CAREFUL READING 

Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and blacken the corresponding letter.

        The history of the U.S. from Lincoln's death to the wave of assassinations in the 1960s can be seen as a struggle to realize Lincoln's vision of a society whose citizens are not held back by parentage or origin. The struggle to secure this chance for all Americans has been bitter and bloody, and it is far from over. After Lincoln's death, the Fourteenth Amendment promised that the Federal Union would guarantee the rights of all persons against violation by the states. However, this guarantee was exploited by business corporations while remaining a hollow promise to millions of actual persons. Women did not get the vote until five amendments later, and their legal rights were often lost in marriage. As for blacks, political equality remained mostly something unreal until the passage of the Voting Rights Act one hundred years after Lincoln's death.
        The struggle to realize Lincoln's ideal was undertaken not only by workers against capital but also by immigrants against the political system. In less than one human life span following the Civil War, the U.S. absorbed a great number of immigrants who formed the next wave of what Lincoln had called “prudent and penniless” beginners. They found that social services were forgotten by a political system that ran on graft (腐败). The risk of injury, disease, and early death were largely ignored, forcing millions to rely on themselves, on family, and on the charity of friends.

        To some who watched the immigrants pour in, it seemed that America would have to reorganize itself according to the multicultural principle that we hear so much about today. The term “multiculturalism” was popularized by Horace Kallen. He wrote in his book The Nation in 1915 that with the growth of large immigrant communities, the rate of mixed marriage would drop (he was wrong) and the likelihood of a new American race would decline. The U.S” he predicted, would turn into a democracy of nationalities in which “selfhood is ancestrally determined.” To other observers, however, the country was simply sliding into disorder, as it seemed to Henry Adams in 1905 when he looked out of the club window on the turmoil of Fifth Avenue and felt himself in the disorderly Rome as witnessed by Emperor Diocletian. 

SPEED READING
Skim or scan the following passages, and then decide on the best answer. 

     A fellow speaker from California named Geri was excited about her first speech in Japan. To be comfortable on her long flight to Tokyo, she put on her favorite designer jeans and a casual jacket. Fourteen hours later, four perfectly dressed Japanese gentlemen greeted her at Narita Airport. Smiling and bowing low, they handed her their business cards. With her carry-on bag in one hand, Geri took their cards with the other. She thanked them, glanced briefly at the cards, and packed them safely into her back pocket. She then gave them her card. 
     When the five of them arrived at the hotel, they invited Geri to tea in the lobby. While sipping tea, the gentlemen presented her with a small gift which she eagerly opened. One of Geri’s most charming qualities is her instinctive warmth. She was thrilled with the gift and, in typical Geri style, she squealed, “Oh, it’s beautiful!” as she gave each of the gentlemen a little hug. 
     At this point, the four Japanese gentlemen stood up in union and, bowing only very slightly, mumbled “Sayonara” and promptly left. Poor Geri was left stunned. What did she do wrong? 
     Everything! Her jeans was the first gaffe. Even if you’re coming off a bicycle in Japan, you do not meet clients casually dressed. The second mistake was Geri’s vulgar handling of their business cards. In Japan, the business card is one of the most important protocol tools. It is always presented and accepted respectfully with both hands. However, Geri put their cards away much too quickly. In Japan, people use business cards as a conversation starter. You chat about each other’s cards and work and do not put theirs away until they gently and respectfully place yours in safekeeping. Shoving it into her jeans pocket was the ultimate disrespect. 
     Then, the fourth horror of horrors was that Geri should not have opened the gift in front of her clients. In a land where saving face is critical, it would be embarrassing to discover the gift they gave was not as nice as the one they received. What is worse, Geri hadn’t even given them a gift!

CAREFUL READING 

Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and blacken the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET. 

