致命的收获

亲爱的老师们、同学们，由外语中教学与研究出版社和英国剑桥大学出版社联合出版的这套《外研社?剑桥英语分级读物》终于与国内读者见面了。它集原创性、针对性、时代性和多样性于一体，是一套理想的英语学习读物。 本套读物是我国目前引进的第一套专为非英语国家读者撰写的英语故事性读物，作者全部是经验丰富的英语教学专家。读物依据难易程度共分六级，每级四本，每本独立成篇。题材涉及广泛，包括喜剧、历险记、侦探小与、浪漫爱情故事和短篇故事等。内容涉及东西方多种地域和文化，情节扣人心弦，极富吸引力。读者在提高自身英语水平的同时，还会享受到阅读的巨大乐趣。
本套读物分为英汉对照版和英文注释版两种版本，以适应不同读者的不同需要。其中，英文注释版附有练习及配套音带，为不同程度的英语学习者在阅读中提供了及时而必要的帮助。 如果你们喜欢这套读物，请把它推荐给你们的朋友。如果你们对这套读物有什么意见和建议，也请告诉我们。
在此，我们谨向那些为这套读物的出版给予帮助和关切的老师们表示衷心的感谢！ “外研社?剑桥英语分级读物”是一套全新原创系列读物，特别适合英语学习者阅读。根据书中的词汇量和语言难易程度，读物由初级到高级分为六级。本套读物讲述的故事都具有题材广泛、主题现代、易于理解和趣味盎然的特点。衷心希望此套读物既能成为广大读者学习英语的得力助手，又能丰富大家的阅历，开拓大家的视野。

Characters
Places in the story
Acronyms
Before your reading
Prologue
Check your reading
Chapter 1 Going south
Chapter 2 Nothing exciting ever happens
Chapter 3 Timje to wae up
Chapter 4 Not a pretty sight
Chapter 5 The investigation begins
Chapter 6 An ordinary respectable woman
Chapter 7 The beekeeper
Chapter 8 A head full of bees
Chapter 9 The good news and the bad news
Chapter 10 The suspect's got a gun
Chapter 11 The confession
Chapter 12 Anasty open
Chapter 13 Another call in the night
Chapter 14 An undesirable situation
Chapter 15 Something odd
Chapter 16 Gotcha!
Chapter 17 The bee
Chapter 18 Operation wasp
Chapter 19 Astonishing reading
After your reading
Answer key
Summary
Level Chart(读物分级标准)
Grammatical Grading(每级针对的语法重点)

书摘
'Ah!' she cried and sat down on the wet grass, breathing 'heavily. The sudden, sharp pain had been so surprising that she couldn't imagine what had caused it. Then she saw, attached still to the back of her hand, a bee delivering its poison into her skin. Horrified, she knocked it away and watched the redness and swelling begin while the pain intensified...
She heard footsteps, rubber boots kicking small stones from the path so that they rolled down the hill. Looking up, she saw the face, black as thunder.
'Hey, you! Push offT.'
From deep within her came a strange, bitter laugh that she couldn't control. 'I know what's going on,' she said, breathing heavily. 'I'm going to the police.'
Her fingers found the handle of something, an axe, leaning against the wall. She picked it up.
She stood up, took a few steps back on the stony path and raised the axe in front of her. She couldn't look at that face boiling with anger. She concentrated on the black boots, but these moved quickly out of view. Hands grabbed the axe. She watched with a strange interest as it swung away from her, out of her hands, and then back towards her. She noticed how this monstrous-looking face seemed hypnotised now, a robot, programmed and unable to stop what was about to happen.
Her eyes closed just before she heard a distant thud, and a terrible, blinding pain exploded inside her head.
'Good morning, madam, can I help you?' said the police constable at the reception desk, looking at Jane carefully. Who was this woman? He did not remember having seen her before. She was tall and her face was pretty with short dark hair neatly cut. The sharp lines of her dark suit, together with the white silk blouse and low-heeled black shoes, gave her a businesslike appeaxance. Was she a lawyer,
new to the area, come to visit one of the bad boys arrested in the night for stealing a car? The policeman guessed, accurately, that she was in her early thirties.……