When you are reading something in English, you may often meet with a new word. What’s the best way to know it?
You may look it up in the English-Chinese dictionary. It will tell you a lot about the word: the pronunciation, the Chinese meaning and how to use the word. But how can you know where the word is thousands of English words? How to find it in the dictionary both quickly and correctly?
First, all the English words are arranged(安排) in the letter order. In the dictionary you can first see the words beginning with letter A, then B, C, D…. That means, if there are two words “desert” and “pull”, “desert” will be certainly before “pull”. Then if there are two words both beginning with the same letter, you may look at the second letter. Then the third, the fourth… For example, “pardon” is before “plough”, “judge” before “just”, etc.
Do you understand how to look up in the dictionary?
The dictionary will be your good friend. I hope you’ll use it as often as possible in your English study.
【小题1】This passage is about______.

When you are learning English, you find it not clever to put an English sentence, word for word, into your own language. Take the sentence “How do you do?” as an example. If you looked up each word in the dictionary, once at a time, what is your translation （翻译）? It must be a wrong sentence in your own language.
Languages do not just have different sounds; they are different in many ways. Its important to master（掌握）the rules for word order in the study of English, too. If the speaker puts words in a wrong order, the listener can’t understand his sentence easily. Sometimes when the order of words in an English sentence is changed, the meaning of the sentence changes. But sometimes the order is changed, but the meaning of the sentence doesn’t change. Let’s see the different between the two parts of sentences.
“She only likes apples.” “Only she likes apples.”
“I have seen the film already.” “I have already seen the film.”
When you are learning English, you must do your best to get the spirit（精神实质） of the language and use it as the English speaker does.
【小题1】From the passage we know that __________when we are learning English.

When you are curious about something and want to know more about it, you can use the way of asking questions. Asking questions is the first step to make discoveries and find interesting answers. The following steps can guide you during the research.

Step 1 Write down the subject that you are interested in on a piece of paper. Just get the main idea down. For example, you might write:

Discover more about robots.

Step 2 Stop and think for a moment about what you have already known about your subject. List what you have already known like the sentences below:

1. The first robot appeared in the USA in 1959.

2. A robot can do housework and act as a teacher.

3. Sometimes a robot catches viruses and causes a lot of problems.

Step 3 What can you do with what you want to learn? By asking questions, start writing down questions about the robots on the paper:

1. What might robots be like in the future?

2. What other things can robots do for people?

3. What kind of power will robots possibly use in five years?

Step 4 Armed with your list of questions, you can now go to the nearest library or computer to begin your research. As you learn more about your subject, you'll probably discover some new questions.

For example, you might discover that robots can help scientists explore dangerous places, like the sea and outer space. How? What happened? Asking new questions can help you research your subject more widely.

The next time you find something interesting to research, take time to organize your thinking by asking good questions. And remember that learning more always brings more questions.

1.What does the writer advise us to do when we’re curious about something?

   A. To read more books about it.      B. To look it up in the dictionary.

   C. To turn to the teacher for help.  D. To raise questions and find the answers.

2.What does the underlined part “Armed with your list of questions” mean?

A. Writing down your list of questions. B. Discussing your questions with others.

C. Taking your list of questions with you.                D. Putting your list of questions under your arm.

3. What might be the correct order of the steps when you do research?

① List what you want to learn.         ② Find new problems.

③ List what you’ve already known.      ④ Choose a research subject.

A. ④③①②           B. ④①③②       C. ②③④①       D. ③②①④

4. What might be the best title for this passage?

A. Doing Research on Robots           B. Asking Good Questions While Doing Research

C. Having Interesting Answers on Robots  D. Finding Subjects before Doing Research

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.

1.The underlined phrase “run into” means ___________.

         A. work out                      B. come across                         C. look into              D. pass by

2. From the passage, we can know _________.

         A. we should look up new words before reading

         B. it is sometimes difficult to read a science passage

         C. the six steps are helpful in learning spoken English

         D. interesting stories help readers to improve their English

3.The massage is mainly about _________.

         A. steps of studying science                                B. difficulties in reading science

         C. ways of reading science passages                     D. researches on science and English

The dictionary mustn’t ________ from the library.