In deed more and more schools are discovering that foreign languages are best taught in the lower grades.Young children often can learn several languages by being（ ）to them,while adults have a much harder time learning another language once the rules of t

Russian really is hard for lcarners, and a casual comparison might serve the conclusion that big, prestigious languages like Russian are complex. Just look, after all, at their rich, technical vocabularies, and the complex industrial societies that they serve.
But linguists who have compared languages systematically are struck by the opposite conclusion.
This is largely because linguists, unlike laypeople, focus on grammar, not vocabulary,Consider Berik, spoken in a few villages in eastern Papua. It may not have a word for“supernova”, but it drips with complex rules: a mandatory verb ending tells what time of day the action occurred, and another indicates the size of the direet object. Of
course these things can be said in English, but Berik requires them. Remote socictics may be materially simplc;“primitive”", their languages are not.
Systematically so: a study in 2010 of thousands of tongucs found that smaller languages have more Berik-style grammatical bits and pieces attached to words. By contrast, bigger ones tend to be like English or Mandarin, in which words change their form lttle ifat all. No one knows why, but a likely culprit is the very scale and ubiquity of such widely travelled languages.
As a language spreads, more foreigners come to learn it as adults (thanks to conquest and trade, for example). Since languages are more complex than they need to be, many of those adult learners will- Stalin-style- ignore some of the niceties where they can. If those newcomers have children, the children will often learn a slightly simpler version of the language from their parents.
But a new study, conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen in the Netherlands, has found that it is not entirely foreigners and their sloppy ways that are to blame for languages becoming simpler. Merely being bigger was enough. The researchers, Limor Raviv, Antje Meyer and Shiri Lev-Ari, asked 12 groups of four strangers and 12 groups of eight to invent languages to describe a group of moving shapes on the screen. They were told that the goal was to rack up points for communicating successfully over 16 rounds. (They“talked" by keyboard and were forbidden to use their native language, Dutch.)
Over time both big and small groups got better at making themselves understood,but the bigger ones did so by crcating more systematic languages as they interacted,with fewer idiosyncrasies. The rescarchers suppose that this is because the members of the larger groups had fewer interactions with each other member, this put pressureon them to come up with clear patterns. Smaller groups could afford quirkierlanguages, because their members got to“know”cach other better.
Ncither the more systematic nor the more idiosyncratic languages were“better",given group size: the small and large groups communicated equally well. But the work provides evidence that an idiosyncratic language is best suited to a small group with rich shared history, As the language spreads, it nceds to become more
predictablc.
Taken with previous studies, the new research offers a two-part answer to why grammar rules are built- and lost. As groups grow, the need for systematic rules becomes greater, unlearnable in-group-speak with random variation won't do. But languages develop more rules than they need; as they are learned by foreign speakers joining the group. some of these get stripped away. This can explain why pairs of closely related languages - Tajik and Persian, Icelandic and Swedish, Frisian and English- differ in grammatical complexity. In each couple, the former language is both smaller and more isolated. Systematicity is required for growth. Lost complexity is the cost of foreigners learming your language. It is the price of success.
What is the main finding of the study conducted by Max Plank Institute?

A. Bigger groups of speakers tend to make the language system simpler.
B. It is the foreign people learning that language makes it become simpler.
C. The small groups got better at communicating with each other at the end.
D. Members in bigger groups have more chances to interact with each other.

