It is hardly necessary for me to cite all the evidence of the depressing state of literacy. These figures from the Department of Education are sufficient- 27 million Americans cannot read at all, and a further 35 million read at a level that is less than sufficient to survive in our society. But my own worry today is less that of the overwhelming problem of elemental literacy than it is of the slightly more luxurious problem of the decline in the skill even of the middle-class reader, of his unwillingness to afford those spaces of silence, those luxuries of domesticity and time and concentration, that surround the image of the classic act of reading, it has been suggested that almost 80 percent of America’s literate, educated teenagers can no longer read without an accompanying noise (music) in the background or a television screen flickering at the corner of their field of perception. We know very little about the brain and how it deals with simultaneous conflicting input, but every common-sense intuition suggests we should be profoundly alarmed. This violation of concentration, silence, solitude goes to the very heart of our notion of literacy; this new form of part-reading, of part-perception against background distraction, renders impossible certain essential acts of apprehension and concentration, let alone that most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves, which is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital. Under these circumstances, the question of what future there is for the arts of reading is a real one. Ahead of us lie technical, psychic, and social transformations probably much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg, the German inventor in printing. The Gutenberg revolution, as we now know it, took a long time; its effects are still being debated. The information revolution will touch every fact of composition, publication, distribution, and reading. No one in the book industry can say with any confidence what will happen to the book as we’ve known it.

M: Hey, Karen. Looks like you got some sun this weekend. W: Yeah, I guess so. I spent the weekend at the beach. M: Oh yeah? That’s great! Where did you stay? W: Some friends of my parents live out there and they invited me for as long as I wanted to stay. M: So what are you doing back here already? W: Oh, I have a paper I need to work on, and I just couldn’t do any serious studying at the beach. M: I don’t blame you. So what did you do out there... I mean besides lie out in the sun, obviously? W: I jogged up and down the beach and I played some volleyball. You know, I never realized how hard it is to run on sand. I couldn’t even get through a whole game before I had to sit down. It’s much easier to run in the wet sand near the water. M: Not to mention cooler. Did you go swimming? W: I wanted to, but they said the water isn’t warm enough for that until a couple months from now, so I just waded in up to my knees. M: It all sounds so relaxing. I wish I could get away to the beach like that. W: It looks like you could use it. Don’t tell me you spent the weekend in the library again. Q. 11. How did the woman spend last weekend? Q. 12.Why did the woman come home so soon? Q. 13.Why did the woman have to stop playing in the volleyball game? Q. 14.Why didn’t the woman go swimming? Relaxing at the seashore. Visiting her parents. Sailing on a boat. Preparing for a race.

There are some serious problems in the Biramichi River. The local chamber of commerce, which represents the industry in the area, hired me as a consultant to do a one year study on fishing in the Biramichi River and write a report for them. This is my report: One of the major problems in the Biramichi River is that the level of oxygen in the water is too low. Several chemicals have displaced the oxygen. This chemical pollution has two sources: the factories which dump polluted water directly into the river and the local community which dumps untreated human wastes into the river. The local town government has already spent 2 million dollars on waste water treatment projects, but it will cost another 27 million to complete the projects. It will take at least 15 years for the town to collect enough revenue from taxes to complete these projects. The factories here employ 17,000 people in an area where there is very little alternative employment. It is not economically practical to close or relocate the factories. Also the factories cannot afford to finance chemical treatment plants by themselves. Another problem is that the members of the Biramichi fishing cooperative are overfishing. Fishes are caught when they are on the way upstream to lay eggs. Consequently, not enough fish are left to reproduce in large number. The members of cooperative say that they had already reduced their annual catch by 50 percent. However, my studies indicate that they took fewer fish because there were fewer fish to catch, not because they were trying to preserve fishes. Q. 15. What was the speaker assigned to do in the past year? Q. 16.What is one of the problems in the Biramichi River? Q. 17.What does the passage tell us about the factories along the river? Q. 18.Why was the annual catch of fish in the Biramichi River reduced according to the speaker? To study the problems of local industries. To find ways to treat human wastes. To investigate the annual catch of fish in the Biramichi River. To conduct a study on fishing in the Biramichi River.

