Reading comprehension.

　　When you send a letter or a postcard, you have to put stamps on the envelope or on the card. When did people first begin to use stamps? Who was the first to think of this idea?

　　In the early nineteenth century. People did not use stamps. They had to pay postage when they received letters. Sometimes they didn't want to receive a letter at all, but they had to pay money for it. They were unhappy about this. The postage was high at that time, because the post offices had to send many people to get the postage.

　　Rowland Hill was a school teacher in England. He was the first to think of using stamps in 1850s. He thought it would be much easier for people to use stamps. They could go to the post office to buy stamps and put them on envelopes before they sent the letters. The post office could just put seals on the stamps so that people could not use the stamps again. In this way, the post office did not need to send postmen to get postage. It only needed fewer postmen to send letters.

True or false:

(1) People began to use stamps at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

(2) Before stamps are used, postage was paid by the letter-receivers and was got by letter-senders.

(3) Rowland Hill gave the idea to use stamps.

(4) After stamps were used, people needn't pay postage.

(5) The passage is about how stamps began to be used.

Reading comprehension.

　　Folk music is a kind of popular music. It comes from the people of any country. Folk singers sing songs from centuries ago, and they also write songs. They want to express their feeling about new things in the world today.

　　In the United States and Europe, folk music became very popular during the 1960s. Fans listened to folk singers performing at concerts. The singer told stories, sang, and played the guitar. Fans listened to the music and often sang along with the performer. Some of the folk singers during this time were the Kingston Trio; Peter, Paul and Mary; Pete Seeger; and the Weavers.

　　Late, people began to play this kind of music themselves at schools, at parties, and at home alone. Today fans can still hear folk music at concerts. They can also buy compact discs and cassettes recorded by new folk performers. They can listen to folk music on the radio.

True or false:

(1) Folk music came from the United States.

(2) Today, people can buy cassettes and compact discs recorded by folk singers.

(3) The words are not important in folk music.

(4) A popular folk singer in the 1960s was Pete Seeger.

(5) Fans could sing along with a performer.

Reading comprehension.

　　It is interesting to see how different countries celebrate Christmas. Some foreign friends told us how they spend this festival in their countries.

　　Brazil Father Christmas is called Papa Noel. Many Christmas customs are similar to those in the USA or UK. For those who have enough money, a special Christmas meal will be chicken, turkey, ham, rice, salad, pork, fresh and dried fruit, often with beer. Poor people will just have chicken and rice.

True or false:

(1) Father Christmas is called Papa Noel in most of the western countries.

(2) Poor people can only have rice and traditional turkey for Christmas dinner.

(3) Finnish think people should write to Santa Claus in Finland because Santa Claus lives in Christmas Land.

(4) Korvatunturi is in the south of the Arctic Circle.

(5) The Russians can also celebrate Christmas on January 7th.

Reading comprehension.

　　The Internet is becoming important in our life. How much do you know about it?

　　What is the Internet?

　　What is the World Wide Web?

　　You can find information about almost anything in the world on these pages. For example, you can use the Internet instead of a library to find information for your homework. You can also find information about your favorite sport or film star, talk to your friends or even do some shopping on the pages. Most pages have words, pictures and even sound or music.

(5) To send an E-mail to your friend, you should know his E-mail address.

Reading comprehension.

　　So Bill went to hell. It was a beautiful, clean, sandy beach with clear water and lots of beautiful women running around, laughing and playing about. The sun was shining; the temperature perfect. He was very pleased.

　　Heaven was a place high in the clouds, beautiful and sunny, with angels flying about. It was nice, but not as nice as hell.

　　So Bill Gates went to hell.

True or false:

(1) God offered Bill a chance to choose where to go because he thought that Bill was a kind man.

(2) Bill preferred the hell to the heaven.

(3) Bill decided to stay in hell as soon as he got there.

(4) What Bill had seen in the heaven was real while what he had seen in the hell was not.

(5) Bill was cheated by God.

Reading comprehension.

　　At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, the 14-year-old took the gold medal with an outstanding performance. Her winning dive was printed on the front cover of Time Magazine. She was also registered in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest Olympic champion.

　　Fu Mingxia was elected China's Ten Best Athlete of 1996.

True or false:

(1) Fu Mingxia started her diving career when she was 11 years old.

(2) Fu Mingxia got her first champion when she was 14 years old.

(3) The Time Magazine printed Fu's winning dive on its cover for her outstanding performance.

(4) Fu Mingxia once broke the world record of the youngest Olympic champion.

(5) Fu Mingxia got only one gold medal in the Atlanta Olympic Games.

Reading comprehension.

True or false:

(1) Henry Ford was famous for his invention of a car.

(2) As a boy, he liked making some new things and repairing watches and clocks for his friends.

(3) He started his car business in 1903.

(4) The car cost 850 dollars and it was very expensive.

(5) By the year 1927, his company had made more than fifteen million cars.

Reading comprehension.

　　When you speak, write a letter or make a telephone call, your words carry messages. People communicate with words.

　　Other things can also carry messages. For example, a sign at a bus stop helps you to know which bus to take. A sign on the wall of your school helps you to find the library. Signs on the doors tell you where to go in or out. Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of signs around and that you receive messages from them all the time?

　　Books, magazines, TV and radio and films all help us to communicate with others. They all help us to know what is going on in the world and what other people are thinking about.

True or false:

(1) When you raise your hand in class, you are giving a message to your teacher.

(2) Signs may tell you what to do or where to go.

(3) You can get messages from newspapers and films, but not from books or drawings.

(4) Sometimes you can know someone is sad from his face.

(5) Signs in the public places can carry messages.

Reading comprehension.

　　Salvador Dali was one of the most interesting and unusual painters of all time. He was born in Spain in 1904 and began painting when he was a child. His mother gave him a room in the family home to paint in.

　　While he was there, he read a famous book about dreams by Sigmund Freud. Freud said that dreams were very important in our lives. After reading this book, Dali painted strange pictures that looked like dreams. They often showed empty deserts with unusual things in them--like melting watches and faces.

　　Dali did not only paint pictures. He made clothes and shot movies as well. He also drew pictures for books and made jewels. He loved people watching him. He was always doing unusual things outside his house. People came and watched him. Once he made an egg as big as a man, and put liquid into it. When he opened it, the red liquid, looked like blood, came out of it. Dali said this meant the beginning of life.

　　Dali was still painting when he was 80. He was so famous that people bought his paintings. He died in 1989.

True or false:

(1) Salvador Dali was an American painter.

(2) All his pictures look like dreams.

(3) At the Academy most people didn't remember his pictures, but they remembered his unusual behavior instead.

(4) Freud was a friend of Dali's.

(5) Dali died at the age of 85.

　　New York, London, Paris and other big cities are exciting places to live in. There are many interesting things to see and to do. You can go to different kinds of museums, plays and films. You can also go shopping to buy things from all over the world.　　But there are serious problems in big cities, too. The cost of living is high, and there are too many people in some of big cities. Every year many people move to the cities because there are some chances to find jobs, to study at good schools, and to receive good medical care. But sometimes these people cannot find work or a good place to live in. Also, too many people in a small space make it hard to keep the cities safe and clean.

　　Some people enjoy living in big cities, others do not. Before people move to big cities, they should think about the problems of living there.

True or false:

(1) You can see different kinds of plays and films in big cities.

(2) In a big city, people can easily find a good place to live in.

(3) Living in a big city costs a lot.

(4) All people like to live in big cities.

(5) In this passage, the writer asked people not to move to big cities.