Passage One

Jim Trelease has devoted the past 16 years to promoting what he considers the best-kept secret in education today. “Most people don’t believe me when they first hear it,” he says. “They dismiss it for three reasons: One, it’s simple. Two, it’s free. Three, the child enjoys it. So how good can it be?”

His audience tonight, mostly young parents and teachers gathered in the St. Helena, Calif., elementary-school auditorium, giggles nervously. “I know what you’re thinking,” Trelease says. “There are only 24 hours in a day. It’s true. But who ever told you that parenting was going to be a time-saving activity?”Trelease continues to persuade them that no matter how busy they are, the foremost nurturing they can give a child, next to hugging him, is reading aloud to him.

He backs up his pitch with facts. Numerous studies, including recent reports by the Center for the Study of Reading and the National Council of Teachers of English, confirm that reading to children builds vocabulary, stimulates imagination, stretches the attention span, nourishes emotional development, and introduces the textures and nuances of the English language. Reading aloud is, in essence, an advertisement for learning to read.

Trelease laments that elementary-school students are too often conditioned to associate reading with work. “We have concentrated so hard on teaching children how to read that we have forgotten to teach them to want to read,” he says.

His audience is surprised to hear that only 22 percent of eighth-graders read for fun daily, while 65 percent watch three hours or more of television each day. Research also indicates that average reading proficiency drops when TV viewing reaches about three hours a day. Their parents’ habits are no better: a recent survey shows a decline in newspaper readership among U.S. adults.

Lest there be any doubt about the stakes involved, Trelease makes a bold claim. Reading, he says, is the single most important social factor in American life today. “The more you read, the smarter you grow. The longer you stay in school, the more money you earn. The more you earn, the better your children will do in school. So if you hook a child with reading, you influence not only his future but also that of the next generation.”

When his two children, Elizabeth and Jamie, were young, Trelease and his wife, Susan, fed them as many books as meals. “I read to my kids because my father had read to me,” he says. “I just wanted them to have the good feelings I had had.”

Questions 1-5 are based on Passage One.

What does the word “dismiss” (paragraph 1) mean?

Paragraph Ten

Interest in dreams is as old as mankind himself. Mankind’s oldest book the Bible is full of them, with the first recorded dream occurring around 1900 B.C. The Greeks, Romans and Babylonians all put great hope in dreams, especially on the eve of battle. Today the interest in dreams and their interpretation is no less profound.

Human beings have long been a______ by dreams.

Excellencies, you are the United Nations. The staff who were killed and injured in the attack on our Baghdad headquarters were your staff. You had given them a mandate to assist the suffering Iraqi people, and to help Iraq recover its national sovereignty.

 (46. In future, not only in Iraq but also wherever the United Nations is engaged, we must take more effective measures to protect the security of our staff.) I count on your full support - legal, political and financial.

Subject to security considerations, the United Nations system is prepared to play its full part in working for a satisfactory outcome in Iraq, and to do so as part of an effort by the whole international community, pulling together on the basis of a sound and viable policy. (47. If it takes extra time and patience to make a policy that is collective, coherent and workable, then I for one would regard that time as well spent. )Indeed, this is how we must approach all the many pressing crises that confront us today.

Three years ago, when you came here for the Millennium Summit, we had a shared vision of global solidarity and collective security, expressed in the Millennium Declaration. But recent events have called that consensus in question.

(48. All of us know“ there are new threats that must be faced—or, perhaps, old threats in new and dangerous combinations: new forms of terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.) But, while some consider these threats as self-evidently the main challenge to world peace and security, others feel more immediately threatened by small arms employed in civil conflict, or by so-called “soft threats” such as the persistence of extreme poverty, the disparity of income between and within societies, the spread of infectious diseases, or climate change and environmental degradation.

In truth, we do not have to choose. The United Nations must confront all these threats and challenges—new and old, “hard” and “soft”. It must be fully engaged in the struggle for development and poverty eradication, starting with the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals; in the struggle to protect our common environment and in the struggle for human rights; democracy and good governance. In fact, all these struggles are linked. We now see, with chilling clarity, that a world where many millions of people endure brutal oppression and extreme misery will never be fully secure, even for its most privileged inhabitants.

(49. Yet the “hard” threats, such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, are real, and cannot be ignored. Terrorism is not a problem only to rich countries.) Weapons of mass destruction do not threaten only the western or northern world. Where we disagree, it seems, is on how we respond to these threats.

(50. Since this Organization was founded, States have generally sought to deal with threats to the peace through containment and deterrence, by a system based on collective security and the United Nations Charter.)

Paragraph Nine

Genetic Engineering is quite a new science which is a rapidly expanding and developing technology. It has the potential for many useful developments in the fields of medicine, agriculture, industry and conservation. However, balanced with this, it has the potential to produce catastrophic problems.

Genetic Engineering can bring problems as well as b______ to people.

Paragraph Seven

There is too much monkey business in Hong Kong, and the government is determined to do something about it. Packs of wild monkeys are invading parks and neighborhoods in greater numbers, aggressively begging for food and sometimes snatching bags from frightened passersby.

Hong Kong c______ are harassed by monkeys.

Paragraph Eight

Consumed by sorrow after their son Peter died in the second plane to hit the World Trade Center, Sally and Donald Goodrich of Bennington, Vermont, fell into lives of silent despair. Sally began to drink; then, diagnosed with cancer, she considered taking her own life.

Sally considered s______ because of cancer and loss of her son.

Paragraph Six

Nowadays sophisticated solar-energy systems called photovoltaics produce electricity from the sun. Photovoltaics run $14,000 to $20,000, but these systems can substantially cut homeowners’ electric bills, depending on sun exposure and electric rates. Excess energy can even be sold back to the electric company for more savings.

Expensive photovoltaics can help save a lot in the long r______.

Paragraph Four

Health care workers in Senegal, Namibia, and other African nations usually walk miles over dusty roads to deliver food, medicine, and companionship to people with HIV/AIDS. But with the donation of 1,500 single-speed bicycles by Bike Town Africa, caregivers now visit as many as six times more people in need.

Care workers now help more people with d______ bicycles.

Paragraph Five

Harsh garden chemicals kill beneficial organisms as well, including butterflies, ladybugs, and bees, all of which help our gardens grow and stay healthy. More troubling is that garden chemicals can leach into the groundwater, where they can leave a toxic residue that poisons fish, small plants, and waterfowl.

Garden chemicals can be quite h______.

Paragraph One

Surveys show that the average office worker sends and receives 108 e-mails a day. Even when we manage to clear out the in-box and escape our desks, most of us are still reachable by cell phone or some other handheld device. These gadgets add convenience and fun to our lives, but there’s a price to be paid.

With new technologies work t______ up more of people’s private time.

Paragraph Two

esearchers tested obese men before and after they joined a one-year modest walking plan. The result: Their blood pressure improved and the amount of body fat around their abdomen - the dangerous kind of fat that leads to higher rates of heart disease and diabetes - significantly decreased. 

The surprising e______ modest walking has on health.