Text A

My First Job

　While I was waiting to enter university, I saw advertised in a local newspaper a teaching post at a school in a suburb of London about ten miles from where I lived. Being very short of money and wanting to do something useful, I applied, fearing as I did so, that without a degree and with no experience in teaching my chances of getting the job were slim.

　　However, three days later a letter arrived, asking me to go to Croydon for an interview. It proved an awkward journey: a train to Croydon station; a ten-minute bus ride and then a walk of at least a quarter of a mile. As a result I arrived on a hot June morning too depressed to feel nervous.

　　The school was a red brick house with big windows. The front garden was a gravel square; four evergreen shrubs stood at each corner, where they struggled to survive the dust and fumes from a busy main road.

　　It was clearly the headmaster himself that opened the door. He was short and fat. He had a sandy-colored moustache, a wrinkled forehead and hardly any hair.

　　He looked at me with an air of surprised disapproval, as a colonel might look at a private whose bootlaces were undone. ‘Ah yes,' he grunted. ‘ You'd better come inside.' The narrow, sunless hall smelled unpleasantly of stale cabbage; the walls were dirty with ink marks; it was all silent. His study, judging by the crumbs on the carpet, was also his dining-room. ‘You'd better sit down,' he said, and proceeded to ask me a number of questions: what subjects I had taken in my General School Certificate; how old I was; what games I played; then fixing me suddenly with his bloodshot eyes, he asked me whether I thought games were a vital part of a boy's education. I mumbled something about not attaching too much importance to them. He grunted. I had said the wrong thing. The headmaster and I obvious had very little in common.

　　The school, he said, consisted of one class of twenty-four boys, ranging in age from seven to thirteen. I should have to teach all subjects except art, which he taught himself. Football and cricket were played in the Park, a mile away on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.

　　The teaching set-up filled me with fear. I should have to divide the class into three groups and teach them in turn at three different levels; and I was dismayed at the thought of teaching algebra and geometry--- two subjects at which I had been completely incompetent at school. Worse perhaps was the idea of Saturday afternoon cricket; most of my friends would be enjoying leisure at that time.

　　I said shyly, ‘What would my salary be?' ‘Twelve pounds a week plus lunch.' Before I could protest, he got to his feet. ‘Now', he said, ‘you'd better meet my wife. She's the one who really runs this school.'

　　This was the last straw. I was very young; the prospect of working under a woman constituted the ultimate indignity.

Text B

Improving Your Reading Rate

　　Fortunately, reading rate is quite easy for most people to improve. Most people who take courses in reading improvement find that they can greatly improve their rate if reading without any negative effect on comprehension. In fact, comprehension very often improves.

　　The amount of improvement you experience will depend on a number of factors. Your current level of skill, your school history, your reading vocabulary, and your general background will all play a part. However, the most important factor is your motivation. Your have to be eager to improve and be willing to try new ways to read faster. And you need to practice what you learn in this book on other reading material.

　　Like most skills, reading about improving reading is not enough. You have to actually do the improving, practicing new, higher reading rates until they become easy to you. If you do practice enough at higher rates, you will soon find that you read faster without even having to think about it.

　　It is difficult to predict what any one person will do. However, we do have a great deal of evidence that, on an average, people more than double their rate of reading in working through a course like this. If they try especially hard they will do better. Some will improve much more than others. Typical results show rate increase of from 40 percent to over 300 percent.

　　Before actually starting improving your reading rate, you may read the following questions:

１．  How shall I improve my reading rate?

　　One way of increasing your improvement is to set specific goals for each practice session. It has been shown that goal setting really helps by giving you something to aim for. Changing reading habits will be easier if you have small-step goals to reach, one at a time.

２．  Can I make constant improvement?

　　The typical results of a course like this are somewhat irregular. A few people do show a regular pattern of constant rate increase. However the more frequent problem is one in which the rate goes up unevenly. Sometimes no improvement will take place for a while, and then a big jump will occur. It seems that some people need to practice at a rate for a while before they can go on to the next step. Don't be discouraged if you don't always achieve the goals you set on each unit. Keep moving up your goals, and you will get there eventually.

３． What are the lasting effects of reading –rate improvement?

　　The long-term effects of efforts to improve reading rate very a lot from person to person. They depend on whether or not you continue to practice the skills learned as you improve. Studies of long-term results show a great deal of variation, but the average person will maintain between 60 and 100 percent of the gains made. Some people who keep working at it will never stop improving.

４． Could I be too old to improve?

　　No. Often the best results are obtained by people who are older. They have more experience, more opportunity to develop an adequate vocabulary, and then they are mature enough to make the commitment that it takes to put a serious effort into improving.

５．  Can I learn to read 20,000 words per minute?

　　Not if you mean “read” as most readers use the term. It is possible using techniques that most people call skimming or scanning, to cover material at almost any speed. However, comprehension will be limited to what can be obtained by seeing only part of the material.

　　Even though astronomical rates aren't possible with complete comprehension, there is still a great deal of room for valuable rate improvement. The typical reader, perhaps reading 200 or 250 words per minute on easy material, can probably at least double reading speed. That would mean a saving of half the time spend reading. Over a period of years, hundreds of hours of reading and study time would be saved.