    I was born in a pleasant old colonial house built near 1750, and bought by my grandfather sixty or seventy years ago. He joined a group of acquaintances who were engaged in the flourishing West Indian trade of that time. For many years he kept and extended his interests in shipping, building ships and buying large quantities of timber, and sending it down the river and then to the sea. The business was still in existence in my early childhood, so I came in contact with the up-country people who sold timber as well as with the sailors and shipmasters of the other side of the business. I used to linger about the busy country stores, and listen to the lively country talk.
    In my grandfather's business household, my father had taken to his book, as old people said, and gone to college and begun that devotion to the study of medicine which only ended with his life. He gave me my first and best knowledge of books by his own delight and dependence upon them, and ruled my early attempts at writing by his good taste. “Don't try to write about people and things, tell them just as they are!” How often my young ears heard these words without comprehending them! But while I was too young and thoughtless to share in an enthusiasm for Sterne or Fielding, and Smollett or Don Quixote, my mother and grandmother were leading me into the pleasant ways of Pride and Prejudice, and The Scenes of Clerical Life, and the delightful stories of Mrs. Oliphant.
    When the time came that my own world of imagination was more real to me than any other, I was sometimes perplexed at my father's directing my attention to certain points of interest in the character or surroundings of our acquaintances. I cannot help believing that he recognized, long before I did myself, in what direction the current of purpose in my life was setting. Now, as I write my sketches of country life, I remember again and again the wise things he said, and the sights he made me see. I may have inherited something of my father's knowledge of human nature, but my father never lost a chance of trying to teach me to observe. I owe a great deal to his patience with a little girl given far more to dreams than to accuracy, and with perhaps too little natural sympathy for the dreams of others.

SPEED READING
Skim or scan the following passages, and then decide on the best answer.

     Reading skills are very important. Experts estimate that it is possible for any normal adult English speaker to read 1,000 words a minute and more, with special training. Yet most students read only about 300 words per minute. The following principles might be helpful for foreign students who wish to increase their reading skills:
     ◇ Always read faster than is comfortable. The faster your normal rate of reading becomes, the better your understanding will be.
     ◇ Keep reading ahead. Do not allow yourself to regress while reading, even when you come across a new word. If some word, term or phrase has clouded your understanding, you should reread it only after you have read the entire paragraph through once.
     ◇ Read selectively. As you read make a conscious effort to screen the nouns, pronouns, and verbs from the other words, since these are the words that give meaning to what you have read. In effect, you should really read the nouns, pronouns and verbs and merely see the rest of the words in the sentence.
     ◇ Read beyond the lines. As a good reader, you should see ideas implied through the words, and bridge the gap between the obvious and the suggested, thus obtaining much more information.
     Because the reading assignments in most college courses are very long, students should plan to read every day. If, however, they find that they cannot complete all the assigned readings in the beginning, they should not panic. Instead, they should ask their classmates how much they are reading and attempt to learn from them what to read first and what to postpone until a later date.
     Because much of the past learning experience of foreign students may have been for the purpose of passing examinations, they might be inclined to put off studying until late in the term. Such behavior can result in failure in the US system, where assignments must be completed on time and done regularly each day.

SPEED READING
Skim or scan the following passages, and then decide on the best answer.

     We can see how the product life cycle works by looking at the introduction of instant coffee. When it was introduced, most people did not like it as well as “regular” coffee, and it took several years to gain general acceptance (introduction stage). At one point, though, instant coffee grew rapidly in popularity, and many brands were introduced (stage of rapid growth). After a while, people became attached to one brand and sales leveled off (stage of maturity). Sales went into a slight decline when freeze-dried coffees were introduced (stage of decline).
     The importance of the product life cycle to marketers is this: Different stages in the product life cycle call for different strategies. The goal is to extend product life so that sales and profits do not decline. One strategy is called market modification. It means that marketing managers look for new users and market sections. Did you know, for example, that the backpacks that so many students carry today were originally designed for the military?
     Market modification also means searching for increased usage among present customers or going for a different market, such as senior citizens. A marketer may re-position the product to appeal to new market sections.
     Another product extension strategy is called product modification. It involves changing product quality, features, or style to attract new users or more usage from present users. American auto manufacturers are using quality improvement as one way to recapture world markets. Note, also, how auto manufacturers once changed styles dramatically from year to year to keep demand from falling.

