Collectors（收藏家） know just what to look for in a comic book. They always check the   __1   first. They like to find the books that came out between 1938 and 1945. These years   2   the Golden Age of comic books. Now these books are very expensive. The first copy(册) of Marvel Comics cost a little money   3   it came out. Now it is worth more than $100,000.

Collectors also look for the books in which a character   4   for the first time. The first Superman story tells how Superman came to Earth. This comic book might cost as much as $125,000.   5   a character from one comic book turns up in another one. When Batman（蝙蝠侠）is   6   in a Superman comic, the price of the book goes up. These books are called crossover books. They are worth more because there are not   7   of them.

Don’t let the high prices   8   you from starting a collection of your own. Comic books that came out after the Golden Age don’t cost so much. Today’s comic books are even   9   . You can enjoy them now and   10   them for their future value(价值).

1. A. place       B. date       C. size          D. price

2. A. followed    B. reached    C. marked       D. divided

3. A. when       B. if         C. before        D. but

4. A. appears     B. travels     C. acts          D. fails

5. A. Suddenly   B. Luckily     C. Actually      D. Sometimes

6. A. lost        B. wanted     C. shown        D. protected

7. A. any        B. some       C. all           D. many

8. A. keep       B. make       C. leave         D. throw

9. A. better        B. cheaper      C. more         D. thicker

10. A. record      B. borrow      C. save         D. change

根据短文内容及首字母提示，填写所缺单词。

When the Great Library of Alexandria burned，the story goes that one book was saved．But nobody thought it was a v__1__ book．A poor man，who could read a little，bought it for a few coins．

The book wasn't very interesting．but between its pages there was something very interesting i__2__．It was a thin strip of vellum（羊皮纸）on which as written the secret of the “Touchstone”!

The touchstone was a small pebble（卵石）that could t__3__ any common metal into pure gold．The writing e__4__ that it was lying among thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it．But the secret was that the real stone would feel w__5__，while ordinary pebbles were cold．

So the man camped on the seashore and began testing pebbles．He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again b__6__ they were cold，he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of t__7__．So，when he felt one that was cold，he threw it into the sea．He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone．Y_8__ he went on and on this way．

One day，however，about mid-afternoon，he picked up a pebble and it was warm．He threw it into the sea b__9_ he realized what he had done．He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along，he still threw it away．

So it is with opportunity（机会）．U__10__ we are careful，it's easy to fail to recognize an opportunity when it is in hand．

根据句意和首字母提示完成单词。   

1．The world’s d___ salt lake is the Caspian Sea．

2．The ______ of the world is about 6，000，000，000．

3．Are there any ________ between this book and that one?

4．My father has been much better since he g___ up smoking．

5．It's hard for us to make a d_____ ．