When do children start to talk? If you ask a group of parents when this happened, most will say “around twelve months of age”. They will probably even remember what the children said. Many parents keep a diary of their child’s “first words”.
We can never predict what a first word is going to be. Often it’s the name for “mummy” or “daddy”, but it could just as easily be the word for an animal or a favorite toy. Everything depends on what has most caught the child’s attention. But one thing is certain: after the first word, others come quickly. By 18 months, most children have learned about 50 words. By two, the total has risen to around 200.
Early words are actually one-word sentences. One of the first features（特征）of language a child learns well is to control the rise and fall of the voice to make the difference between stating and questioning. In English, daddy with a high rising tone（声调）means “is that daddy?” Daddy with a high falling tone means “There’s daddy”. Of course, only very basic meanings can be communicated using tones alone. So it soon becomes necessary to learn some grammar.
In English, grammar means learning to put words in different orders. Children have to see that mummy push is different from push mummy. They start practising such changes at around 18 months. By two, they have learned the basic patterns of word order, and we hear them saying such things as man kick ball and where daddy go.
What are the parents doing all his time? They’re acting as teachers and they always have an active role to play in their child’s language learning.
1. How old are most children when they have learned about 50 words?| A．About 6 months old. | B．About one year old. |
| C．About 18 months old. | D．About two years old. |
| A．Mummy. | B．Push mummy. | C．Man kick ball. | D．Where daddy go. |
| A．Word order. | B．Word tones. | C．The first words. | D．Correcting words. |
| A．Teachers. | B．Parents. | C．Friends. | D．Grandparents. |
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【推荐1】As an English person, I can speak three languages—English, German and French, so do you think British people are very good language learners? The fact is that they aren’t.
Some statistics from the survey done by the European Commission (欧盟委员会) showed that 62% of the British people only speak English. 38% speak at least one foreign language and 18% speak two or more. Compared with the British people, 56% of the people in other European countries speak at least one foreign language and 28% speak two or more. From this you can see that the British people are famous for not speaking foreign languages and that they are not good language learners in Europe.
And the survey also showed that English is the most widely spoken foreign language. Many European people can have a conversation in English. That’s why many people in the UK don’t think it is necessary to learn a foreign language.
In Britain, students aren’t required to learn a foreign language. That means learning a foreign language is only a choice at school. In British schools it’s common for children to start learning a foreign language at 11 and many of them give it up at 14. So why don’t students continue learning foreign languages at school? Because they think it’s more difficult to get good marks in languages than in other subjects such as science or history.
To solve this situation, the British government is looking for different ways to improve language learning at school. One way is to start learning it at a much younger age. Another one is to give school children more choices of foreign languages. Also, the government is trying to develop the better exam systems for foreign languages.
1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?| A．The people in England are good at learning languages. |
| B．Most of British people only speak English. |
| C．British people are known for speaking foreign languages. |
| D．Most of British people want to learn more than one language. |
| A．By offering more foreign languages for students to choose from at school. |
| B．By teaching foreign language for a longer time when they are young. |
| C．By making foreign language exams less difficult. |
| D．By teaching certain school subjects in a foreign language. |
| A．People in other European countries speak English as much as British people. |
| B．One British student can’t give up learning a foreign language until 14. |
| C．Students in Britain prefer to learn science or history rather than learn a foreign language. |
| D．It’s unusual for British students not to learn a foreign language. |
| A．Young English learners. | B．Schools in the UK. |
| C．Speaking English. | D．Foreign language learning in the UK. |
 • Foreigners in China I’m Calvin from the UK. I left my hometown in London last year and now I have enjoyed working in this small city in China. Learning a foreign language opens our eyes to the culture and history of a country. So in order to know more about China, I started to learn Chinese. But at times, I found myself in funny situations. When I greeted strangers in China, they began to talk a lot and very fast. They asked me questions about everything. But all I could do was to look at them with a blank face. I had no idea what they were talking about. Were they just being kind, funny or impolite? Many people wanted to make friends with me. But I was a bit upset when I found out the reason why they needed a foreign friend. They said they wanted to practice their English. I don’t need friends like this. I like friends to share my feelings and ideas with. However, the more Chinese I learn, the more similarities I find it has to English. In English, “thick-skinned” is to describe a person who doesn’t care about criticism. I was surprised to find that “houlianpi” in Chinese means the same. And both languages share some common idioms (习语). For example, “look on with folded arms” means “xiushoupangguan”, and “burn the boats” is similar to “pofuchenzhou”. I’m still on my journey to Chinese learning. I believe that you can also have the most fun on a journey. |
