For many of us, printed books are satisfying in ways beyond the words they contain. Billions of printed books have been published, read and saved in the 600 years since movable type was invented, so why mess with a good things?

　　Sony Electronics is doing just that, betting that readers will be won over by the convenience of readability of its new electronic book devices. Sony's reader, the PRS-505, can hold 160 books in its fixed memory, enough to line the shelves on a good-sized wall in the average American home. The $299 device is about the size of a paperback book, but a half-inch thick and weighs less than a pound.

　　The Sony book reader is revolutionary not only in its storage capacity. The font(字体) is highly readable and adjustable by size. Unlike laptop computers, you can put the Sony in your purse, read it in direct sunlight and even bookmark the pages. And you can connect it to your PC to download books.

　　Surprisingly, though the reader has liberated the book from paper, electronic books aren't always a bargain. For example, David Baldacci's "Stone Cold" download retails(零售) for $15.19 at the Sony site, while Amazon(卓越网) will deliver a hard copy to your mailbox for $16.19.

　　The Sony reader also lets you store and play or display music. So what's not to like about the Sony? Well, for many bibliophiles, a lot. Book lovers like to have, hold and keep their volumes, which don't need charging. You can write not

　　es in the margins, and enjoy the ambience they provide on your book shelves.

　　The need for electronic reading devices is likely to grow as more people worried about the billions of tons of paper used for printed material. Many believe the time will come when devices like the Sony reader are as common as printed newspapers and magazines today.

　　1.According to the passage, the Sony book reader _________.

　　A. is as light as a laptop computer

　　B. can hold more than 200 books

　　C. is convenient to carry around

　　D. cannot be connected to a PC

　　2.What is the author’s point when he mentions “Stone Cold”?

　　A. Amazon’s printed books are very cheap

　　B. “Stone Cold” can be got from the Sony site and Amazon

　　C. The Sony book reader is not very cheap to use

　　D. The Sony book reader can benefit its buyers a lot

　　3.The underlined word “bibliophiles” in Paragraph 5 refers to “__________”.

　　A. music lovers B. book lovers

　　C. electronic reading devices D. Sony readers

　　4.According to the author, what’s the future for the electronic reading devices?

　　A. They’ll replace printed newspapers and magazines

　　B. They’ll still be more expensive than printed newspapers

　　C. They’ll become a must in people’s daily life

　　D. They’ll become more popular as time goes on

　　As kids, my friends and I spent a lot of time out in the woods. “The woods” was our par

　　t-time address, destination, purpose, and excuse. If I went to a friends house and found him not at home, his mother might say, “Oh, he’s out in the woods, ” with a tone(语气) of airy acceptance. It is similar to the tone people sometimes use nowadays to tell me that someone I’m looking for is on the golf course or at the gym, or even “away from his desk.” For us ten-year-olds, “being out in the woods” was just an excuse to do whatever we feel like for a while.

　　We sometimes told ourselves that what we were doing in the woods was exploring(探索). Exploring was a more popular idea back then than it is today. History seemed to be mostly about explorers. Our explorations, though, seemed to have less system than the historic kind: something usually came up along the way. Say we stayed in the woods, throwing rocks, shooting frogs, picking blackberries, digging in what we were briefly persuaded was an Indian burial mound.

　　Often we got “lost” and had to climb a tree to find out where we were. If you read a story in which someone does that successfully, be skeptical: the topmost branches are usually too skinny to hold weight, and we could never climb high enough to see anything except other trees. There were four or five trees that we visited regularly—tall beeches, easy to climb and comfortable to sit in.

　　It was in a tree, too, that our days of fooling around in the woods came to an end. By then some of us had reached seventh grade and had begun the rough ride of adolescence(青春期). In March, the month when we usually took to the woods again after winter, two friends and I set out to go exploring. We climbed a tree, and all of a sudden it occurred to all three of us at the same time that we really were rather big to be up in a tree. Soon there would be the spring dances on Friday evenings in the high school cafeteria.

　　5. The author and his friends were often out in the woods to _______.

　　A. spend their free time B. play golf and other sports

　　C. avoid doing their schoolwork D. keep away from their parents

　　6. What can we infer from Paragraph 2 ?

　　A. The activities in the woods were well planned.

　　B. Human history is not the result of exploration.

　　C. Exploration should be a systematic activity.

　　D. The author explored in the woods aimlessly.

　　7. The underlined word “skeptical” in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.

　　A. calm B. doubtful

　　C. serious D. optimistic

　　8. How does the author feel about his childhood?

　　A. Happy but short. B. Lonely but memorable.

　　C. Boring and meaningless. D. Long and unforgettable.

　　参考答案：

　　1-4 CCBD 5-8 BCDB

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