Grown-ups are often surprised by how well they remember something they learned as children but have never practiced ever since. A man who has not had a chance to go swimming for years can still swim as well as ever when he gets back in the water. He can get on a bicycle after many years and still ride away. A mother who has not thought about the words for years can teach her daughter the poem that begins "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" or remember the story of Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
One explanation is the law of overlearning, which can be stated as follows: Once we have learned something, extra learning attempts or tries to increase the length of time we will remember it.
In childhood we usually continue to practice such skills as swimming, and bicycle riding long after we have learned them. We continue to listen to and remind ourselves of words such as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and childhood tales such as Cinderella and Goldilocks. We not only learn but overlearn.
The multiplication tables(乘法口诀表) are an exception（例外） to the general rule that we forget rather quickly the things that we learn in school, because they are another of the things we overlearn in childhood.
The law of overlearning explains why cramming(突击学习)for an examination, though it may result in a passing grade, is not a satisfactory way to learn a college course. By cramming, a student may learn the subject well enough to pass the examination, but he is likely soon to forget almost everything he learned. A little overlearning, on the other hand, is really necessary for one's future development.
1. What is the main idea of paragraph 1?| A．People remember well what they learned in childhood. |
| B．Children have a better memory than grown-ups. |
| C．Poem reading is a good way to learn words. |
| D．Stories for children are easy to remember. |
| A．remember the good old days |
| B．let readers follow the example |
| C．explain the law of overlearning |
| D．help readers understand the importance of knowledge |
| A．a step towards studies | B．a result of overlearning |
| C．a special case of cramming | D．a skill to deal with math problems |
| A．It's helpful only in a limited way. | B．It causes failure in college exams. |
| C．It's possible to result in poor memory. | D．It increases students' learning interest. |
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【推荐1】In colleges around the country, most students are also workers.
The reality of college can be pretty different from the images presented in movies and television. Instead of the students who wake up late, party all the time, and study only before exams, many colleges are full of students with pressing schedules of not just classes and activities, but real jobs, too.
This isn't a temporary phenomenon. The share of working students has been on the rise since the 1970s, and one-fifth of students work year round. About one-quarter of those who work while attending school have both a full-course load and a full-time job. The arrangement can help pay for tuition (学费) and living costs, obviously. And there's value in it beyond the direct cause: such jobs can also be critical for developing important professional and social skills that make it easier to land a job after graduation. With many employers looking for students with already-developed skill sets, on-the-job training while in college can be the best way to ensure a job later on.
But it's not all upside. Even full-time work may not completely cover the cost of tuition and living expenses. The study notes that if a student worked a full-time job at the federal minimum wage, they would earn just over $15,000 each year, certainly not enough to pay for tuition, room, and board at many colleges without some serious financial aid. That means that though they're sacrificing time away from the classroom, many working students will still graduate with at least some debt. And working full time can reduce the chance that students will graduate at all, by cutting into the time available for studying and attending classes.
There is little reward for attending but not finishing college. Students who wind up leaving school because of difficulty in managing work and class are likely to find themselves stuck in some of the same jobs they might have gotten if they hadn't gone at all. The difficulty of working too much while in school can create a cycle that pushes students further into debt without receiving any of the financial or career benefits.
1. According to the passage, the reality of college students is that _________.| A．they throw parties a lot | B．they stay up late every night |
| C．they pay no attention to exams | D．they work besides attending classes |
| A．keep | B．quit |
| C．get | D．lose |
| A．working students are more likely to finish college |
| B．students can cover their college expenses through working |
| C．students receive a huge reward for managing work and class |
| D．dropping out of college may not help students get career benefits |
| A．The Difficulties of Landing a Job |
| B．The Struggle of Work-School Balance |
| C．The Reward of Working While Studying |
| D．The Images of Working College Students |
【推荐2】In Washington, DC, only 69 percent of public school students graduate from high school on time. Many factors influence that low rate. One of the most important ones is whether the people around the students expect them to succeed.
So, for the past 40 years, a DC organisation has stepped in to give around 10,000 students the support and positive environment they need to thrive (茁壮成长). This organisation, called Higher Achievement, provides students with a welcoming space, help with class work, and caring teachers. More than 95 percent of students who complete Higher Achievement graduate from high school on time.
