D "People still tell me, ‘Children don't read no wadays’,"says David Almond, the award-winning author of children's books such as Skelling."The truth is that they are skilled, creative readers. When I doclassroom visits, they ask me very sophisticated questions about use of language, story structure, chapters and dialogue." No one is denying that books are competing with other forms of entertainment for children's attention but it seemsas though children find a special kind of mental nourishment within the printedpage.
E "A few years ago, publishers lost confidence and wanted to make books more like television, the medium that frightened them most, " says children's book critic Julia Eccleshare. "But books aren't TV, and you will find that children always say that the good thing about books is that you can see them in your head. Children are demanding readers," she says. "If they don't get it in two pages, they'll drop it."
F No more are children's authors considered mere sentimentalists or failed adult writers. "Some feted adult writers would kill for the sales," says Almond, who sold 42,392 copies of Skelling in 1999 alone. And advances seem to be growing too: UK publishing outfit Orion recently negotiated a six-figure sum from US company Scholastic for The Seeing Stone, a children's novel by Kevin Crossley-Holland, the majority of which will go to the author.
G It helps that once smitten, children are loyal and even fanatical consumers. Author Jacqueline Wilson says that children spread news of her books like a bushfire. "My average reader is a girl of ten," she explains. "They're sociable and acquisitive. They collect. They have parties—where books are a good present. If they like something, they have to pass it on." After Rowling, Wilson is currently the best-selling children's writer, and her sales have boomed over the past three years. She has sold more than three millionbooks, but remains virtually invisible to adults, although most ten-year
-old girls know about her.
H Children's books are surprisingly relevant to contemporary life. Provided they are handled with care, few topics are considered off-limits for children. One senses that children's writers relish the chance to discuss the whole are a of topics and language. But Anne Fine, author of many award winning children's books is concerned that the British literati still ignore children's culture. "It's considered worthy but boring,”"she says.
I "I think there's still a way to go," says Almond , who wishes that children's books were taken more seriously as literature. None the less, he derives great satisfaction from his child readers. "They have a powerful literary culture," he says. "It feels as if you're able to step into the store of mythology and ancient stories that run through all societies and encounter the great themes: love and loss and death and redemption."
J At the moment, the race is on to find the next Harry Potter. The bidding for new books at Bologna this year—the children's equivalent of the Frankfurt Book Fair—was as fierce as anything anyone has ever seen. All of which bodes well for the long-term future of the market—and for children's authors, who have traditionally suffered the lowest profile in literature, despite the responsibility of their role.
Questions 1-7
Look at the following list of people A-E and the list of statements Questions 1-7. Match each statement with one of the people listed. Write the appropriate letters A-E in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
A. Wendy Cooling
B. David Almond
C. Julia Eccleshare
D. Jacqueline Wilson
E. Anne Fine
1. Children take pleasure in giving books to each other.
2. Reading in public is an activity that children have not always felt comfortable about doing.
3. Some well-known writers of adult literature regret that they earn less than popular children's writers.
4. Children are quick to decide whether they like or dislike a book.
5. Children will read many books by an author that they like.
6. The public do not realise how much children read today.
7. We are experiencing a rise in the popularity of children's literature.
Questions 8-10
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS taken from the reading passage, answer the following questions.
Write your answers in boxes 8-10 on your answer sheet.
8. For which age group have sales of books risen the most?
9. Which company has just invested heavily in an unpublished children's book?
10. Who is currently the best-selling children's writer?
Questions 11-14
Reading Passage 1 has ten paragraphs A-J.
Which paragraph metions the following Questions 11-14?
Write the appropriate letters A-J in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.
11. the fact that children are able to identify and discuss the importantelements of fiction
12. the undervaluing of children's society
13. the impact of a particular fictional character on the sales of children's books
14. an inaccurate forecast regarding the reading habits of children
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-27, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Questions 15-21
Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs A-I.
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph.
Write the appropriate numbers ⅰ- in boxes 15-21 on your answer sheet.
List of headings
i Wide differences in leisure activities according to income
ii Possible inconsistencies in Ms Costa's data
iii More personal income and time influence leisure activities
iv Investigating the lifestyle problem from a new angle
v Increased incomes fail to benefit everyone
vi A controversial development offers cheaper leisure activities
vii Technology heightens differences in living standards
viii The gap between income and leisure spending closes
ix Two factors have led to a broader range of options for all
x Have people's lifestyles improved?
xi High earners spend less on leisure
Example Answer
Paragraph E iii
15. Paragraph A
16. Paragraph B
17. Paragraph C
18. Paragraph D
19. Paragraph F
20. Paragraph G
21. Paragraph H
Fun for the Masses
Americans worry that the distribution of income is increasingly unequal. Examining leisure spending, changes that picture.
A Are you better off than you used to be? Even after six years of sustained economic growth, Americans worry about that question.
E conomists who plumb government income statistics agree that Americans' incomes, as measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, have risen more slowly in the past two decades than in earlier times, and that some workers' real incomes have actually fallen. They also agree that by almost any measure, income is distributed less equally than it used to be. Neither of those claims, however, sheds much lighton whether living standards are rising or falling. This is because “living standard” is a highly amorphous concept. Measuring how much people earn is relatively easy, at least compared with measuring how well they live.