M: Ow! That hurts! W: What happened? Did you cut yourself? M: Yes--on the edge of this paper. How can such a little cut hurt so much? I’m not even bleeding, but my finger really hurts. W: You know, I read something about that. It turns out that a little cut on a finger can hurt a lot more than a big cut somewhere else. M: why? That doesn’t make any sense. W: Actually, it does. There are more nerve endings in your hands than almost anywhere else in the body, and it’s the nerve endings that allow you to feel pain. M: I guess that’s true. W: Also, a little cut like yours won’t damage the nerve endings, just irritate them. If they were damaged, you’d feel less pain, but the wound could be more serious. M: So I suppose I should be happy my finger hurts so much? W: Right. Now go get yourself a bandage. M: Why? You just told me it’s not serious. W: It’s not, but it does seem to be bothering you. Putting a bandage over the cut will keep the skin from drying and will help keep the skin together. If the skin stays together, the nerve endings won’t be exposed, and the cut will hurt less. Q. 19. How did the man cut himself? Q. 20.What surprised the man? Q. 21.According to the woman, what determines how painful a cut is? Q. 22.What advice does the woman give the man? With a knife. On the edge of some metal. On some glass. On a piece of paper.

The way we contact with each other is changing; email is both the catalyst and instrument of that tremendous and surprising change.

As regards social conventions, we must say a word about the well-known English class system. This is an embarrassing subject for English people, and one they tend to be ashamed of, though during the present century class-consciousness has grown less and less, and the class system less rigid. But it still exists below the surface. Broadly speaking, it means there are two classes, the “middle class“ and the “working class“. (We shall ignore for a moment the old “upper class“, including the hereditary aristocracy, since it is extremely small in numbers; but some of its members have the right to sit in the House of Lords, and some newspapers take surprising interest in their private life. The middle class consists chiefly of well-to-do businessmen and professional people of all kinds. The working class consists chiefly of manual and unskilled workers. ) The most obvious difference between them is in their accent. Middle-class people use slightly varying kinds of “received pronunciation“ which is the kind of English spoken by BBC announcers and taught to overseas pupils. Typical working-class people speak in many different local accent which are generally felt to be rather ugly and uneducated. One of the biggest barriers of social equality in England is the two-class education system. To have been to a so-called “public school“ immediately marks you out as one of the middle class. The middle classes tend to live a more formal life than working-class people, and are usually more cultured. Their midday meal is “lunch“ and they have a rather formal evening meal called “dinner“, whereas the working man’s dinner, if his working hours permit, is at midday, and his smaller, late-evening meal is called supper. As we have said, however, the class system is much less rigid than it was, and for a long time it has been government policy to reduce class distinctions. Working-class students very commonly receive a university education and enter the professions, and working-class incomes have grown so much recently that the distinctions between the two classes are becoming less and less clear. However, regardless of one’s social status, certain standards of politeness are expected of everybody, and a well-bred person is polite to everyone he meets, and treats a laborer with the same respect he gives an important businessman. Servility inspires both embarrassment and dislike. Even the word “sir“, except in school and in certain occupations (e. g. commerce, the army, etc. ) sounds too servile to be commonly used.

But above all, I see China’s future in you--young people whose talent and dedication and dreams will do so much to help shape the 21st century. I’ve said many times that I believe that our world is now fundamentally interconnected. The jobs we do, the prosperity we build, the environment we protect, the security that we seek--all of these things are shared. And given that interconnection, power in the 21st century is no longer a zero-sum game; one country’s success need not come at the expense of another. And that is why the United States insists we do not seek to contain China’s rise. On the contrary, we welcome China as a strong and prosperous and successful member of the community of nations--a China that draws on the rights, strengths, and creativity of individual Chinese like you.

If you wish to lodge a complaint, you’d better go on to the manager. You should yell at the manager if you want to complain. You should contact the manager if you have any dissatisfaction. You should complain about the manager because it’s all his faults. You should argue with the manager about your complaint.

Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations. It liberates time: now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates money: buying that new ear or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy：we now understand that all those who are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.