Katherine Roboff is the group’s executive director in the DC area. She gives several reasons for the group’s success. One is timing. Higher Achievement does not work with students who are already in high school. It works with students in middle school. They start High Achievement at fifth or sixth grade—in the US, that is usually age 11 or 12.
Roboff says research shows that if students are doing well academically in eighth grade—around age 13—they will have a greater chance of graduating from high school and going to college. In other words, what happens in middle school has a huge impact. The years between ages 10 and 13 may affect a student’s future more than anything that happens academically in high school.
Roboff explains that students participate in Higher Achievement after school and during the summer, when public schools take a break of about two months. High Achievement students do homework, have community meetings, and work one-on-one with a mentor (导师).
“The purpose of the programme is to help them use those after school and summer hours to become better prepared academically and to develop their leadership skills and confidence so that by the time they get into eighth grade they are ready to get into some of the top high school.”
1. A little more than 30% of public school students in the US ______.| A．drop out of school |
| B．work hard at their lessons |
| C．can’t finish school on time |
| D．are expected to graduate from high school |
| A．Higher Achievement is a great success. |
| B．Higher Achievement works with college students. |
| C．Many students have doubts about the organisation. |
| D．Higher Achievement has spread throughout the US. |
| A．they are certain to go to college |
| B．they are to succeed when they grow up |
| C．they don’t need any help in their studies |
| D．they are more likely to finish high school on time |
| A．To offer students advice. |
| B．To help student get into top schools. |
| C．To teach students how to behave at school. |
| D．To provide students with different activities. |
【推荐3】The trouble with school is that you can’t choose the people you get to see every day. If you’re unlucky enough to be stuck with classmates who don’t really “get” you, you’ve just got to try to make the best of it.
But that doesn’t mean you need to “fit in”, or at least in the way that people think. If you try to transform yourself into a clone of everyone else, it won’t help you make friends. It’ll just make you feel like a fake.
You also shouldn’t shut down or refuse to be friends with everyone who doesn’t like you. If you do that, you’ll just make yourself miserable. Instead, you’ve got to work on being comfortable and confident with whom you are while ignoring（忽略）all the haters. Keep on speaking up, asking questions and getting to know people better. If you send out positive energy, then people will generally send some back to you. A couple of them will stay the same, and you’re allowed to forget about them.
If you feel like you’ve doing all that but still not getting anywhere, then don’t give up. Just expand your circle. Get a part-time job at a cool-looking place, join an after-school art class or youth group—do whatever it takes to find a couple of like-minded people to connect with. Even if you don’t find anyone right away, you’ll still be getting some more social experiences under your belt, and that’s always a good thing.
A fun book called Uncool, by Erin Elisabeth Conley, has some tips for folks like you who want to stay positive at school while being true to your personality:
• Throw caution to the wind.
• Don’t tolerate others’ mistakes.
• Have patience with people who are different from you.
• Don’t change just because someone else thinks you should.
• Know that even though you may be a misfit, there’s always some place where you will be welcomed in the world.
1. According to the author, what should you do if you meet people who don’t appreciate you?| A．Just give up. |
| B．Ask someone else for help. |
| C．Show positive attitude toward them |
| D．Try your best to fit in with them. |
| A．get more chances of making friends |
| B．lay a better foundation for your future jobs |
| C．transform yourself into a clone. |
| D．make you feel like a fake. |
| A．always be kind to your friends |
| B．keep your own personality |
| C．tolerate others’ mistakes |
| D．help improve characters of others |
【推荐1】“Man is by nature a social animal,” the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote more than 2,000years ago. From the time you enter this world, you start communicating. Your first cry is your first attempt at verbal (口头的) communication. And as you start growing, you find newer ways of communication. You learn to form words and sentences to communicate.
Verbal communication means effectively presenting your thoughts verbally.
Verbal communication is a broad topic. There are various elements that help us organize our thoughts around it. They include the tone, speed, and volume of your speech.