1. Calvin started to learn Chinese because _______.
| A．learning a foreign language was good for his journey |
| B．he wouldn’t work in China if he couldn’t speak Chinese |
| C．he wanted to learn more about Chinese culture and history |
| A．excited | B．confused(困惑的) | C．disappointed |
| A．practice English | B．share feelings | C．cheer him up |
| A．晒伤 | B．批评 | C．回报 |
| A．Calvin’s journey to Chinese learning |
| B．the differences between Chinese and English |
| C．the reasons why Calvin wants to learn Chinese |
【推荐3】This month in Travelers Corner there are three teenagers’ experiences in year-abroad programs.
Mariko Okada--Japan
My year abroad in the United States was a fantastic experience. I’m not a shy person, and I was very comfortable speaking to everyone. So I got lots of speaking practice. I also learned lots of interesting things about American culture. When I got home, my friends all said that I had improved so much! I hope to go back again in the future.
Carla Fonseca--Brazil
I spent last year studying English in London. I’m from a small town, and London is a very big city. Sometimes I felt it was too big. There were so many people to talk to, but I always felt embarrassed about my English. I missed my family, and I really missed my two cats. My roommate was always using our telephone, so I hardly had the chance for a nice long talk with my parents. I think it was a good experience for me, but I’m glad to be home!
Alvin Chen--Hong Kong
Studying in New Zealand was a fun experience for me, but it was also lots of hard work! I had English classes six hours a day, five days a week with lots of homework. I also kept a diary of my experience. I like to write, and I wrote two or three pages in my diary every day. On Saturdays, my alien family took me to lots of interesting places and showed me so many wonderful things about the culture. I’m really glad I went!
1. What is true about Mariko, Carla, and Alvin?| A．They are all good at English. |
| B．They all spent a year abroad. |
| C．They all studied in the same country. |
| D．They all hope to spend more time abroad in the future. |
| A．Carla. | B．Mariko. | C．Alvin. | D．Alvin and Carla. |
| A．she missed her cats | B．she was too shy to speak |
| C．she learned about some cultural things | D．her roommate was easy-going |
| A．she couldn’t speak English well |
| B．the phone call was so expensive |
| C．London was too big to find a pay phone |
| D．her roommate was always using the telephone |
| A．had a hard time | B．wrote letters to his parents |
| C．had lots of homework | D．visited lots of interesting people |
【推荐1】Many people say that they have a bad memory, especially when they are older. How can we improve our memory?
Many people think that repeating things is the best way to remember them. While this certainly helps short-term memory (remembering a telephone number for a few seconds, for example), psychologists (心理学家) aren’t sure whether it can help you remember things for very long. The British psychologist E.C. Stanford seemed to prove this point when he tested himself on five prayers (祈祷文), especially for remembering numbers, is grouping the information. The following numbers would be impossible for most of us to remember: 1492178919931848. But look at them in groups.
According to experts, there are many ways of training your memory. Many of them involve forming a mental picture of the things to be memorized. One method, which may be useful in learning foreign languages, is to create a picture in your mind connected to a word you want to remember.
Another method is to invent a story that includes all the things you want to remember. In experiments, people were asked to remember up to 120 words using this skill, when tested afterwards, they were able to recall 90% of them!