Russian really is hard for lcarners, and a casual comparison might serve the conclusion that big, prestigious languages like Russian are complex. Just look, after all, at their rich, technical vocabularies, and the complex industrial societies that they serve.
But linguists who have compared languages systematically are struck by the opposite conclusion.
This is largely because linguists, unlike laypeople, focus on grammar, not vocabulary,Consider Berik, spoken in a few villages in eastern Papua. It may not have a word for“supernova”, but it drips with complex rules: a mandatory verb ending tells what time of day the action occurred, and another indicates the size of the direet object. Of
course these things can be said in English, but Berik requires them. Remote socictics may be materially simplc;“primitive”", their languages are not.
Systematically so: a study in 2010 of thousands of tongucs found that smaller languages have more Berik-style grammatical bits and pieces attached to words. By contrast, bigger ones tend to be like English or Mandarin, in which words change their form lttle ifat all. No one knows why, but a likely culprit is the very scale and ubiquity of such widely travelled languages.
As a language spreads, more foreigners come to learn it as adults (thanks to conquest and trade, for example). Since languages are more complex than they need to be, many of those adult learners will- Stalin-style- ignore some of the niceties where they can. If those newcomers have children, the children will often learn a slightly simpler version of the language from their parents.
But a new study, conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen in the Netherlands, has found that it is not entirely foreigners and their sloppy ways that are to blame for languages becoming simpler. Merely being bigger was enough. The researchers, Limor Raviv, Antje Meyer and Shiri Lev-Ari, asked 12 groups of four strangers and 12 groups of eight to invent languages to describe a group of moving shapes on the screen. They were told that the goal was to rack up points for communicating successfully over 16 rounds. (They“talked" by keyboard and were forbidden to use their native language, Dutch.)
Over time both big and small groups got better at making themselves understood,but the bigger ones did so by crcating more systematic languages as they interacted,with fewer idiosyncrasies. The rescarchers suppose that this is because the members of the larger groups had fewer interactions with each other member, this put pressureon them to come up with clear patterns. Smaller groups could afford quirkierlanguages, because their members got to“know”cach other better.
Ncither the more systematic nor the more idiosyncratic languages were“better",given group size: the small and large groups communicated equally well. But the work provides evidence that an idiosyncratic language is best suited to a small group with rich shared history, As the language spreads, it nceds to become more
predictablc.
Taken with previous studies, the new research offers a two-part answer to why grammar rules are built- and lost. As groups grow, the need for systematic rules becomes greater, unlearnable in-group-speak with random variation won't do. But languages develop more rules than they need; as they are learned by foreign speakers joining the group. some of these get stripped away. This can explain why pairs of closely related languages - Tajik and Persian, Icelandic and Swedish, Frisian and English- differ in grammatical complexity. In each couple, the former language is both smaller and more isolated. Systematicity is required for growth. Lost complexity is the cost of foreigners learming your language. It is the price of success.
According to the passage, in which way is Berik different from the system of bigger languages, like English?

A. There is no way to express the tiny pieces of meanings in English.
B. There are more direct and easier ways to convey the same content.
C. The word forms remain unchanged when used in different situations.
D. It requires small pieces attached to words to indicate diferent meanings.

Russian really is hard for lcarners, and a casual comparison might serve the conclusion that big, prestigious languages like Russian are complex. Just look, after all, at their rich, technical vocabularies, and the complex industrial societies that they serve.
But linguists who have compared languages systematically are struck by the opposite conclusion.
This is largely because linguists, unlike laypeople, focus on grammar, not vocabulary,Consider Berik, spoken in a few villages in eastern Papua. It may not have a word for“supernova”, but it drips with complex rules: a mandatory verb ending tells what time of day the action occurred, and another indicates the size of the direet object. Of
course these things can be said in English, but Berik requires them. Remote socictics may be materially simplc;“primitive”", their languages are not.
Systematically so: a study in 2010 of thousands of tongucs found that smaller languages have more Berik-style grammatical bits and pieces attached to words. By contrast, bigger ones tend to be like English or Mandarin, in which words change their form lttle ifat all. No one knows why, but a likely culprit is the very scale and ubiquity of such widely travelled languages.
As a language spreads, more foreigners come to learn it as adults (thanks to conquest and trade, for example). Since languages are more complex than they need to be, many of those adult learners will- Stalin-style- ignore some of the niceties where they can. If those newcomers have children, the children will often learn a slightly simpler version of the language from their parents.
But a new study, conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen in the Netherlands, has found that it is not entirely foreigners and their sloppy ways that are to blame for languages becoming simpler. Merely being bigger was enough. The researchers, Limor Raviv, Antje Meyer and Shiri Lev-Ari, asked 12 groups of four strangers and 12 groups of eight to invent languages to describe a group of moving shapes on the screen. They were told that the goal was to rack up points for communicating successfully over 16 rounds. (They“talked" by keyboard and were forbidden to use their native language, Dutch.)
Over time both big and small groups got better at making themselves understood,but the bigger ones did so by crcating more systematic languages as they interacted,with fewer idiosyncrasies. The rescarchers suppose that this is because the members of the larger groups had fewer interactions with each other member, this put pressureon them to come up with clear patterns. Smaller groups could afford quirkierlanguages, because their members got to“know”cach other better.
Ncither the more systematic nor the more idiosyncratic languages were“better",given group size: the small and large groups communicated equally well. But the work provides evidence that an idiosyncratic language is best suited to a small group with rich shared history, As the language spreads, it nceds to become more
predictablc.
Taken with previous studies, the new research offers a two-part answer to why grammar rules are built- and lost. As groups grow, the need for systematic rules becomes greater, unlearnable in-group-speak with random variation won't do. But languages develop more rules than they need; as they are learned by foreign speakers joining the group. some of these get stripped away. This can explain why pairs of closely related languages - Tajik and Persian, Icelandic and Swedish, Frisian and English- differ in grammatical complexity. In each couple, the former language is both smaller and more isolated. Systematicity is required for growth. Lost complexity is the cost of foreigners learming your language. It is the price of success.
Which of the following sentences best fit in the blank in the second paragraph?