A variety of challenges may arise in verbal communication. Although difficulties with verbal communication can’t be entirely avoided, it is possible to increase your chances of communicating successfully. Consider the message you wish to communicate before speaking and communicate with respect for the recipient’s point of view.
| A．Pay attention to what you say and how you say it. |
| B．Its relevant skills are essential in the world of business. |
| C．Verbal communication can be classified into two main types. |
| D．This is the beginning of the real sense of verbal communication. |
| E．Language barriers are a major cause of confusion in verbal communication. |
| F．Everyone has a unique style of communicating and understanding messages. |
| G．Additionally, grammar and vocabulary are critical aspects of verbal communication. |
【推荐2】No student of a foreign language needs to be told that grammar is complex. By changing the order of the words and by adding a range of auxiliary verbs (助动词) and suffixes (后缀), we can turn a statement into a question, state whether an action has taken place or is soon to take place, and perform many other word tricks to convey different meanings. However, the question which many language experts can’t understand and explain is — who created grammar?
Some recent languages evolved due to the Atlantic slave trade. Since the slaves didn’t know each other’s languages, they developed a make-shift language called a pidgin. Pidgins are strings of words copied from the language of the landowners. They have little in the way of grammar, and speakers need to use too many words to make their meaning understood. Interestingly, however, all it takes for a pidgin to become a complex language is for a group of children to be exposed to it at the time when they learn their mother tongue. Slave children didn’t simply copy the strings of words used by their elders. They adapted their words to create an expressive language. In this way complex grammar systems which come from pidgins were invented.
Further evidence can be seen in studying sign languages for the deaf. Sign languages are not simply a group of gestures; they use the same grammatical machinery that is found in spoken languages. The creation of one such language was documented quite recently in Nicaragua. Previously, although deaf children were taught speech and lip reading in the classrooms, in the playgrounds they began to invent their own sign system, using the gestures they used at home. It was basically a pidgin and there was no consistent grammar. However, a new system was born when children who joined the school later developed a quite different sign language. It was based on the signs of the older children, but it was shorter and easier to understand, and it had a large range of special use of grammar to clarify the meaning. What’s more, they all used the signs in the same way. So the original pidgin was greatly improved.
Most experts believe that many of the languages were pidgins at first. They were initially used in different groups of people without standardization and gradually evolved into a widely accepted system. The English past tense—“ed” ending — may have evolved from the verb “do”. “It ended” may once have been “It end-did”. It seems that children have grammatical machinery in their brains. Their minds can serve to create logical and complex structures, even when there is no grammar present for them to copy.
1. What can be inferred about the slaves’ pidgin language?| A．It was difficult to understand. |
| B．It came from different languages. |
| C．It was created by the landowners. |
| D．It contained highly complex grammar. |
| A．No consistent signs were used for communication. |
| B．Most of the gestures were made for everyday activities. |
| C．The hand movements were smoother and more attractive. |
| D．The meaning was clearer than the previous sign language. |
| A．English grammar of past tense system is inaccurate. |
| B．Children say English past tense differently from adults. |
| C．The thought that English was once a pidgin is acceptable. |
| D．Experts have proven that English was created by children. |
| A．The Creators of Grammar | B．The History of Languages |
| C．Why Pidgins Came into Being | D．How Grammar Systems Are Used |
【推荐3】If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven’t you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?
According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.
The study also found the effect is greater when the younger people learn a second language. A team led by Dr. Andrea Mechelli, from University College London, took a group of Britons who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of “early bilinguals” who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.
Scans showed that grey matter density (密度) in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference.
“Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language,” said the scientists.
It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.
Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales, has researched the link between bilingualism and maths skills. “Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible (灵活的),” he said. “You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas. ”
The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and thirty-four. Reading, writing, and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. “Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world,” explained the scientists.
1. The main subject talked about in this passage is ________.| A．science on learning a second language |
| B．man’s ability of learning a second language |
| C．that language can help brain power |
| D．language learning and maths study |
| A．say language is also a kind of physical labor |
| B．prove that one needs more practice when he (she) is learning a language |
| C．to show the importance of using the language when you learn the language |
| D．make people believe language learning helps grey matter work well |
| A．a researcher on language learning |
| B．a second language learner |
| C．a person who can speak two languages |
| D．an active language learner |
| A．learning a second language is the same as studying maths |
| B．early learning of a second language helps you a great deal in studying other subjects |
| C．Italian is the best choice for you as a second language |
| D．you’d better choose the ages between 2 and 34 to learn a second language |
