High School English Reading Course: Senior Year Edition

Author: Qi Zhixiao and Li Desheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: This book is a newly developed reference textbook based on the English teaching syllabus for senior high school students. Its purpose is to strengthen the reading comprehension skills of senior high school students through exercises. The book is divided into three volumes and two main parts, featuring 184 representative short passages selected for their quality. These include familiar fables and fairy tales as well as classic works by renowned authors. The language is vivid and educational. Each unit is designed with corresponding exercises to provide targeted practice, accompanied by answers. With the continuous reform of college entrance examination content, English proficiency assessments have gradually shifted from grammar-based evaluation to comprehensive testing of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, with reading ability being a particular focus. The "General High School English Curriculum Standards" require students to accumulate over 300,000 words of extracurricular reading by the eighth level, excluding the required reading. To align with the "Syllabus" requirements and adapt to the "New Curriculum Standards," our school has been conducting systematic reading teaching experiments since 1996, offering regular reading classes weekly while encouraging extracurricular reading. The results of the college entrance examination have been outstanding, attracting visits from sister schools seeking our "secrets." The textbook used in these experiments was the precursor to the "High School English Reading Course." After years of continuous improvement, it was jointly published by Beijing Caihua Education Group and China Social Sciences Press. The vocabulary in Reading Text A of this course totals approximately 3,000 words, covering most of the vocabulary required by the seventh level of the "General High School English Curriculum Standards." Reading Text B includes most of the target vocabulary for the eighth level. The total reading volume of this course is about 300,000 words, meeting the basic requirements of the eighth-level standards.
Course Structure
This course is divided into three volumes, with this being the second volume, containing 30 units and split into two parts (upper and lower). It is designed for use in the second year of senior high school. The course is arranged in increasing difficulty, making it compatible with current high school English textbooks while also serving as a standalone resource. It is suitable for classroom use and independent extracurricular reading. The back of the book includes explanations for difficult sentences and answers to exercises.
Content Introduction
Each unit in this volume is divided into Reading Text A and Reading Text B. The difficulty level of Reading Text A is slightly lower than that of the corresponding textbook. Each passage includes a vocabulary list and an Introduction designed to pose questions and prompt students to predict the content of the article, thereby sparking their interest in reading. After each passage, there is a numerical statistics section that allows students to calculate their reading speed based on the time spent. Additionally, each passage is accompanied by several exercises to assess students' comprehension. Reading Text B passages are mostly close to the original, with minor revisions to uncommon words and sentences that may be difficult for students to understand. This part covers topics such as British and American society, culture, life, and technology, aiming to broaden students' horizons and provide them with more information. Some passages are exquisite essays by renowned foreign authors, designed to connect English learning with other subjects, life, society, and the times, encouraging students to develop an awareness of others, society, and the world. The back of the book includes answers and explanations for exercises, as well as annotations for difficult sentences.