Section A Directions: In this section,
there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each
blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read
the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in bank is
identified by a letter. Questions 47 to 56 are based on the following
passage. If our society ever needed a reading
renaissance(复兴), it’s now.The National Endowment for the Arts released "Reading
at Risk" last year, a study showing that adult reading 47
have dropped 10 percentage points in the past decade, with the
steepest drop among those 18 to 24. “Only one half of young people read a book
of any kind in 2002. We set the bar almost on the ground. If you read one short
story in a teenager magazine, that would have 48 , ”laments a
director of research and analysis. He 49 the loss of
readers to the booming world of technology, which attracts would-be leisure
readers to E-mail, IM chats, and video games and leaves them with no time to
cope with a novel. “These new forms of media undoubtedly have
some benefits,” says Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You.
Video games 50 problem solving skills; TV shows promote
mental gymnastics by 51 viewers to follow complex story
lines. But books offer experience that can’t be gained from these other sources,
from 52 vocabulary to stretching the imagination. “If
they’re not reading at all,” says Johnson,“that’s a huge problem.”In fact, fewer
kids are reading for pleasure. According to data 53 last week
from the National Centre for Educational Statistic’s long-term trend assessment,
the number of 17-year-olds who reported never or hardly ever reading for fun
54 from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. At the same
time, the 55 of 17-year-olds who read daily dropped from 31
percent to 22 percent. This slow but steady retreat from books has not
yet taken a toll on reading ability. Scores for the nation’s youth have
56 constant over the past two decades (with an encouraging
upswing among 9-year-olds). But given the strong apparent correlation between
pleasure reading and reading skills, this means poorly for the future.
A) percent B) remained
C) rose D)
rates E) percentage F) counted
G) relieved H)
present I) believing J) released
K) forcing L)
improve M) styles N)
building O) attributes