SPEED READING
Skim or scan the following passages, and then decide on the best answer.

     In the last 500 years, nothing about people — not their clothes, ideas, or languages——has changed as much as what they eat. The original chocolate drink was made from the seeds of the cocoa tree by South American Indians. The Spanish introduced it to the rest of the world during the 1500's. And although it was very expensive, it quickly became fashionable. In London shops where chocolate drinks were served became important meeting places. Some still exist today.
     The potato is also from the New World. Around 1600, the Spanish brought it from Peru to Europe, where it soon was widely grown. Ireland became so dependent on it that thousands of Irish people starved when the crop failed during the “Potato Famine” of 1845-1846, and thousands more were forced to emigrate to America. 
     There are many other foods that have traveled from South America to the old world. But some others went in the opposite direction. Brazil is now the world’s largest grower of coffee, and coffee is an important crop in Colombia and other South American countries. But it is native to Ethiopia. It was first made into a drink by Arabs during the 1400's.
     According to an Arabic legend, coffee was discovered when a goatherd named Kaldi noticed that his goats were attracted to the red berries on a coffee bush. He tried one and experienced the “wide—awake” feeling that one—third of the world’s population now starts the day with.

SPEED READING
Skim or scan the following passages, and then decide on the best answer.

     Most people read newspapers for the news of the day. The typical daily newspaper contains articles about local, regional, national and international news, as well as sports news,weather reports, editorials and other features. In large cities, newspaper readers can often choose between a ”morning paper” distributed early in the morning and “evening paper” distributed at the end of the workday. Most American newspapers also publish an enlarged Sunday edition containing articles about the news of the day and of the week, plus a number of entertainment and advertising supplements. Daily newspapers are designed to be read quickly by busy people looking for specific information. The Sunday papers, on the other hand，are intended to entertain as well as inform, and they tend to be read leisurely by all members of the family. Other types of newspapers include campus newspapers, written by students at universities, and weekly newspapers, usually intended for a specific audience. 
     News magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report are published weekly. They contain articles about the important national and international news of the week, and special sections are devoted to news about such areas as business, science, education and the arts. News magazines are a popular source of general information on a wide range of recent events. They also feature longer articles dealing with the influence of current events on modern life．

CAREFUL READING 

Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and blacken the corresponding letter.

           Educating girls quite possibly yields a higher rate of return than any other investment available in the developing world. Women’s education may be unusual territory for economists, but enhancing women’s contribution to development is actually as much an economic as a social issue. And economics, with its emphasis on incentives (激励), provides an explanation for why so many girls are deprived of an education.
           Parents in low-income countries fail to invest in their daughters because they do not expect them to make an economic contribution to the family; girls grow up only to marry into somebody else's family and bear children. Girls are thus seen as less valuable than boys and are kept at home to do housework while their brothers are sent to school—the prophecy(预言) becomes self-fulfilling, trapping women in a vicious circle (恶性循环) of neglect.
          An educated mother, on the other hand, earns more and faces an entirely different set of choices. She is likely to have fewer but healthier children and insist on the development of all her children, ensuring that her daughters are given a fair chance. The education of her daughters then makes it much more likely that the next generation of girls, as well as of boys, will be educated and healthy. The vicious circle is thus transformed into a virtuous circle.
         Few will dispute that educating women has great social benefits, but it has enormous economic advantages as well. Most obviously, there is the direct effect of education on the wages of female workers. Wages rise by 10 to 20 percent for each additional year of schooling. Such big returns are impressive by the standard of other available investments, but they are just the beginning.

