For many people today, reading is no longer relaxation. To keep up their work they must re

ad letters, reports, trade publications, interoffice communications, not to mention newspapers and magazines: a never-ending flood of words. In【C1】______a job or advancing in one, the ability to read and comprehend【C2】______can mean the difference between success and failure. Yet the un fortunate fact is that most of us are【C3】______readers. Most of us develop poor reading habits at an early age, and never【C4】______them. The main deficiency【C5】______in the actual stuff of language itself—words. Taken individually, words have【C6】______meaning until they are strung together into phrases, sentences and paragraphs.【C7】______, however, the untrained reader does not read groups of words. He laboriously reads one word at a time, often regressing to【C8】______words or passages. Regression, the tendency to look back over【C9】______you have just read, is a common bad habit in reading. Another habit which【C10】______down the speed of reading is vocalization—sounding each word either orally or mentally as one reads.

To【C11】______these bad habits, some reading clinics use a device called an【C12】______, which moves a bar(or curtain)down the page at a predetermined speed. The bar is set at a slightly faster rate【C13】______the reader finds comfortable, in order to "stretch" him. The accelerator forces the reader to read fast,【C14】______word-by-word reading, regression and sub-vocalization, practically impossible. At first【C15】______is sacrificed for speed. But when you learn to read ideas and concepts, you will not only read faster,【C16】______your comprehension will improve. Many people have【C17】______their reading skill drastically improved after some training.【C18】______Charlie Au, a business manager, for instance. His reading rate was a【C19】______good 172 words a minute【C20】______the training; now it is an excellent 1,378 words a minute. He is delighted that he can get through a lot more reading material in a short period of time.

【C1】

A．applying

B．doing

C．offering

D．getting