Write a winning story!

         You could win ￡1,000 in this year’s Fiction Prize and have your story printed in Keep Writing magazine. Ten other lucky people will win a cheque for ￡100.

         Once again, we need people who can write good stories. The judges, who include Mary Littlejohn, the novelist, Michael Brown, the television reporter, and Susan Hitchins, the editor of Keep Writing, are looking for interesting and original stories. Detective fiction was extremely popular last year, although the competition winner produced a love story. You can write down about whatever you want but here’s some advice to start your thinking:

         Write about what you know

         This is the advice which every writer should pay attention to and, last year, nearly everyone who wrote for us did exactly that. Love, family, problems with friends ---- these were the main subjects of the stories. However, you need to turn ordinary situations into something interesting that people will want to read about. Make the reader want to continue reading by writing about ordinary things in a new and surprising way.

         Get your facts right

         It’s no good giving a description of a town or explaining how a jet engine works if you get it wrong. So avoid writing anything unless you’re certain about it.

         Hold the reader’s attention

         Make the beginning interesting and the ending a surprise. There is nothing worse than a poor ending. Develop the story carefully and try to think of something unusual happening at the end.

         Think about the characters

         Try to bring the people in your story alive for the reader by using well-chosen words to make them seem real.

         Your story must be your own work, between 2,000 and 2,5000 words and typed, double-spaced, on one side only of each sheet of paper.

         Even if you’re in danger of missing the closing date, we are unable to accept stories by fax or email. You must include the application form with your story. Unfortunately your story cannot be returned, nor can we discuss our decisions.

         You should not have had any fiction printed in any magazine or book in this country ---- a change in the rules by popular request ---- and the story must not have happened in print or in recorded form, for example on radio or TV, anywhere in the world.

         Your fee of ￡5 will go to the Writers’ Association. Make your cheque payable to Keep Writing and send it with the application form and your story to:

         Keep Writing

         75 Broad Street Birmingham

         B12 4TG

         The closing date is 30 July and we will inform the winner within one month of this date. Please note that if you win, you must agree to have your story printed in our magazine.

1.How should writers deal with ordinary situations while writing?

A. They should make them appealing to readers.

B. They should copy others’ ideas.

C. They should change some facts to make them interesting.

D. They should describe them as they are.

2.What shouldn’t a writer do?

A. Making the contents interesting.                     B. Getting the facts right.

C. Meeting the deadline.                                        D. Making the end ordinary.

3.Writers should present their works in the following ways except that ____________.

A. they should write originally

B. they can type their stories as they like

C. they should follow some rules

D. they should hand in their stories in time

4.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A. Late stories can be faxed if necessary.

B. Entry needs no fee.

C. Winners can have their stories printed in other magazines.

D. All stories should be presented by mail.

One school night this month I walked quietly up to Alexander, my 15-year-old son, and touched his cheek gently in a manner I hoped would seem casual．A year ago he would have ignored this disturbance but now he reacted impatiently and leaned back to his computer screen．

I made a mistake: breaking into my teenager's personal space. “The average teenager has pretty strong feelings about his privacy," Lara Fox and her friend Hilary Frankel told me. Mr．Frankel and Mr．Fox, both 17, are the authors of Breaking the Code, a new book that seeks to bridge the generational divide between parents and adolescents．It is being promoted by its publisher as the first self-help guide by teenagers for their parents, a kind of "Kids Are From Mars, Parents Are From Venus" that explains the language and actions of teenagers．The girls dealt with issues including hanging out late, money, school pressures, smoking etc．

Personally, I welcome their opinions．The most common missteps in interacting with teenagers arise from the war between parents exercising their rights to know what goes on under their roof and teenagers firmly guarding their privacy．Teenagers can be quick to interpret their parents' remarks and respond with anger that masks their vulnerability （脆弱 ）. Ms Fox said, "What we want above all is your approval．Don't forget, no matter how much we act as if we don't care what you say, we believe the things you say about us．"

Nancy, a New York child-raising expert said she didn't agree with everything the authors suggested but found their arguments reasonable．"When your kids are saying, ' You don't get it, and you never will, ' there are lots of ways to respond so that they will listen and that is what the writers point out．"

" My parents helped me see that, " Mr．Fox told me, " even though they used to stay out late and ride their bicycles to school, times have changed and the way parents educate children is different．These days there is a major fear factor in bringing up kids．Parents worry about their child crossing the street．" The writers said they hoped simply to throw light on teenage thinking．

1.According to the two girls, teenagers nowadays are ____．

A．independent          B．intelligent

C. inconsiderate           D．sensitive

2.The underlined sentence "You don't get it, and you never will" in the 4th paragraph implies that ____．

A．the teenagers don't want/to admit their weakness

B．the teenagers think that their parents will never understand them

C．the parents do not necessarily force into the world of their children

D．the generation gap cannot be shortened despite their parents' efforts

3.It can be inferred from the last two paragraphs that ____．

A．teenagers should guard their privacy

B．Nancy totally agrees with the two girls' opinions

C．parents are more concerned about children's safety

D．the two girls have obtained numerous support from the public

4.Why does the author mention the book "Kids Are From Mars, Parents Are From Venus ?

