In chapter 1 focus on section 1.1 and in particular 1.1.4. The remainder of the chapter decribes the intellectual diversity and the rather interesting history of the field.
The main question you should be able to answer after reading section 1.1 is:
In chapter 2, section 2.1 defines broadly the concept of a rational agent and defines some important terminology. Section 2.2 defines what it means for an agent to be rational and the limits of a rational agent. Section 2.3 defines the salient characteristics of environments and the major classes of environments. Finally section 2.4 describes broadly five overlapping categories of agents.
Questions you should be able to answer after reading are:
Chapter 2 also begins using pseudocode to describe algorithms. Since you will be spending a large amount of time interpreting such psuedocode, now is the time to get familiar with the book's notation. This is covered in section B.2 of the appendix. Experience has shown that the inability to read and properly interpret the pseudocode becomes a source of frustration latter in the course.
Some Advice: get used to reading the book's pseudocode early in the semester when the algorithms are high-level and simple to follow. This will pay off later in the semester.