Many textbooks are not written in the kind of English that we speak every day. In fact, sometimes the reading is so difficult that it almost seems like a foreign language. In a way, it is—the language of science. You should not expect to be able to read a difficult science passage the same way you read an interesting story; you should not expect to read it easily and all at once. Instead, you may have to read it several times through, catching on the meaning of difficult words, going back over difficult sentences, and finally putting the whole thing together. Do not be discourages if the whole passage don’t make sense to you at first. You need to pick it apart patiently until you can understand it.
These are the steps to follow when you are reading something difficult:
1. Start to read normally until you run into a sentence that doesn’t make sense to you.
2. When a sentence doesn’t make sense, go back and read it again more slowly.
3. Look for any word you don’t know in the sentence. Try to understand their meanings using word parts and context clues(上下文线索). If necessary, look them up in the dictionary.
4. Look at the next few sentences to see if they explain more about the sentence you are working on. Do not read very much farther ahead until you understand what is being said.
5. Finally, read the sentence again. Try to put it into simpler words.
6. Read through the passage once. Try to understand all the hard parts well. Then read the whole passage once more at a usual speed. This helps you to put all ides together.
The stops sound a lot harder than they are. It is really just the normal way good readers understand anything that is difficult to read. After you have done the best you can this way, you should always feel free to ask for help from your teacher, if you have one.
【小题1】 The underlined phrase “run into” means ___________.

Excuse me．________ you ________ my dictionary?

1. A.
   Do; see
2. B.
   Did; see
3. C.
   Are; seeing
4. D.
   Have; seen

If you don’t know how to spell the new word, please ________ in the dictionary.

Although English is not as old as Chinese, it is spoken by many people around the world every day. English speakers are always making up new words, and we are often able to know where most come from.
Sometimes, however, no one may really know where a word comes from. Did you ever think about why hamburgers are called “hamburgers”, especially when they are not made with ham(火腿)? About a hundred years ago, some men went to America from Europe. They came from a big city in Germany called Hamburg. They didn’t speak good English, but they ate good food. When some Americans saw them eating round pieces of beef, they asked the Germans what they were. The Germans didn’t understand the question and answered, “We come from Hamburg.” One of these Americans owned a restaurant, and had an idea. He cooked some round pieces of bread with beef in them and started selling them. Such bread came to be called “hamburgers”. Today, “Hamburgers” are sold in many countries around the world.
Whether this story is true or not, it certainly is interesting. Knowing why any word has a certain meaning is interesting, too. This reason, for most English words, can be found in any large English dictionary.
【小题1】English is spoken by many people around the world every day, but English is ______.