There are many theories about the beginning of drama in ancient Greece. The one most widely accepted today is based on the assumption that drama evolved from ritual. The argument for this view goes as follows. In the beginning, human beings viewed the natural forces of the world, even the seasonal changes, as unpredictable, and they sought, through various means, to control these unknown and feared powers. Those measures which appeared to bring the desired results were then retained and repeated until they hardened into fixed rituals. Eventually stories arose which explained or veiled the mysteries of the rites. As time passed some rituals were abandoned, but the stories, later called myths, persisted and provided material for art and drama. Those who believed that drama evolved out of ritual also argue that those rites contained the seed of theater because music, dance, masks, and costumes were almost always used. Furthermore, a suitable site had to be provided for performances, and when the entire community did not participate, a clear division was usually made between the “acting area“ and the “auditorium“. In addition, there were performers, and, since considerable importance was attached to avoiding mistakes in the enactment of rite~, religious leaders usually assumed that task. Wearing masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or supernatural beings, and mimed the desired effect--success in hunt or battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun--as an actor might. Eventually such dramatic representations were separated from religious activities. Another theory traces the theater’s origin from the human interest in storytelling. According to this view, tales (about the hunt, war, or other feats) are gradually elaborated, at first through the use of impersonation, action, and dialogue by a narrator and then through the assumption of each of the roles by a different person. A closely related theory traces theater to those dances that are primarily rhythmical and gymnastic or that are imitations of animal movements and sounds

我将明白只有低能者才会江郎才尽，我并非低能者。我必须不断对抗那些企图摧垮我的力量。失望与悲伤一眼就会被识破，而其他许多敌人是不易察觉的，他们往往面带微笑，伸出友谊之手，却随时有可能将我摧垮。对他们，我永远不能放松警惕。有了这项新本领，我也更能体察别人的情绪变化。我宽容怒气冲冲的人，因为他尚未懂得控制自己的情绪，我可以忍受他的指责和辱骂，因为我知道明天他会改变，重新变得随和。我从此领悟到人类和我自己情绪变化的奥秘。对于自己干变万化的个性，我不再听之任之，我将积极主动地控制情绪，从而掌握自己的命运。

Posters have been put up all over Jakarta, (1) Indonesians to make a success of the people’s consultative assembly. But (2) , there’s very little chance of things (3) for President Suharto. Most of the members of the assembly are strong Suharto loyalists. The few who might (4) dissent from re-appointing Mr. Suharto for (5) will not get their voices heard. Most of the assembly’s discussions over the next eleven days (6) the public. As he already has (7) of Indonesia’s most powerful institutions, the armed forces in the (8) Golkar Party, there was never any real possibility of President Subarto (9) , despite the severe economic crisis in Indonesia and the fact that there is (10) corruption and president’s (11) . He is already 76 years old. Critics have described the assembly meetings as (12) a coronation than an election. But Mr. Suharto is taking no chances. (13) troops and police have been deployed in Jakarta alone, to prevent any trouble from (14) . Over the past months, towns across Indonesia (15) by food riots and there have been several demonstrations in the capital. (16) is now as high as anyone here can remember, and yet with opposition groups fragmented and (17) the security forces head on, there’s little chance of Mr. Suharto being forced to (18) Even some of the president’s most strident critics acknowledge that he still has (19) in his hands, and for now, (20) can decide who should replace him and when.Posters have been put up all over Jakarta, calling on Indonesians to make a success of the people’s consultative assembly. But in practice, there’s very little chance of things growing wrong for President Suharto. Most of the members of the assembly are strong Suharto loyalists. The few who might be inclined to dissent from reappointing Mr. Suharto for another five-year term will not get their voices heard. Most of the assembly’s discussions over the next eleven days are closed to the public. As he already has the full support of Indonesia’s most powerful institutions, the armed forces in the dominant Golkar Party, there was never any real possibility of President Suharto being replaced, despite the severe economic crisis in Indonesia and the fact that there is growing concern over corruption and president’s advance in age. He is already 76 years old. Critics have described the assembly meetings as more like a coronation than an election. But Mr. Suharto is taking no chances. 35,000 troops and police have been deployed in Jakarta alone, to prevent any trouble from breaking out. Over the past months, towns across Indonesia have been hit by food riots and there have been several demonstrations in the capital. Anti-government sentiment is now as high as anyone here can remember, and yet with opposition groups fragmented and unwilling to confront the security forces head on, there’s little chance of Mr. Suharto being forced to step down. Even some of the president’s most strident critics acknowledge that he still has all the cards in his hands, and for now, he alone can decide who should replace him and when.

