Reading is a good habit, but the problem is that there's too much to read, and too little time to read every word of it. So ①we need to find good ways to read faster. There are hundreds of skills (技巧) to help you read more in less time. Here are two skills that I think are especially good.

Preview (预看) —if it's long and hard. This skill is especially useful for ideas of heavy reading like long magazine articles (文章) and business reports (报告).

    Here's how the preview goes.

●Read the first two paragraphs (段落) and the last two paragraphs carefully.

●Then read only the first sentence of the other paragraphs.

    This skill doesn't give you all the details (细节, 详情). It stops you spending time on things you don't really want or need to read.

    Skim (略读)—if it's short and simple (简单的). Skimming is a good way to get ideas of light reading like popular magazines or sports and entertainment (娱乐) papers.

    Here's how to skim.

    ●Get your eyes to move fast. Sweep across each line.

    ●Pick up only a few ②key words in each line.

    Everybody skims differently. You and I may not pick up the same words when we skim the same piece, but we'll get a similar (相似的) idea of what it's mainly about.

    A young man entered the last interview of a company. The director learnt that the young man's academic (学业的) grades were very good. "Did you get any scholarships (奖学金) in school?" the director asked. "None." The young man answered. "Did your father pay for your school fees?" the director asked. "My father died when I was one year old, so my mother paid my school fees." The young man answered.

    "Where did your mother work?" the director asked. "My mother washed clothes." The young man said. The director looked at the young man's hands. He had a pair of smooth and perfect hands.

    "Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?" the director asked. "Never." The young man answered. "I have a request," the director said. When you go back today, wash your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning."

    The young man felt that his chance of getting the job was high. When he went back. He happily asked his mother to let him wash her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings. She showed her hands to the kid. The young man washed his mother's hands slowly. His tears fell when he did that. It was the first time he had noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled (有皱纹的).He realized it was this pair of hands that helped him pay the fees.

    The next morning, the young man went to the director's office. "I washed my mother's hands, and I know that without my mother, I would not be the person I am today." He said.

    "This is what I am looking for," the director said. "I want a person who can appreciate (感激) the help of others to get things done. You will be a member of our company.

    Language is always changing and developing. This isn't a bad thing. If English hadn't changed for a long time, we won't have words to describe telephones, washing machines, computers or some other new things.

    Language changes for several reasons. First, it changes because the needs of its speaker change. New technologies, new products, and new experiences need new words to express them clearly. Another reason for change is that different people have different language experiences. People use different sets of words and expressions, because they have different ages, jobs, education levels(水平) and so on.

    How does language develop then? On the one hand, many of the languages changes begin with young people. When young people communicate with others of their own age, their language grows in grammar, words and expressions that are different from the older people's. Some have a short lifetime but others can influence the language for long. On the other hand, we get new words in many different ways. We borrow them from other languages, we create them by making words shorter or combining words and we make them out of proper names.

    Languages that don't change over time are considered dead languages. The fact that English changes so much shows that it is alive and well.