A. They found that Russian does not actually has the most complex grammar rules compared to other languages.
B. They tend to find that big languages spoken by large numbers of people are actually simpler than small ones.
C. They found that there is not any pattern about the relation between the complexity ofa language and its' popularity.
D. They found that laypeople usually pay attention to whether the vocabulary in one language is complex or simple.

共用题干
第二篇

The Privileged Children

Life really should be one long journey of joy for children who are born with a world of wealth at their tiny feet.But experts on psychological research now believe that silver spoons can leave a bitter taste.If suicide statistics are a sign of happiness,then the rich are a miserable lot. Figures show that it is the rich who most often do away with themselves.
Dr. Robert Coles,an internationally famous doctor,is the world's top expert on the influence of money on children.He has written a well-received book on the subject,The Privileged Ones,and his research shows that too much money in the family can cause as many problems as too little."Ohviously there are certain advantages to being rich,"says the 53-year-old doctor,"such as better health,education and future work expectations.But most important is the quality of family life. Money can't buy love."
It can buy a lot of other things,though,and that's where the trouble starts.Rich kjds have so much to choose from that they often become confused.Their parents' over favoring can make them spoiled.They tend to travel more than other children,from home to home and country to country, which often makes them feel restless.
"But privileged children do have a better sense of their positions in the world,"adds Mr Coles, "and they are more self-assured."
Today's rich parents perhaps have realized that their riches can be more of a burden than a favor to their children.So their priority is to ensure that their families are as rich in love as they are in money.

This article is written mainly to tell readers that_________.
A:the rich are more likely to do away with themselves
B:money can bring a lot of things,including love
C:life is always happy for children of rich parents
D:rich parents should realize what important in the family is love rather than money

共用题干
第二篇

The Privileged Children

Life really should be one long journey of joy for children who are born with a world of wealth at their tiny feet.But experts on psychological research now believe that silver spoons can leave a bitter taste.If suicide statistics are a sign of happiness,then the rich are a miserable lot. Figures show that it is the rich who most often do away with themselves.
Dr. Robert Coles,an internationally famous doctor,is the world's top expert on the influence of money on children.He has written a well-received book on the subject,The Privileged Ones,and his research shows that too much money in the family can cause as many problems as too little."Ohviously there are certain advantages to being rich,"says the 53-year-old doctor,"such as better health,education and future work expectations.But most important is the quality of family life. Money can't buy love."
It can buy a lot of other things,though,and that's where the trouble starts.Rich kjds have so much to choose from that they often become confused.Their parents' over favoring can make them spoiled.They tend to travel more than other children,from home to home and country to country, which often makes them feel restless.
"But privileged children do have a better sense of their positions in the world,"adds Mr Coles, "and they are more self-assured."
Today's rich parents perhaps have realized that their riches can be more of a burden than a favor to their children.So their priority is to ensure that their families are as rich in love as they are in money.