As a matter of fact, Lauren is not as wealthy as people make her out to be. Lauren wants people to believe that she is rich. Lauren was not rich, but she is made to be rich now. Lauren is not as rich as people believe her to be. Lauren is pretty rich after inheriting a fortune.

Not long ago, some of you may have read about a team of mountain-climbing scientists who helped to recalculate the elevation of the highest mountain in the world: Mr. Everest. Of course, the elevation of Mt. Everest was determined many years ago, using traditional surveying methods. But these scientists wanted to make a more precise measurement using a new method that takes advantage of recent advances in technology. It’s called the Global Positioning System. The Global Positioning System uses 24 satellites that circle the Earth. Each of these satellites is constantly sending out signals. And each signal contains important information that can be used to determine the longitude, latitude, and elevation of any point on the Earth’s surface. Well, in order to use this system to calculate Mt. Everest’s elevation, scientists needed to put a special receiver on its summit to receive signals from the satellites. The problem with this was that, in the past, the receivers were much too heavy for climbers to carry. But now these receivers have been reduced to about the size and weight of a hand-held telephone, so climbers were able to take a receiver to the top of Everest and, from there, to access the satellite system signals that would allow them to determine the precise elevation. And it turns out that the famous peak is actually a few feet higher than was previously thought. Q. 23. What is the talk mainly about? Q. 24.Why does the speak mention a hand-held telephone? Q. 25.According to the talk, what probably contributed most to the success of the new study of Mount Everest? Q. 26.In the study described, how were satellites’ signals used? The advantages of traditional surveying methods. Using satellites to communicate with mountain climbers. Obtaining new information about a mountain. Controlling satellites from the top of a mountain.

W: Hi, John! M: Oh. Hi, Laura. What’re you doing here? W: Uh... I’m usually here on weekends. It’s my dad’s shop. So... you’re looking for a bike? M: Yeah. Now that the weather’s warming up, I thought I’d get some exercise--instead of taking the bus all the time. W: Well, you came to the right place. Do you know what you’d like? M: Well, I don’t want a racer or a touring bike or anything. Mostly I’ll just be using it to get me back and forth from work. W: How far is that? M: About four miles. W: Are there a lot of hills on the way? M: Some, I guess. But... uh... maybe I should just tell you up front that I’ve only got a hundred and fifty dollars. Can I get anything decent for that? W: Well, you’re not going to get anything top-of-the-line--but we do have a few trade-ins in the back that are in good condition. M: That sounds good. W: And you’re right, for the kind of riding you’re going to be doing, the most important thing is comfort. You want to make sure it’s the right height for you. Follow me and I’ll show you what we’ve got. Q. 27. Why is Laura at the bicycle shop? Q. 28.Why does John want to buy a bicycle? Q. 29.What does Laura suggest that John do? Q. 30.What does Laura say is most important about a bike? She’s waiting for her father. She’s having her bicycle repaired. She wanted to surprise John. She works there.

In the 1950s, the pioneers of artificial intelligence (AI) predicted that, by the end of this century, computers would be conversing with us at work and robots would be performing our housework. But as useful as computers are, they’re nowhere close to achieving anything remotely resembling these early aspirations for humanlike behavior. Never mind something as complex as conversation: the most powerful computers struggle to reliably recognize the shape of an object, the most elementary of tasks for a ten-month-old kid. A growing group of AI researchers think they know where the field went wrong. The problem, the scientists say, is that AI has been trying to separate the highest, most abstract levels of thought, like language and mathematics, and to duplicate them with logical, step-by-step programs. A new movement in AI, on the other hand, takes a closer look at the more roundabout way in which nature came up with intelligence. Many of these researchers study evolution and natural adaptation instead of formal logic and conventional computer programs. Rather than digital computers and transistors, some want to work with brain cells and proteins. The results of these early efforts are as promising as they are peculiar, and the new nature-based AI movement is slowly but surely moving to the forefront of the field. Imitating the brain’s neural network is a huge step in the right direction, says computer scientist and biophysicist Michael Conrad, but it still misses an important aspect of natural intelligence. “People tend to treat the brain as if it were made up of color-coded transistors“, he explains, “but it’s not simply a clever network of switches. There are lots of important things going on inside the brain cells themselves. “ Specifically, Conrad believes that many of the brain’s capabilities stem from the pattern recognition proficiency of the individual molecules that make up each brain cell. The best way to build an artificially intelligent device, he claims, would be to build it around the same sort of molecular skills. Right now, the option that conventional computers and software are fundamentally incapable of matching the processes that take place in the brain remains controversial. But if it proves true, then the efforts of Conrad and his fellow AI rebels could turn out to be the only game in town.

