Short-Term Reading Chinese is a series of textbooks written according to the characteristics of students of short-term training courses. Focusing on improving the students' ability in reading and comprehending Chinese texts and paragraphs, it combines intensive reading with fast reading and integrates some typical questions in HSK reading tests into the exercises. The selected texts cover a wide range of genres and styles and encompass a great number of topics and hot issues concerning all aspects of modern China so as to familiarize the students with the cultural background knowledge relevant to language learning. The series includes five volumes, namely Threshold, Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate and Advanced. Each volume comprises 12 lessons and each lesson is composed of two parts: intensive reading and fast reading. Both parts include new words, notes, texts and exercises. Each volume is suitable for students in a summer training course or a short-term training course of 6-10 weeks. This is the Elementary volume, which is designed for learners who have already mastered 800 Chinese words.