A．It is one of the best-sellers

B．It is also written by the two girls

C．The two books have the similar theme

D．The two books have different opinions

Writing articles about films for The Front Page was my first proper job．Before then I had done bits of reviewing --- novels for other newspapers, films for a magazine and anything I was asked to do for the radio．That was how I met Tom Seaton, the first arts editor of The Front Page, who had also written for television．He hired me, but Tom was not primarily a journalist, or he would certainly have been more careful in choosing his staff．

    At first, his idea was that a team of critics should take care of the art forms that didn’t require specialized knowledge: books, TV, theatre, film and radio．There would be a weekly lunch at which we would make our choices from the artistic material that Tom had decided we should cover, though there would also be guests to make the atmosphere sociable．

   Tom’s original plan for a team of critics for the arts never took off．It was a good idea, but we didn’t get together as planned and so everything was done by phone．It turned out, too, that the general public out there preferred to associate a reviewer with a single subject area, and so I chose film．Without Tom’s initial push, though, we would hardly have come up with the present arrangement, by which I write an extended weekly piece, usually on one film．

    The space I am given allows me to broaden my argument --- or forces me, in an uninteresting week, to make something out of nothing．But what is my role in the public arena（舞台）? I suppose that people choose what films to go to on the basis of the stars, the publicity of the director．So if a film review isn’t really a consumer guide, what is it? I certainly don’t feel I have a responsibility to be ‘right’ about a movie．Nor do I think there should be a certain number of ‘great’ and ‘bad’ films each year．All I have to do is put forward an argument．I’m not a judge, and nor would I want to be．

1.What do we learn about Tom Seaton from the first paragraph?

       A．He encouraged Mark to become a writer．

       B．He had worked in various areas of the media．

       C．He met Mark when working for a film company．

       D．He prefers to employ people that he knows．

2.The weekly lunches were planned in order to ______．

       A．help the writers get to know each other

       B．provide an informal information party

       C．divide the work that had to be done

       D．entertain important visitors from the arts

3.What does the author mean when he says that Tom’s plan ‘never took off’ in Paragraph 3?

       A．It was unpopular．               B．It wasted too much time．

       C．It wasn’t planned properly．     D．It wasn’t put into practice．

4.Which of the following best describes what Mark says about his work?

       A．His success varies from year to year．   B．He prefers to write about films he likes．

       C．He can freely express his opinion．     D．He writes according to accepted rules．

 It is true that good writers rewrite and rewrite and then rewrite some more. But in order to work up the desire to rewrite, it is important to learn to like what you write at the early stage.

 I am surprised at the number of famous writers I know who say that they so dislike reading their own writing later that they even hate to look over the publishers’ opinions. One reason we may dislike reading our own work is that we’re often disappointed that the rich ideas in our minds seem very thin and plain when first written down .Jerry Fodor and Steven Pinker suggest that this fact may be a result of how our minds work..

 Different from popular belief, we do not usually think in the words and sentences of ordinary language but in symbols for ideas (known as “mentalese”), and writing our ideas down is an act of translation from that symbolic language. But while mentalese contains our thoughts in the form of a complex tapestry (织锦)，writing can only be composed one thread at a time .Therefore it should not be surprising that our first attempt at expressing ideas should look so simple. It is only by repeatedly rewriting that we produce new threads and connect them to get closer to the ideas formed in our minds.

When people write as if some strict critics (批评家) are looking over their shoulder , they are so worried about what this critic might say that they get stuck before they even start. Peter Elbow makes an excellent suggestion to deal with this problem .When writing we should have two different minds. At the first stage, we should see every idea, as well as the words we use to express it, as wonderful and worth putting down. It is only during rewrites that we should examine what we excitedly wrote in the first stage and check for weaknesses.

68. What do we learn from the text about those famous writers?

A They often regret writing poor works

B Some of them write surprisingly much .

C Many of them hate reading their own works

D They are happy to review the publishers’ opinions.

69. What do people generally believe about the way human minds work?

A People think in words and sentences.

B Human ideas are translated into symbols

C People think by connecting threads of ideas.

D Human thoughts are expressed through pictures.

70. What can we conclude from the text?

A Most people believe we think in symbols.

B Loving our own writing is scientifically reasonable.

C The writers and critics can never reach an agreement.

D Thinking and writing are different stages of mind at work.

I grew up in a house where the TV was seldom turned on and with one wall in my bedroom entirely lined with bookshelves, most of my childhood was spent on books I could get hold of. In fact, I grew up thinking of reading as natural as breathing and books unbelievably powerful in shaping perspectives (观点) by creating worlds we could step into, take part in and live in.

With this unshakable belief, I, at fourteen, decided to become a writer. Here too, reading became useful. Every writer starts off knowing that he has something to say, but being unable to find the right ways to say it. He has to find his own voice by reading widely and discovering which parts of the writers he agrees or disagrees with, or agrees with so strongly that it reshapes his own world. He cannot write without loving to read, because only through reading other people’s writing can one discover what works, what doesn’t and, in the end, together with lots of practice, what voice he has.

Now I am in college, and have come to realize how important it is to read fiction (文学作品)．As a. law student, my reading is in fact limited to subject matter—the volume (量) of what I have to read for classes every week means there is little time to read anything else. Such reading made it all the clearer to me that I live in a very small part in this great place called life. Reading fiction reminds me that there is life beyond my own. It allows me to travel across the high seas and along the Silk Road, all from the comfort of my own armchair, to experience, though secondhand, exciting experiences that I wouldn't necessarily be able to have in my lifetime.

1.What can be inferred about the author as a child?

A.  He never watched TV.

B.  He read what he had to.

C.  He found reading unbelievable.

D.  He considered reading part of his life.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

2. The underlined word "voice" in the second paragraph most probably means “       ”.

A.  an idea     

B.  a sound quality

C.  a way of writing

D.  a  world to write about

3.What effect does reading have on the author?

A.  It helps him to realize his dream.

B.  It opens up a wider world for him.

C.  It makes his college life more interesting.

D.  It increases his interest in worldwide travel.

4.Which of the following can be the best title of this text?

A.  Why do I read?

B.  How do I read?

C.  What do I read? 

D.  When do I read?