Computers monitor everything in Singapore from soil composition to location of manholes. At the airport, it took just 15 seconds for the computerized immigration system to scan and approve my passport. It takes only one minute to be checked into a public hospital. By 1998, almost every household will be wired for interactive cable TV and the Internet, the global computer network. Shoppers will be able to view and pay for products electronically. A 24- hour community telecomputing network will allow users to communicate with elected representatives and retrieve information about government services. It is all part of the government’s plan to transform the nation into what it calls the “Intelligent Island“. In so many ways, Singapore has elevated the concept of efficiency to a kind of national ideology. For the past ten years, Singapore’s work force was rated the best in the world--ahead of Japan and the U. S. --in terms of productivity, skill and attitude by the Business Environment Risk Intelligence service. Behind the “Singapore miracle“ is a man Richard Nixon described as one of “the ablest leaders I have met,“ one who, “in other times and other places, might have attained the world stature of a Churchill. “ Lee Kuan Yew led Singapore’s struggle for independence in the 1950s, serving as Prime Minister from 1959 until 1990. Today (1995), at 71, he has nominally retired to the office of Senior Minister, where he continues to influence his country’s future. Lee offered companies tax breaks, political stability, cheap labor and strike-free environment. Nearly 90 percent of Singaporean adults now own their own homes and thanks to strict adherence to the principle of merit, personal opportunities abound. “If you’ve got talent and work hard, you can be anything here,“ says a Malaysian-born woman who holds a high-level civil-service position. Lee likes to boast that Singapore has avoided the “moral breakdown“ of Western countries. He attributes his nation’s success to strong family ties, a reliance on education as the engine of advancement and social philosophy that he claims is superior to America’s. In an interview with Reader’s Digest, he said that the United States has “lost its bearings“ by emphasizing individual rights at the expense of society. “An ethical society,“ he said, “is one which matches human rights with responsibilities. “

Most people can remember a phone number for up to thirty seconds. When this short amount of time elapses, however, the numbers are erased from the memory. How did the information get there in the first place? Information that makes its way to the short term memory (STM). does so via the sensory storage area. The brain has a filter which only allows stimuli that is of immediate interest to pass on to the STM, also known as the working memory. There is much debate about the capacity and duration of the short term memory. The most accepted theory comes from George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist who suggested that humans can remember approximately seven chunks of information. A chunk is defined as a meaningful unit of information, such as a word or name rather than just a letter or number. Modern theorists suggest that one can increase the capacity of the short term memory by chunking, or classifying similar information together. By organizing information, one can optimize the STM, and improve the chances of a memory being passed on to long term storage. When making a conscious effort to memorize something, such as information for an exam, many people engage in “rote rehearsal“. By repeating something over and over again, we are able to keep a memory alive. Unfortunately, this type of memory maintenance only succeeds if there are no interruptions. As soon as a person stops rehearsing the information, it has the tendency to disappear. When a pen and paper are not handy, you might attempt to remember a phone number by repeating it aloud. If the doorbell rings or the dog barks to come in before you get the opportunity to make your phone call, you will forget the number instantly. Therefore, rote rehearsal is not an efficient way to pass information from the short term to long term memory. A better way is to practice “elaborate rehearsal“. This involves assigning semantic meaning to a piece of information so that it can be filed along with other pre-existing long term memories. Encoding information semantically also makes it more retrievable. Retrieving information can be done by recognition or recall. Humans can recall memories that are stored in the long term memory and used often. However, if a memory seems to be forgotten, it may eventually be retrieved by prompting. The more cues a person is given (such as pictures. , the more likely a memory can be retrieved. This is why multiple choice tests are often used for subjects that require a lot of memorization.

The picture of the reading ability of the American people, drawn by the author, is ______.

The author’s biggest concern is ______.

A major problem with most adolescents who can read is ______.

The author claims that the best way a reader can show admiration for a piece of poetry or prose is ______.

About the future of the arts of reading the author feels ______.