B A recent paper by Dora Costa, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looks at the living-standards debate from an unusual direction. Rather than worrying about cash incomes, Ms Costa investigates Americans' recreational habits over the past century. She finds that people of all income levels have steadily increased the amount of time and money they devote to having fu n. The distribution of dollar incomes may have become more skewed in recent years, but leisure is more evenly spread than ever.
C Ms Costa bases her research on consumption surveys dating back as far as 1888. The industrial workers surveyed in that year spent, on average, three-quarters of their incomes on food, shelter and clothing. Less than 2% of the average family's in come was spent on leisure but that average hid large disparities. The share of a family's budget that was spent on having fun rose sharply with its income: the lowest-income families in this working-class sample spent barely1% of their budgets on recreation, while higher earners spent more than 3%. Only the latter group could afford such extravagances as theatre and concert performances, which were relatively much more expensive than they are today.
D Since those days, leisure has steadily become less of a luxury. By 1991, the average household needed to devote only 38% of its income to the basic necessities, and was able to spend 6% on recreation. Moreover, Ms Costa finds that the share of the family budget spent on leisure now rises much less sharply wit h income than it used to. At the beginning of this century a family's recreation al spending tended to rise by 20% for every 10% rise in income. By 1972-73, a 10 % income gain led to roughly a 15% rise in recreational spending, and the increasefell to only 13% in 1991. What this implies is that Americans of all income levels are now able to spend much more of their money on having fun.
E One obvious cause is that real income overall has risen. If Americans in general are richer, their consumption of entertainment goods is less likely t o be affected by changes in their income. But Ms Costa reckons that rising incomes are responsible for, at most, half of the changing structure of leisure spending. Much of the rest may be due to the fact that poorer Americans have more time off than they used to. In earlier years, low-wage workers faced extremely long hours and enjoyed few days off. But since the 1940s, the less skilled (and lower paid) have worked ever-fewer hours, giving them more time to enjoy leisure pursuits.
F Conveniently, Americans have had an increasing number of recreational possibilities to choose from. Public investment in sports complexes, parks and golf courses has made leisure cheaper and more accessible. So too has technological innovation. Where listening to music used to imply paying for concert tickets or owning a piano, the invention of the radio made music accessible to everyone and virtually free. Compact discs, videos and other paraphernalia have widened the choice even further.
G At a time when many economists are pointing accusing fingers at technology for causing a widening inequality in the wages of skilled and unskilled workers, Ms Costa's research given it a much more egalitarian face. High earners have always been able to afford amusement. By lowering the price of entertainment, technology has improved the standard of living of those in the lower end of the income distribution. The implication of her results is that once recreation is taken into account, the differences in Americans' living standards may not have widened so much after all.
H These findings are not water-tight. Ms Costa's results depend heavily upon what exactly is classed as a recreational expenditure. Reading is an example. This was the most popular leisure activity for working men in 1888, accounting for one-quarter of all recreational spending. In 1991, reading took only 16% o f the entertainment dollar. But the American Department of Labour's expenditure surveys do not distinguish between the purchase of a mathematics tome and that o f a best-selling novel. Both are classified as recreational expenses. If more money is being spent on textbooks and professional books now than in earlier years , this could make “recreational” spending appear stronger than it really is.
I Although Ms Costa tries to address this problem by showing that her results still hold even when tricky categories, such as books , are removed from the sample, the difficulty is not entirely eliminated. None the less, her broad conclusion seems fair. Recreation is more available to all and less dependent on income. On this measure at least, inequality of living standards has fallen.
Questions 22-26
Complete each of the following statements Questions 22-26 using words from the box. Write the appropriate letters A-I in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.
22. It is easier to determine than living standards.
23. A decrease induring the 20th century led to a bigger investment in leisure.
24. According to Ms Costa, how much Americans spend on leisure has been directly affected by salaries and.
25. The writer notes both positive and negative influences of.
26. According to the writer, the way Ms Costa definedmay have bee n misleading.
A. recreational activities
B. the family budget
C. holiday time
D. government expenditure
E. computer technology
F. income levels
G. non-luxury spending
H. professional reading
I. high-income earners
Questions 27
Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in box 27 on your answer sheet.
The writer thinks that Ms Costa
A. provides strong evidence to support her theory.
B. displays serious flaws in her research methods.
C. attempts to answer too many questions.
D. has a useful overall point to make.
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40, which are based on ReadingPassage 3 below.
THE ART OF HEALING
As with so much, the medicine of the Tang Dynasty left its European counterpart in the shade. It boasted its own “national health service”, and left behind t he teachings of the incomparable Sun Simiao.
If no further evidence was available of the sophistication of China in the Tang era, then a look at Chinese medicine would be sufficient. At the Western end of the Eurasian continent the Roman empire had vanished, and there was nowhere new to claim the status of the cultural and political centre of the world. In fact, for a few centuries, this centre happened to be the capital of the Tang empire, and Chinese medicine under the Tang empire was far ahead of its European counter part. The organisational context of health and healing was structured to a degre e that had no precedence in Chinese history and found no parallel elsewhere.
An Imperial Medical Office had been inherited from previous dynasties: it was immediately restructured and staffed with directors and deputy directors, chief and assistant medical directors, pharmacists and curators of medicinal herb gardens and further personnel. Within the first two decades after consolidating its rule, the Tang administration set up one central and several provincial medical colleges with professors, lecturers, clinical practitioners and pharmacists to train students in one or all of the four departments of medicine, acupuncture, physical therapy and exorcism.
