The proliferation of book clubs, some 50,000 in the UK alone and who knows how many more worldwide, is quite a remarkable literary phenomenon. Participants of different ages and backgrounds gather on a weekly or monthly basis ostensibly to discuss books chosen by the members, but the primary attraction for most people, and the factor behind the explosion in the number of groups, is not literary, but social. Human interaction with some added mental stimulation in a relaxed environment is integral to their success. [*] The social aspect apart, the spread of book clubs can also be attributed to the low cost and the availability of books, and the fact that compared to, say, the cinema or theatre, the clubs provide cheap entertainment. The Internet has played its part as well. Once seen as foreshadowing the end of reading, not only does the Internet allow people even cheaper access to books, but it also acts as a conduit for readers hungry to join a particular reading club. A further draw is the number of people who read for pleasure. With reading being listed as the most popular major leisure activity according to a survey carried out over a four-week period in 2002 in the UK (65% constant since 1996), there is no shortage of willing participants. The clubs vary, ranging from cosy get-togethers in friends’ houses, with or without set rules and with or without food and drink, to more formal, official set-ups in educational-literary establishments like libraries, sometimes with literary functions with guest speakers. The overwhelming majority are of a more unthreatening easy-going nature. People come and go, but the cohesion of the groups seems to live on with new ones springing up to replace those which have faded away. From the literary point of view, the focus of each group is different as it turns solely on the make-up of the members and their predilections. There are reading clubs which specialise in football, romance, horror, science fiction and so on. Groups can focus on one type or they can be eclectic, combining different types of fiction like romance with, for example, cricket. Some may even dress up in the style of the characters or the time that a story took place to bring a mystery or an old classic to life. With such a variety of choices, book clubs are sure to survive and expand. Questions 71—75 Complete the summary with words from the passage, changing the form where necessary, with no more than three words for each blank. Most people join book clubs for 【R1】______. The official reason is to discuss books, but members principally enjoy【R2】:______others in a relaxed atmosphere. Another reason for the popularity of book clubs is that reading is a 【R3】______ compared with cinema or theatre going. Some book clubs may focus on a particular genre, or they may decide to be eclectic in their choice of reading material. It all depends on the interest of 【R4】______. Research suggests that the popularity of reading has remained constant since 1996, and it seems likely that the number of book clubs will 【R5】______in the future.

[*] While baseball is often described as the national sport of the United States of America, it probably developed from an eighteenth-century English game called rounders. There were several versions of the game until 1845, when Alexander J. Cartwright organized “a group of players to decide on one set of rules. The main change from rounders was that a runner had to be tagged or touched by a player holding the ball to be put out, rather than hit by a thrown ball. This meant that a smaller, harder ball could be used, which in turn made possible a faster, larger game. Until the mid-1860s, baseball was an amateur sport, which means that the players were not paid. The first professional team, the Cincinnati “Red Stockings“ , was organized in 1869 and within two years the sport was more or less professional. Nowadays the best players can earn millions of dollars playing baseball. Professional baseball in the United States and Canada consists of two leagues and for the first half of the twentieth century there were also separate leagues for black players. The black leagues produced many excellent players but it wasn’t until the 1940s, and the success of Jackie Robinson playing for the Brooklyn “ Dodgers“ , that black players were integrated into white major-league baseball in the United States. Baseball has had a broad impact on popular culture, both in the United States and elsewhere. Dozens of English-language idioms have been derived from baseball, for instance, the baseball meaning of “ out of the ball park“ is to hit a home run, but its non-baseball equivalent is to do something well or exactly as it should be done. The baseball cap has become a worldwide fashion i-tem not only in the United States, but also in countries where the sport itself is not particularly popular, such as the United Kingdom. Baseball has inspired many works of art and entertainment. One of the first major examples, Ernest Thayer’s poem “Casey at the Bat“ , appeared in 1888. There have been many baseball movies, including the Academy Award-winning The Pride of the Yankees(1942)and the Oscar nominees The Natural(1984)and Field of Dreams(1989). Literary works connected to the game include the short fiction of Ring Lardner and novels such as Robert Coover’s The Universal Baseball Association, Inc. , J. Henry Waugh, Prop. Baseball’s literary canon also includes the beat reportage of Damon Runyon: the columns of Grantland Rice, Red Smith, Dick Young, and Peter Gammons: and the essays of Roger Angell. Questions 71—75 Complete the summary with words from the passage, changing the form where necessary, with no more than three words for each blank. [*] Baseball is regarded as the national sport of the USA. Its history can be traced back to an eighteenth-century English game named【R1】______. There were several versions of the game until 1845,【R2】______one set of rules was decided on. Baseball was originally【R3】______, but in 1869 the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was organized. For the first half of the twentieth century black players had separate leagues, but【R4】______ began in the 1940s because of the success of Jackie Robinson. Baseball extended its glamour to many other fields, such as fashion, language, art and entertainment. Many artists and film directors got【R5】______from the worldwide popular sport.

[*] The giant panda, the creature that has become a symbol of conservation, is facing extinction. The major reason is loss of habitat, which has continued despite the establishment, since 1963 , of 13 panda reserves. Deforestation, mainly carried out by farmers clearing land to make way for fields as they move higher into the mountains, has drastically contracted the mammal’s range. The panda has disappeared from much of central and eastern China, and is now restricted to the eastern flank of the Himalayas in Sichuan and Gansu provinces, and the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi Province. Fewer than 1,400 of the animals are believed to remain in the wild. Satellite imagery has shown the seriousness of the situation: almost half of the panda’s habitat has been cut or degraded since 1975. Worse, the surviving panda population has also become fragmented : a combination of satellite imagery and ground surveys reveals panda islands in patches of forest separated by cleared land. The population of these islands, ranging from fewer than ten to more than 50 pandas, has become isolated because the animals are loath to cross open areas. Just putting a road through a panda habitat may be enough to split a population in two. The extremely small size of the panda population worries conservationists. The smallest groups have too few animals to be viable, and will inevitably die out. The larger populations may be viable in the short term, but will be susceptible to genetic defects as a result of inbreeding. In these circumstances, a more traditional threat to pandas—the cycle of flowering and subsequent withering of the bamboo that is their staple food—can become literally species-threatening. The flowerings prompt pandas to move from one area to another, thus preventing inbreeding in otherwise sedentary populations. In panda islands, however, bamboo growth could prove catastrophic because the pandas are unable to emigrate. The latest conservation management plan for the panda, prepared by China’s Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature, aims primarily to maintain panda habitats and to ensure that populations are connected wherever possible. The plan will change some existing reserve boundaries, establish 14 new reserves and protect or replant corridors of forest between panda islands. Other measures include better control of poaching, which remains a problem despite strict laws, as panda skins fetch high prices: decreasing the degradation of habitats outside reserves: and reforestation. The plan is ambitious. Implementation will be expensive—56. 6 million Yuan (US $12. 5 million) will be needed for the development of the panda reserves—and will require participation by individuals ranging from villagers to government officials. Questions 71—75 Complete the summary with words from the passage, changing the form where necessary, with no more than three words for each blank. The survival of the giant panda is being seriously threatened. Panda numbers have already seriously【R1】______. This is largely because the overall size of their habitats has been reduced and habitable areas are now【R2】______one another. Two results are that pandas are more prone to genetic problems and are unable to move around freely to follow the【R3】______of the bamboo that they eat. A new plan is aiming to protect the existing panda habitats and to join many of them. This plan also includes reforestation and the【R4】______of new reserves. To succeed, everyone, including both the government and【R5】______, will have to cooperate.