Dear Jack，

    Thank you for your congratulations，my congratulations to you! I remember Margaret Field very well―the girl with that wonderful red hair and those beautiful eyes.  She was the most popular girl in our college. You’re a very lucky fellow and I'm sure you’11 be very happy with her.

    Brenda and I are very lucky，too. Her father gave us this house as a wedding present，so we don't have to pay rent. The house and furniture are insured already，so I can’t help you by giving you that kind of business. I wish I'd known earlier that you were in the insurance business. I'd certainly have asked you to give me a policy for the house and its contents.

    I'm rather doubtful about the value of life insurance. It’s my duty，I know，to see that there will be money for my wife，and later on for the children，in the event of my early death. But I feel that it's wiser to put my money into the shares of good business companies. You say I can get a policy that will provide 50，000 when I'm 65. Yes，but that time is nearly forty years away，and what will 50，000 be worth then?The real value of money has been going down and prices go up a little every year，perhaps only 4％or 5％，but the movement is always up，never down. 50，000 in fifty years from now may be worth only two―thirds or even a half of what it is worth today. Now if I put my savings into the shares of the big oil companies，or aircraft manufacturers，the value of the shares will go up with the rise in costs and prices. So the real value of my money would remain about the same，wouldn’t it?I know your answer. You’ll say that your life insurance policy provides against my possible death. I've got to balance that possibility against the almost certain fall in the value of money?

    I'd very much like you to meet Brenda. Can you come for a weekend some time?What about next Saturday?If you can manage it，please let me know which train you’re coming by，and I’ll meet you at the station. We can have a talk about life insurance and perhaps you’ll succeed in making me see that life insurance is a good thing.

                                                             Yours sincerely，

                                                                   Fred

64. We can infer from the passage that              .

    A. Margaret is Fred’s wife

    B. Jack is a customer of Fred

    C. Brenda is familiar to Margaret

    D. Jack，Fred and Margaret once studied in the same college

65. The underlined sentence”In the event of my early death”can be replaced by         .

    A. when I should die young         B. if I should die young

    C. after I should die young          D. before I should die young

66. Which word can be used to describe Fred according to the passage?

    A. Narrow-minded.   B. Short-sighted.     C. Ambitious.    D. Practical.

67. This is a letter of        .

    A. refusing          B. inquiring          C. complaining    D. negotiating

Dear Jack，

    Thank you for your congratulations，my congratulations to you! I remember Margaret Field very well—the girl with that wonderful red hair and those beautiful eyes．She was the most popular girl in our college．You’re a very lucky fellow and I'm sure you’11 be very happy with her．

    Brenda and I are very lucky，too．Her father gave us this house as a wedding present，so we

don't have to pay rent．The house and furniture are insured already，so I can’t help you by giving you that kind of business．I wish I'd known earlier that you were in the insurance business．I'd

certainly have asked you to give me a policy for the house and its contents．

    I'm rather doubtful about the value of life insurance．It’s my duty，I know，to see that there will be money for my wife，and later on for the children，in the event of my early death．But I feel that it's wiser to put my money into the shares of good business companies．You say I can get policy that will provide 50，000 when I'm 65．Yes，but that time is nearly forty years away，and what will 50，000 be worth then? The real value of money has been going down and prices go up a little every year，perhaps only 4％or 5％，but the movement is always up，never down．50，000 in fifty years from now may be worth only two—thirds or even a half of what it is worth today．Now if I put my savings into the shares of the big oil companies，or aircraft manufacturers，the value of the shares will go up with the rise in costs and prices．So the real value of my money would remain about the same，wouldn’t it? I know your answer．You’ll say that your life insurance policy provides against my possible death．I've got to balance that possibility against the almost certain fall in the value of money·

    I'd very much like you to meet Brenda．Can you come for a weekend some time? What about next Saturday? If you can manage it，please let me know which train you’re coming by，and I’ll meet you at the station．We can have a talk about life insurance and perhaps you’ll succeed in making me see that life insurance is a good thing．

                                                             Yours sincerely，

                                                                   Fred

1．We can infer from the passage that              ．

    A．Margaret is Fred’s wife

    B．Jack is a customer of Fred

    C．Brenda is familiar to Margaret

    D．Jack，Fred and Margaret once studied in the same college

2．The underlined sentence” In the event of my early death” can be replaced by      

    A．when I should die young         B．if I should die young

    C．after I should die young          D．before I should die young

3．Which word can be used to describe Fred according to the passage?

    A．Narrow-minded．  B．Short-sighted．    C．Ambitious．   D．Practical．

4．This is a letter of        ．

    A．refusing  B．inquiring（询问） C．complaining    D． negotiating（协商）

The price is too ________. Can you ________ it down?

1. A.
   expensive; take
2. B.
   large; turn
3. C.
   high; bring
4. D.
   big; cut

Learners report two main difficulties in reading, which may be linked. There are too many unknown words and as a result reading is simply not a pleasure. For some students, even reading in their own language is a chore.
　　Having a wide vocabulary is essential to making sense of written language. Of course, this is a circular argument, because the more you read the more vocabulary you learn and the more words you know the more easily you can read. Don’t make the mistake of reading with your dictionary beside you, looking up every single new or doubtful word. This is laborious and prevents you from practicing the skill of prediction.
　　Sometimes in reading you find a word you know but the sense doesn’t seem to fit in. This is not surprising because words have so many meanings and degrees of meaning. What is more, part of their meaning is shaped by the words around them. Keep looking at the surrounding words and asking yourself “what sort of meaning would make sense here?”
　　The more that people study the reading process, the better they can pass on to language learners a range of advice to choose from. People have learned to read in all kinds of ways. Here is some information that could help you plan to be a better reader in the foreign language you are studying.
　　1）Work out the general meaning first
　　When people read in a new language they often feel they must take a detailed approach, focusing on every word, particularly those they don’t know. They read as if they were using a microscope, looking carefully at each of the small pieces（the individual words）, but not necessarily seeing the whole picture at first. This is called the “bottom-up” approach. Other readers try to look first at the big picture（the “top-down” approach）, attending to individual bricks only as necessary, a process that involves some intelligent guesswork. Generally this second approach is recommended by successful learners.
　　2）Interactive reading
　　Another way of thinking about reading is to describe it as an interactive process, where the text brings something to you and you bring something to the text. Readers bring together all their knowledge of the world with what they see on the page in front of them. That is why, when reading in our own language, we don’t need to read every word. We add meaning which is not actually stated.
　　3）From supported reading to independent reading
　　Language learners start by needing considerable support as they read. Textbooks supply this support in the form of introductions that summaries the contents, glossaries, pictures, explanations of new grammar points. In your reading you need to move gradually from this support to reading more the text itself.
【小题1】. According to the author, ______.