The expression"silver spoons"in Paragraph 1 means_________.
A:very expensive spoons
B:rich people
C:wealth
D:spoons made of silver

共用题干
The Day a Language Died
When Carlos Westez died at the age of 76,a language died,too.Westez,more commonly known as Red Thunder Cloud,was the last speaker of the Native American language,Catawba.Anyone who wants to hear various songs of the Catawba can contact the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,D.C.,where, back in the 1940s,Red Thunder Cloud recorded a series of songs for future generations.______(46) They are all that is left of the Catawba language.The language that people used to speak is gone forever.
We are all aware of the damage that modern industry can do to the world's ecology（生态）.However, few people are aware of the impact that widely spoken languages have on other languages and ways of life.English has spread all over the world.Chinese,Spanish,Russian,and Hindi have become powerful languages,as well.______(47)When this happens,hundreds of languages that are spoken by only a few people die out.
Scholars believe there are about 6 ,000 languages around the world,but more than half of them could die out within the next 100 years.There are many examples.Araki is a native language of the island of Vanuatu,located in the Pacific Ocean.It is spoken by only a few older adults,so like Catawba,Araki will soon disappear.Many languages of Ethiopia will have the same fate because each one has only a few speakers.______(48)In the Americas,100 languages,each of which has fewer than 300 speakers,also are dying out.
Red Thunder Cloud was one of the first to recognize the threat of language death and to try to do something about it.He was not actually born into the Catawba tribe,and the language was not his mother tongue.______(49)The songs he sang for the Smithsonian Institution helped to make Native American music popular.Now he is gone,and the language is dead.
What does it mean when a language disappears? When a plant or insect or animal species dies,it is easy to understand what we've lost and to appreciate what this means for the balance of the natural world.However,language is only a product of the mind.To be the last remaining speaker of a language,like Red
Thunder Cloud,must be a lonely destiny,almost as strange and terrible as being the last surviving member of a dying species.______(50)

_______(48)
A:Some people might want to try to learn some of these songs by heart.
B:Papua New Guinea is an extremely rich source of different languages,but more than 100 of them are in danger of extinction（灭绝）.
C:However,he was a frequent visitor to the Catawba reservation in South Carolina,where he learned the language.
D:These languages don't have many native speakers.
E:For the rest of us,when a language dies,we lose the possibility of a unique way of seeing and describing the world.
F:As these languages become more powerful,their use as tools of business and culture increases.

Russian really is hard for lcarners, and a casual comparison might serve the conclusion that big, prestigious languages like Russian are complex. Just look, after all, at their rich, technical vocabularies, and the complex industrial societies that they serve.
But linguists who have compared languages systematically are struck by the opposite conclusion.
This is largely because linguists, unlike laypeople, focus on grammar, not vocabulary,Consider Berik, spoken in a few villages in eastern Papua. It may not have a word for“supernova”, but it drips with complex rules: a mandatory verb ending tells what time of day the action occurred, and another indicates the size of the direet object. Of
course these things can be said in English, but Berik requires them. Remote socictics may be materially simplc;“primitive”", their languages are not.
Systematically so: a study in 2010 of thousands of tongucs found that smaller languages have more Berik-style grammatical bits and pieces attached to words. By contrast, bigger ones tend to be like English or Mandarin, in which words change their form lttle ifat all. No one knows why, but a likely culprit is the very scale and ubiquity of such widely travelled languages.
As a language spreads, more foreigners come to learn it as adults (thanks to conquest and trade, for example). Since languages are more complex than they need to be, many of those adult learners will- Stalin-style- ignore some of the niceties where they can. If those newcomers have children, the children will often learn a slightly simpler version of the language from their parents.
But a new study, conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen in the Netherlands, has found that it is not entirely foreigners and their sloppy ways that are to blame for languages becoming simpler. Merely being bigger was enough. The researchers, Limor Raviv, Antje Meyer and Shiri Lev-Ari, asked 12 groups of four strangers and 12 groups of eight to invent languages to describe a group of moving shapes on the screen. They were told that the goal was to rack up points for communicating successfully over 16 rounds. (They“talked" by keyboard and were forbidden to use their native language, Dutch.)
Over time both big and small groups got better at making themselves understood,but the bigger ones did so by crcating more systematic languages as they interacted,with fewer idiosyncrasies. The rescarchers suppose that this is because the members of the larger groups had fewer interactions with each other member, this put pressureon them to come up with clear patterns. Smaller groups could afford quirkierlanguages, because their members got to“know”cach other better.
Ncither the more systematic nor the more idiosyncratic languages were“better",given group size: the small and large groups communicated equally well. But the work provides evidence that an idiosyncratic language is best suited to a small group with rich shared history, As the language spreads, it nceds to become more
predictablc.
Taken with previous studies, the new research offers a two-part answer to why grammar rules are built- and lost. As groups grow, the need for systematic rules becomes greater, unlearnable in-group-speak with random variation won't do. But languages develop more rules than they need; as they are learned by foreign speakers joining the group. some of these get stripped away. This can explain why pairs of closely related languages - Tajik and Persian, Icelandic and Swedish, Frisian and English- differ in grammatical complexity. In each couple, the former language is both smaller and more isolated. Systematicity is required for growth. Lost complexity is the cost of foreigners learming your language. It is the price of success.
Which of the following statements about the more systematic. and more idiosyncratic language is correct?

