her bat, he joked, "Defend and win one for the team."

Ashley took no notice of him. She spent the whole day reading self-defending books and placed her work on delay. "You can't delay your work. Our job demands us to do our work on time," Chris said. "We must meet the demands of our job."

"You're not the boss," Ashley replied. "Don't make demands of me."

Because Ashley failed to do her work, she was fired.

Chris glanced at Ashley's empty desk and smiled.

4.What kind of work did Chris and Ashley do?

A.Drawing. B.Designing. C.Painting. D.Building.

5.What did Ashley think of the last postcard designed by Chris?

A.Excellent B.Too bad

C.It didn't show the real beauty of the desert. D.He expressed himself in an indirect way.

6.We may infer from this passage that__________ .

A.Chris was not a good designer

B.Chris and Ashley were friendly to each other

C.Chris herself must have written the letter

D.It may sometimes bring about bad luck to speak out one's mind

C

If you look for a book as a present for a child. You will be spoiled for choice even in a year when there is no new Harry Potter. J.K Rowling's wizard is not alone: the past decade has been a harvest for good children's books, which has set off a large quantity of films and in turn led to increased sales of classics such as The Lord of the Rings.

Yet despite that, reading is increasingly unpopular among children. According to statistics, in 1997 23% said they didn't like reading at all. In 2003, 35% did. And around 6% of children leave primary school each year unable to read properly.

Maybe the decline is caused by the increasing availability of computes games. Maybe the books boom has affected only the top of the educational pile. Either way, Chancellor Gordon Brown plans to change things for the bottom of the class .In his pre-budget report, he announced the national project of Reading Recovery to help