单选题 If we are to help students develop reading skills in a foreign language, it is important to understand what is involved in the reading process itself. If we have a clear idea of how "good readers" read, either in their own or a foreign language, this will enable us to decide whether particular reading techniques are likely to help learners or not.
In considering the reading process, it is important to distinguish between two quite separate activities: reading for meaning (or "silent reading") and reading aloud. Reading for meaning is the activity we normally eng0ge in when we read books, newspapers, road signs, etc.; it is what you are doing as you read this text. It involves looking at sentences and understanding the message they convey, in other words "making sense" of a written text. It doesn't normally involve saying the words we read, not even silently inside our heads; there are important reasons for this, which are outlined below.
Reading aloud is a completely different activity; its purpose is not just to understand a text but to convey the information to someone else. It is not an activity we engage in very often outside the class-room; common examples are reading out parts of a newspaper article to a friend, or reading a notice to other people who can't see it. Obviously, reading aloud involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it. Because our attention is divided between reading and speaking, it is a much more difficult activity than reading silently; we often stumble and make mistakes when reading aloud in our own language, and reading aloud in a foreign language is even more difficult.
When we read for meaning, we do not need to read every letter or every word, nor even every word in each sentence. This is because, provided the text makes sense, we can guess much of what it says as we read it.

单选题 The purpose of the author is to ______.

A、 introduce reading skills
B、 explain reading processes
C、 decide whether particular reading skills are likely to help learners
D、 emphasize silent reading

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】第一段是开首段，而第1句是主题句，说明了解阅读过程的重要性。因此B)项正确。

单选题 The underlined word "stumble" in Para 3 means ______.

A、 fall
B、 speak in a hesitating way
C、 walk with heavy movements
D、 be shy

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】选项A)，B)，C)都有stumble的部分含义，而此题可根据前一句话和后面在reading aloud时，常make mistakes来推断，stumble应指表达不流利。

单选题 We can infer from the passage that the author will ______.

A、 explain why we needn't say the words when reading for meaning
B、 summarize the two reading activities
C、 dwell on reading aloud
D、 insist that guess work should be important in both reading aloud and reading for meaning

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】此题要求推断作者将干什么，根据第二段最后一句“关于这一点(不必将所看到的词读出来)的重要原因，将在下面列出”推断A)正确。本文最后一段虽然谈到guess work，但是限制在reading for meaning中，因此可排除D)。

单选题 In daily life, reading aloud is ______.

A、 frequently used
B、 absolutely important
C、 less involved than reading silently
D、 more involved than reading silently

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】第三段第2句讲“朗读并不是在课堂外常进行的活动。”句中outside the classroom与题干中的in dally life相对应。

单选题 We can conclude that ______.

A、 to understand a sentence, you have to read all the words in it
B、 silent reading involves looking at a text and saying the words silently to yourself
C、 there's no difference between reading in one's own language and in a foreign one
D、 reading silently is easier than reading aloud

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】第三段第4句讲“由于要将注意力分布到读和说两个方面，朗读比默读要难得多。”即，默读较容易。最后一段提到，不必逐字阅读，而可以凭猜测。因此可排除选项A)。