many subjects, such as parents and friends, and the book says we should stop being angry and should forgive (宽恕). The book tells us some useful ways, such as how to understand better what you learned. Many teenagers think that happiness comes from a good exam result or praise(表扬) from other people. But you can still be happy when there are no such “good” things.

Success comes from a good attitude (态度). If you learn from problems, you will have success in the future. Some school students have problems, such as being too tall or too short. But Matthews tells us that happiness comes from thinking in a positive (积极的) way. If you are tall, you can get a better view(视线)when you see a film; if you are short, your clothes and shoes take less room in your bedroom! This is Matthews’ most important lesson: “ You choose to be happy!”

 

1.What’s the name of the book written by Andrew Matthews ?

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2.What’s in Matthews’ book ?

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3.According to the paragraph 2 , where does happiness come from to many teenagers ?

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4.Is it right to think in a positive way ?

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5.What’s Matthews’ most important lesson ?

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