People are like potatoes.
After potatoes have been harvested, they have to be spread out and sorted
One farmer never bothered to sort the potatoes at all. Yet he made
That’s not only true
Language learning begins with listening. Children are greatly different in the amount of listening they do before they start speaking, and late starters are often long listeners. Most children will “obey” spoken instructions some time before they can speak, though the word obey is hardly accurate as a description of the eager and delighted cooperation usually shown by the child. Before they can speak, many children will also ask questions by gesture and by making questioning noises.
Any attempt to trace the development from the noises babies make to their first spoken words leads to considerable difficulties. It is agreed that they enjoy making noises, and that during the first few months one or two noises sort themselves as particularly indicative of delight, pain, friendliness, and so on. But since these cannot be said to show the baby's intention to communicate, they can hardly be regarded as early forms of language. It is agreed, too, that from about three months they play with sounds for enjoyment, and that by six months they are able to add new words to their store. This self-imitation(模仿) leads on to deliberate(有意的) imitation of sounds made or words spoken to them by other people. The problem then arises as to the point at which one can say that these imitations can be considered as speech.
It is a problem we need to get out teeth into. The meaning of a word depends on what a particular person means by it in a particular situation and it is clear that what a child means by a word will change as he gains more experience of the world. Thus the use at seven months of “mama” as a greeting for his mother cannot be dismissed as a meaningless sound simply because he also uses it at other times for his father, his dog, or anything else he likes. Playful and meaningless imitation of what other people say continues after the child has begun to speak for himself, I doubt, however whether anything is gained when parents take advantage of this ability in an attempt to teach new sounds.
1. Before children start speaking__________.| A．they need equal amount of listening |
| B．they need different amounts of listening |
| C．they are all eager to cooperate with the adults by obeying spoken instructions |
| D．they can’t understand and obey the adult’s oral instructions |
| A．may have problems with their listening |
| B．probably do not hear enough language spoken around them |
| C．usually pay close attention to what they hear |
| D．often take a long time in learning to listen properly |
| A．an expression of his moods and feelings |
| B．an early form of language |
| C．a sign that he means to tell you something |
| D．an imitation of the speech of adults |
| A．is important because words have different meanings for different people |
| B．is not especially important because the changeover takes place gradually |
| C．is one that should be properly understood because the meaning of words changes with age |
| D．is one that should be completely ignored(忽略) because children’s use of words is often meaningless |
When he arrived at New Lanark it was a dirty little town with a population of 2,000 people. Nobody paid any attention to the workers’ houses or their children’s education. The conditions in the factories were very bad. There was a lot of crime and the men spent most of their wages on alcoholic drinks.
Owen improved the houses. He encouraged people to be clean and save money. He opened a shop and sold the workers cheap, well-made goods to help them. He limited the sale of alcoholic drinks. Above all, he fixed his mind on the children’s education. In 1816, he opened the first free primary school in Britain.
People came from all over the country to visit Owen’s factory. They saw that the workers were healthier and more efficient than in other towns. Their children were better fed and better educated. Owen tried the same experiment in the United States. He bought some land there in 1825, but the community was too far away. He could not keep it under control and lost most of his money.
Owen never stopped fighting for his idea. Above all he believed that people are not born good or bad. He was a practical man and his ideas were practical. “If you give people good working conditions,” he thought, “they will work well and, the most important thing of all, if you give them the chance to learn, they will be better people.”
1. For Owen, his greatest achievement in New Lanark was _____________.
| A．improving worker’s houses |
| B．helping people to save money |
| C．preventing men from getting drunk |
| D．providing the children with a good education |
| A．into a rich family | B．into a noble family |
| C．into a poor family | D．into a middle class family |
| A．he lost all his money |
| B．he did not buy enough land |
| C．people who visited it were not impressed |
| D．it was too far away for him to organize it properly |
| A．1771 | B．1816 | C．1825 | D．1860 |
RESOURCES BELONG TO THE SOCIETY
When I arrived in Hamburg Germany, my colleague who worked there arranged a welcome party for me in a
As I was hungry, my local colleague
“We
We all agreed with him in our
My colleague copied the fine ticket and gave a copy to each of us as a souvenir. We all
| A．bank | B．company | C．family | D．restaurant |
| A．cooked | B．gathered | C．served | D．missed |
| A．desert | B．refuse | C．finish | D．oppose |
| A．kept | B．ordered | C．sold | D．made |
| A．save | B．find | C．divide | D．spend |
| A．unconsumed | B．undeveloped | C．undiscovered | D．undetermined |
| A．appointed | B．heard | C．realized | D．knew |
| A．unhappy | B．curious | C．nervous | D．optimistic |
| A．asked | B．paid | C．applied | D．accounted |
| A．matter | B．mind | C．business | D．question |
| A．passively | B．immediately | C．excitedly | D．regularly |
| A．rags | B．fashion | C．uniform | D．dream |
| A．fine | B．food | C．award | D．souvenir |
| A．how | B．it | C．what | D．that |
| A．so | B．and | C．or | D．but |
| A．ability | B．problem | C．power | D．reason |
| A．words | B．faces | C．hearts | D．ears |
| A．approved | B．accused | C．admitted | D．apologized |
| A．stuck | B．broke | C．threw | D．kept |
| A．hopeful | B．wasteful | C．merciful | D．grateful |
5 . The Peales were a famous family of American artists. Charles Willson Peale is best remembered for his portraits of leading figures of the American Revolution. He painted portraits of Franklin and Jefferson and over a dozen of George Washington. His life-size portrait of his sons Raphaelle and Titian was so realistic that George Washington reportedly once tipped his hat to the figures in the picture.
Charles Willson Peale gave up painting in his middle age and devoted his life to the Peale museum, which he founded in Philadelphia. The world’s first popular museum of art and natural science mainly covered paintings by Peale and his family as well as displays of animals in their natural settings. Peale found the animals himself and found a method to make the exhibits more lifelike. The museum’s most popular display was the skeleton (骷髅) of a huge, extinct elephant, which Peale unearthed on a New York farm in 1801.
Three of Peale’s seventeen children were also famous artists. Raphaelle Peale often painted still lives of flowers, fruit, and cheese. His brother Rembrandt studied under his father and painted portraits of many noted people, including one of George Washington. Another brother, Rubens Peale, painted mostly landscapes and portraits.
James Peale, the brother of Charles Willson Peale, specialized in miniatures (小画像). His daughter Sarah Miriam Peale was probably the first professional female portrait painter in America.
1. What is the main topic of the passage?| A．The life of Charles Willson Peale. |
| B．Portraits in the 18th century. |
| C．The Peale Museum. |
| D．A family of artists. |
| A．Charles Willson Peale’s painting was very lifelike |
| B．Washington respected Charles Willson Peale’s work |
| C．Washington was friendly with Raphaelle and Titian Peale |
| D．the painting of the two brothers was very large |
| A．Titian Peale. | B．Rubens Peale. |
| C．Raphaelle Peale. | D．Sarah Miriam Peale. |
| A．puzzled | B．excited | C．admiring | D．disappointed |
