【推荐1】How the languages of the world appeared is largely a mystery. Considering that it might have taken thousands of years, it is attractive to see how deaf people can create novel sign languages spontaneously. Interestingly, children played an important role in the development of these novel languages. However, how exactly this happened has not been documented.

In a series of studies, researchers attempted to recreate exactly this process. Children were invited to stay in two different rooms and an online connection was set up between them. After a brief familiarisation with the set-up, the researchers sneakily (偷偷地) turned off the sound and watched as the children found new ways of communicating that go beyond spoken language.

The children’s task was to describe an image with different themes in a co-ordination game. With concrete thing—like a hammer or a fork—children quickly found a solution by imitating the matching action, for example, eating, in a gesture. But the researchers repeatedly challenged the children with new, more abstract pictures. In the course of the study, the images to be described became more and more complex, which was also reflected in the gestures that the children produced. In order to communicate,the children invented separate gestures and began to combine them—thus creating a kind of small local grammar.

How does a language come into being? Based on the present study, the following steps appear reasonable: First, people create reference to actions and objects through signs that resemble things. The precondition for this is a common ground of experience between interaction partners. Partners also co-ordinate (协调) by imitating each other so that they use the same signs for the same things. The signs thus gain interpersonal and eventually conventional meaning. Over time, the relationships between the signs and things become more abstract and the meaning of the individual signs becomes more specific. Grammatical structures are gradually introduced when there is a need to communicate complex facts. However, the most remarkable aspect of the current studies is that these processes can be observed under controlled circumstances and within 30 minutes.

1. How did the researchers carry out the experiment?

A．By making the communication in total silence.

B．By inferring and copying the documented materials.

C．By observing children communicating face to face.

D．By listening secretly to the communication of children.

2. What should children do in the studies?

A．Show how to do different things with different tools.

B．Take several oral examinations on languages.

C．Describe things to others without spoken languages.

D．Name some abstract objects which they have never seen.

3. What is the process of creating a language?

A．Signs→Accepted meaning→Interpersonal meaning→Language

B．Interpersonal meaning→Accepted meaning→Signs→Language

C．Accepted meaning→Interpersonal meaning→Signs→Language

D．Signs→Interpersonal meaning→Accepted meaning→Language

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．The development of novel sign languages.

B．The formation of languages.

C．The role children play in creating languages.

D．The circumstances of languages coming into being.

【推荐2】Survival in the Wild

Plants and animals have the hard job of surviving in a very wild world. How do they do it?    1    Camouflage(保护色) is one way animals use to survive. For some animals, this means that their fur, scales, or skin are a similar color to the land around them. Deer, for example, have brown fur that match(和……相匹配)the trees, so it’s harder for hunters to see them. This saves them from becoming food to a larger animal.    2    Many   people   think   of   chameleons   when   they   think   of   this   type   of camouflage, but rabbits are a great example as well. Some rabbits’ fur will change colors depending on the season. Their fur might be brown in spring, summer, and autumn to match the trees, but the brown fur will fall out and white fur will grow in the winter to match the snow.    3    

Some insects, instead of matching their environment, look like something else that will stop animals from eating them. A walking stick looks just like a stick so that hunters will pass it by without noticing it.

Some moths and butterflies have designs on their wings that make them look like snakes or owls, to frighten away their hunters.

    4    They want to be easily noticed to survive! Many plants grow flowers with colorful petals(花瓣) to attract bees. The bees help pollinate the flowers so that they can produce new flowers.

Instead of hiding, some plants and animals develop structures to hurt anything that tries to hurt them. Some plants develop thorns(刺)so that animals will not eat them.    5    Hedgehogs even have spikes(尖刺), called quills or spines, covering their backs so animals won’t want to eat them!

There are many ways plants and animals have adapted to survive in the wild. Do you know of any other ways?

A．Some animals have extremely sharp teeth so they can fight off other animals.

B．Some animals can actually change colors to match their environment.

C．As a result, the rabbit has different colors in different seasons.

D．There are many ways plants and animals have used in order to survive.

E．This way the rabbit is safer from hunters year-round.

F．For some plants, however, they don’t want to match their environment.

G．But some plants survive in a quite different way.

【推荐1】Whenever we see a button, we want to press it because we know that something will happen. This is true in most cases, for example, on a doorbell. But some buttons are actually fake (假的), like the “close” button on a lift.

Many people are in the habit of pressing the “close” button because they don’t have the patience to wait for the lift doors to shut. But lifts’ “close” buttons are a complete trick, at least in the US — the doors will not close any faster no matter how hard you press.

It started in the 1990s when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in the US, making sure that all lifts stayed open long enough so that people with disabilities could enter. Only US firefighters and repairmen can use the buttons to speed up the door-closing process if they have a code or special keys.

But to normal lift riders, the buttons aren’t completely useless. According to psychologists, fake buttons can actually make you feel better by offering you a sense of control.

“A sense of control is very important. It reduces stress and increases well-being,” said Ellen J. Langer, a psychology professor at Harvard University. Experts also added that a lot of buttons that don’t do anything exist in our lives for this same purpose.

For example, pedestrian crosswalk buttons don’t live up to their names either. Pressing them used to help make the traffic signals change faster, but that was before computer controlled traffic signals were introduced.

But psychologists found it interesting that even when people are aware of these little “white lies’’, they still continue to push fake buttons because as long as the doors eventually close, it is considered to be worth the effort.

1. What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?

A．To analyze the functions of fake buttons.	B．To describe different fake buttons.
C．To explore various habits of pushing buttons.	D．To explain the disadvantages of fake buttons.

2. What can we learn about the “close” buttons on a lift in America?

A．They work when people press them hard.	B．They were designed for a sense of control.
C．They never speed up the door-closing process.	D．They take the safety of the disabled into account.

3. What can we infer about pedestrian crosswalk buttons?

A．They can make people feel better.	B．They help computers work faster.
C．They can control the traffic signals.	D．They help pedestrians cross safely.

4. Which may be the best title for the passage?

A．Buttons in the USA	B．Buttons Always Lie
C．Buttons May not Work	D．“Close” Buttons on Lifts’