SPEED READING
Skim or scan the following passages, and then decide on the best answer.

     Sequoyah was born about 1770 in the village of Taskigi. He was a Cherokee Indian, and, along with his entire tribe, he was illiterate. As a result of a hunting accident that left him partially crippled, he enjoyed more leisure time than other tribesmen. Then he began to ponder the idea that the Indian people might also come to possess the secret of the “talking leaf”. Alone in the woods, he spent hours playing with pieces of wood or making odd little marks on one stone with another. Neither his wife nor his friends offered him any encouragement, and many ridiculed him. However, Sequoyah was obsessed with his dream of developing an alphabet for the Cherokee language.
     At first, Sequoyah tried to give every word a separate character, but eventually he realized the futility of such an approach and settled on assigning one character to each sound. What he achieved twelve years later was a syllabary of eighty-six characters representing all of the sounds of Cherokee. In combination, they produced a written language of remarkable simplicity and effectiveness. It was so simple, in fact, that it could be learned in a few days. Within a matter of months, a population that had been entirely illiterate became almost entirely literate.
     As a tribute to this great Indian educator, the tallest trees in North America, the Sierra Redwoods, were given the name Sequoyahs.

SPEED READING
Skim or scan the following passages, and then decide on the best answer.

     English food has a bad reputation abroad. This is most probably because foreigners in England are often obliged to eat in the more “popular” type of restaurant. Here it is necessary to prepare food rapidly in large quantities, and the taste of the food inevitably suffers, though its quality, from the point of view of nourishment, is quite satisfactory. Still, it is rather dull and not always attractively presented. Moreover, the Englishman eating in a cheap or medium price restaurant is usually in a hurry — at least at lunch—and a meal eaten in a leisurely manner in pleasant surroundings is always far more enjoyable than a meal taken hastily in a business—like atmosphere. In general, it is possible to get an adequate meal at a reasonable price; in fact, such a meal may be less expensive than similar food abroad. For those with money to spare, there are restaurants that compare favorably with the best in any country.
     In many countries breakfast is a snack rather than a meal, but the traditional English breakfast is a fill meal. Some people have porridge to begin with. If porridge is prepared from coarse oatmeal (in the proper Scottish manner) it is a tasty, economical and nourishing dish, especially when it is eaten with milk or cream, and sugar or salt. Then comes a substantial, usually cooked, coarse such as bacon and eggs, sausages and bacon. Yorkshire ham is also a breakfast specialty. Afterwards comes toast, with butter and marmalade, and perhaps some fruit. Tea or coffee is drunk with the meal. Many English people now take such a full breakfast only on Sunday morning．
     The traditional English meal (lunch or dinner, lunch generally being the lighter meal) is based on plain, simply—cooked food. British beefsteak is perfect (with the best steaks coming from the Scotch Angus cattle) and is accompanied by roast potatoes, or potatoes done in their jackets; a second vegetable (probably cabbage or carrots), and Yorkshire pudding (baked batter, a mixture of flour, egg, milk and salt). 
     Apple pie is a favorite sweet, and English puddings, of which there are various types, are an excellent ending to a meal, especially in winter. 
     In recent years the British have become more international in their eating habits, and many families frequently sit down to meals whose ingredients may come from India, China, or indeed anywhere in me world.

Did you join up or were you（ ） into the army?

“We can’t interfere with him now and take a chance of （ ）all the good work which we have done.” 

Parents worry about the （ ） of music on their children's behaviour.

(profit) Over the years online file sharing has developed into a highlybusiness.

There were so many different （ ） of bread that I didn't know which to buy.

(sole) The manager was responsible for the company unsuccessful sales campaign.

(danger) He would never do anything tothe lives of his children.

I recently e-mailed one website to （ ） why my goods had not yet arrived. 

Bequests of pictures have been made to the galleries, at times （ ） a generous scale, by private individuals.

(glory) A statue was erected tothe country’s national heroes.