However, not all of us are interested in learning long lists of names and numbers just for fun. For those studying a large amount of information, psychologists suggest that the best way to form meaningful connections is to ask yourself lots of questions as you go along. So, if you were reading about a special disease, you would ask yourself questions like: “Do people get it from water?”
1. Which of the following is TRUE about repeating things according to the passage?| A．It helps short-term memory for sure. | B．It helps to remember things for long. |
| C．It makes remembering things interesting. | D．It makes remembering prayers easily. |
| A．experts | B．ways | C．pictures | D．languages |
| A．Creating a picture is useful in learning Maths. |
| B．Inventing a prayer trains our memory quickly. |
| C．Remembering long numbers is easy for people. |
| D．Asking yourself questions is helpful for the memory. |
| A．To show that the writer’s memory is bad. | B．To know some memory problems. |
| C．To share some ways of improving memory. | D．To teach some memory experiments. |
We know that there is air all around the world. And we could not breathe without air. Airplanes could not fly without air. They need air to lift their wings. Airplanes can not fly very high because as they go higher the air gets thinner. If we go far enough away from the earth, we find that there is no air.
What is the sky? Nothing. Where is it? It is all around the world. The sky is space. In this space there is nothing except the sun, the moon and all the stars.
The moon is about 384,000 kilometers away from the earth. An airplane cannot fly to the moon because the air reaches to an altitude of only 240 kilometers. Then there is no air. But there is something that can fly even when there is no air. It is a rocket.
How does a rocket fly? If you want to know, get a balloon and blow it up, until it is quite big. Do not tie up the neck o f the balloon. Let go! The balloon will fly off through the air very quickly. The air inside the balloon tries to get out. It reaches out through the neck of the balloon and this pushes the balloon through the air. It does not need wings like airplane.
1. The sky is full of ________.| A．air | B．dust | C．stars | D．cloud |
---Within ________.
| A．420,000 kilometers | B．1,000 kilometers | C．240 kilometers | D．2,000 kilometers |
| A．as high as an airplane | B．higher than an airplane |
| C．not so high as an airplane | D．as far as 240 kilometers |
| A．plane | B．bird | C．kite | D．balloon |
| A．they don’t have many wings to support themselves |
| B．the air there gets thinner, and they need air to lift their wings |
| C．man has never tried to drive them very high |
| D．they need balloons to pull them up into the sky |
【推荐3】Different weather makes people feel different. It influences (影响) health, intelligence (智力) and feelings.
In August, it is very hot and wet in the southern part of the United States. People there have heart problems in this month. In the northeast and the Middle West, it is very hot at some times and very cold at other times. People in these states have more heart problems after the weather changes (改变) quickly in February or March.
The weather can also influence intelligence. For example, the IQs of a group of students were very high when a very strong wind came, but after the strong wind, their IQs were 10% lower. The wind can help people have higher intelligence. Very hot weather, on the other hand, can make it lower. Students in many schools of the United States often get worse (更糟) on exams in the hot months of the year.
Weather also has a strong influence on people’s feelings. Winter may be a bad time for thin people. They usually feel cold in these months. They may feel gloomy and don’t want to talk to anyone in cold weather. But fat people may have a hard time in hot summer. People feel best at a temperature of about 18℃.
Are you feeling sad, tired, or unhappy today? It may be the weather’s problem.
1. According to the passage, we know people will be ill more often because ________.| A．the wind is too strong | B．the weather is hot and wet |
| C．the weather changes very much | D．people don’t wear too many clothes |
| A．A very strong wind can make people smart. |
| B．Hot weather can help students study better. |
| C．It’s always hot in the Middle West. |
| D．Different countries have different weather. |
| A．fat people may feel hard at a temperature of about 18℃ |
| B．thin people feel tired in cold weather |
| C．the cold weather is bad for fat people |
| D．different weather makes people feel different |
| A．幸福的 | B．亢奋的 | C．郁闷的 | D．自信的 |