A. When a language becomes more widely-spoken, it becomes more idiosyncratic,
B. A more systematic language works better than a more idiosyncratic language.
C. A more systematic language facilitates communication a large population.
D. People develop more rules than it is needed when learning a new language.

Russian really is hard for lcarners, and a casual comparison might serve the conclusion that big, prestigious languages like Russian are complex. Just look, after all, at their rich, technical vocabularies, and the complex industrial societies that they serve.
But linguists who have compared languages systematically are struck by the opposite conclusion.
This is largely because linguists, unlike laypeople, focus on grammar, not vocabulary,Consider Berik, spoken in a few villages in eastern Papua. It may not have a word for“supernova”, but it drips with complex rules: a mandatory verb ending tells what time of day the action occurred, and another indicates the size of the direet object. Of
course these things can be said in English, but Berik requires them. Remote socictics may be materially simplc;“primitive”", their languages are not.
Systematically so: a study in 2010 of thousands of tongucs found that smaller languages have more Berik-style grammatical bits and pieces attached to words. By contrast, bigger ones tend to be like English or Mandarin, in which words change their form lttle ifat all. No one knows why, but a likely culprit is the very scale and ubiquity of such widely travelled languages.
As a language spreads, more foreigners come to learn it as adults (thanks to conquest and trade, for example). Since languages are more complex than they need to be, many of those adult learners will- Stalin-style- ignore some of the niceties where they can. If those newcomers have children, the children will often learn a slightly simpler version of the language from their parents.
But a new study, conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen in the Netherlands, has found that it is not entirely foreigners and their sloppy ways that are to blame for languages becoming simpler. Merely being bigger was enough. The researchers, Limor Raviv, Antje Meyer and Shiri Lev-Ari, asked 12 groups of four strangers and 12 groups of eight to invent languages to describe a group of moving shapes on the screen. They were told that the goal was to rack up points for communicating successfully over 16 rounds. (They“talked" by keyboard and were forbidden to use their native language, Dutch.)
Over time both big and small groups got better at making themselves understood,but the bigger ones did so by crcating more systematic languages as they interacted,with fewer idiosyncrasies. The rescarchers suppose that this is because the members of the larger groups had fewer interactions with each other member, this put pressureon them to come up with clear patterns. Smaller groups could afford quirkierlanguages, because their members got to“know”cach other better.
Ncither the more systematic nor the more idiosyncratic languages were“better",given group size: the small and large groups communicated equally well. But the work provides evidence that an idiosyncratic language is best suited to a small group with rich shared history, As the language spreads, it nceds to become more
predictablc.
Taken with previous studies, the new research offers a two-part answer to why grammar rules are built- and lost. As groups grow, the need for systematic rules becomes greater, unlearnable in-group-speak with random variation won't do. But languages develop more rules than they need; as they are learned by foreign speakers joining the group. some of these get stripped away. This can explain why pairs of closely related languages - Tajik and Persian, Icelandic and Swedish, Frisian and English- differ in grammatical complexity. In each couple, the former language is both smaller and more isolated. Systematicity is required for growth. Lost complexity is the cost of foreigners learming your language. It is the price of success.
What is the author's main purpose of writing this article?

