Made you look, didn't I? That's the beauty of the written word—it can draw you in and make you curious to know more. We've come a long way from ancient manuscripts to electronic documents on the Internet. But written words have always been a powerful medium of communication and a source of learning. So how do you make the most of those written words? By reading, of course. And in a second language, that's no easy task.

我反而讓你想要一探究竟了吧！這就是文字之美，它不但可以吸引你的注意，也讓你好奇得想要知道更多。自古老的手卷到如今網路上的電子文件，真是一條漫漫長路。但自古至今，文字一直都是有力的傳媒，也是一項學習的管道。所以，你如何善用文字呢？當然是靠閱讀了。然而用第二語言來閱讀，絕不是件容易的事。

manuscript (n)　手寫書卷；手稿
medium (pl. media) (n)　媒體
draw someone in (v phr)　吸引某人的注意


To make your job a little easier, here are some reading strategies that you may find useful:

1. Previewing. Look over the entire text before diving in. If it's a book, look at the table of contents. Read the introduction to get a general idea of what the author is writing about. If it's a magazine or newspaper article, look at the title or headline, the pictures and the captions to prepare you for what you'll be reading.

2. Scanning. Sometimes you're only looking for specific information, like a phone number or an address. If so, don't waste time reading the whole text.

3. Making inferences. You can often draw conclusions about things that are not clearly stated in the text. This is called "reading between the lines."

4. Looking for the main idea. Even when you don't grasp everything, you can still find the main point. Think: What is the author really trying to say?

5. Summarizing. Try to make a brief mental summary that gives the general idea of the text.

為了讓你的閱讀更容易些，以下是一些可能對你有幫助的閱讀策略：

1. 預讀。在精讀之前先大致看過全文一遍。若是一本書的話，就先看看目錄。讀一讀序言以大略了解作者寫了些什麼。若是雜誌或報紙上的一篇專刊，則可以先看標題或是題要、圖片及其說明，以作閱讀準備。

2. 瀏覽。有時候你只想找一個特定的資料，好比一個電話號碼或是地址。若是如此，別浪費時間去閱讀整篇文章。

3. 推論。你往往可以對文章中並未清楚說明的某事做個推斷。這就是所謂的讀出「言外之意」。

4. 先找出中心思想。甚至當你還未掌握每一件細節之時，你仍能發掘文中的要點。想想看：作者到底要說些什麼？

5. 作摘要。試著在心裡做一個能掌握文章大意的簡短的概論。

caption (n)　插圖說明
scan (v)　掃讀；匆匆一閱
grasp (v)　理解；領會
summarize (v)　摘要；概述
table of contents (n phr)　目錄
inference (n)　推論；推斷


One more tip: Read at your own level. If you're a Let's Talk In English reader, don't expect to understand articles in the Advanced section of Studio Classroom. Of course, to give yourself a challenge, you might occasionally try to read something just beyond your current language level.

By the way, I'm glad you ignored the title and read this anyway.

Since January 2001, the Advanced section of Studio Classroom has been published on its own as Advanced magazine.

另一個建議：閱讀適合你程度的文章。若你是「大家說英語」的讀者，別期望去了解「空中英語教室」中進修級的文章。當然，給自己一個挑戰，你也可以偶爾試著讀一些超過你現有程度的文章。

再者，我很高興你忽略此文章之標題，仍舊讀完它。