A. To explain why bigger languages have simpler grammar.
B. To inform readers the evolvement process of languages.
C. To introduce the systematic and idiosyncratic languages.
D. To compare the differences between Berik and English.

共用题干
第二篇

The Privileged Children

Life really should be one long journey of joy for children who are born with a world of wealth at their tiny feet.But experts on psychological research now believe that silver spoons can leave a bitter taste.If suicide statistics are a sign of happiness,then the rich are a miserable lot. Figures show that it is the rich who most often do away with themselves.
Dr. Robert Coles,an internationally famous doctor,is the world's top expert on the influence of money on children.He has written a well-received book on the subject,The Privileged Ones,and his research shows that too much money in the family can cause as many problems as too little."Ohviously there are certain advantages to being rich,"says the 53-year-old doctor,"such as better health,education and future work expectations.But most important is the quality of family life. Money can't buy love."
It can buy a lot of other things,though,and that's where the trouble starts.Rich kjds have so much to choose from that they often become confused.Their parents' over favoring can make them spoiled.They tend to travel more than other children,from home to home and country to country, which often makes them feel restless.
"But privileged children do have a better sense of their positions in the world,"adds Mr Coles, "and they are more self-assured."
Today's rich parents perhaps have realized that their riches can be more of a burden than a favor to their children.So their priority is to ensure that their families are as rich in love as they are in money.

According to the passage,children of rich families_______.
A:enjoy traveling
B:can buy love
C:usually commit suicide
D:are not always happy

共用题干
第二篇

The Privileged Children

Life really should be one long journey of joy for children who are born with a world of wealth at their tiny feet.But experts on psychological research now believe that silver spoons can leave a bitter taste.If suicide statistics are a sign of happiness,then the rich are a miserable lot. Figures show that it is the rich who most often do away with themselves.
Dr. Robert Coles,an internationally famous doctor,is the world's top expert on the influence of money on children.He has written a well-received book on the subject,The Privileged Ones,and his research shows that too much money in the family can cause as many problems as too little."Ohviously there are certain advantages to being rich,"says the 53-year-old doctor,"such as better health,education and future work expectations.But most important is the quality of family life. Money can't buy love."
It can buy a lot of other things,though,and that's where the trouble starts.Rich kjds have so much to choose from that they often become confused.Their parents' over favoring can make them spoiled.They tend to travel more than other children,from home to home and country to country, which often makes them feel restless.
"But privileged children do have a better sense of their positions in the world,"adds Mr Coles, "and they are more self-assured."
Today's rich parents perhaps have realized that their riches can be more of a burden than a favor to their children.So their priority is to ensure that their families are as rich in love as they are in money.

Which of the following statements is not true according to the passage?
A:It is love that is always lacking in rich and poor families alike.
B:Silver spoons can sometimes leave a bitter taste.
C:Money can't buy everything.
D:Rich children are often confused because they have so much to choose from.

共用题干
第二篇

The Privileged Children

Life really should be one long journey of joy for children who are born with a world of wealth at their tiny feet.But experts on psychological research now believe that silver spoons can leave a bitter taste.If suicide statistics are a sign of happiness,then the rich are a miserable lot. Figures show that it is the rich who most often do away with themselves.
Dr. Robert Coles,an internationally famous doctor,is the world's top expert on the influence of money on children.He has written a well-received book on the subject,The Privileged Ones,and his research shows that too much money in the family can cause as many problems as too little."Ohviously there are certain advantages to being rich,"says the 53-year-old doctor,"such as better health,education and future work expectations.But most important is the quality of family life. Money can't buy love."
It can buy a lot of other things,though,and that's where the trouble starts.Rich kjds have so much to choose from that they often become confused.Their parents' over favoring can make them spoiled.They tend to travel more than other children,from home to home and country to country, which often makes them feel restless.
"But privileged children do have a better sense of their positions in the world,"adds Mr Coles, "and they are more self-assured."
Today's rich parents perhaps have realized that their riches can be more of a burden than a favor to their children.So their priority is to ensure that their families are as rich in love as they are in money.

Dr. Robert Coles believes that________.
A:being rich has as many advantages as being poor
B:rich children often get too little entertainment
C:rich children sometimes can't enjoy the thing they are most in need of
D:rich children aren't given enough things