Material4_8综合英语专四阅读训练

Material 4-8Text AAn assumption is something taken for granted. Everyone makes assumptions—you have to in order to say anything. As a critical reader, you need to determine what the assumption is and then decide whether you agree or disagree with the assumption. Once you decide, your attitude toward the argument will change. Careful, honest writers know what their assumptions are and lay the most important ones out for all to judge. Hidden assumptions may be all right for humor or fairly harmless in topical journalism, but they can be dangerous in serious written argument. Important assumptions should be explicit and detailed, for then the reader can judge their validity. If you do not agree with a writer's assumptions, then you will never agree with his/her arguments.As indicated above, an assumption is a belief that we take for granted as a basis for an assertion. All kinds of statements rely on assumptions—questions, commands, promises, and assertions. The simple command "Pass the salt" is based on several assumptions, including that the salt can be passed, that you can pass it, and that I have the right to ask you to pass it. Some assumptions are unexpressed. We would be the joke of the neighborhood if we went around articulating our assumptions every time we asked someone to pass the salt. We get into trouble, however, when we fail to recognize important assumptions that subtly guide our thoughts.Sophocles said, "Reason is God's crowning gift to man." A statement like this seems innocent enough. When we think about it, we easily recognize that he was basing the statement on two major assumptions: (1) that man has a mind, and (2) that God exists. Hidden in the statement, however, are some subtle assumptions that we may or may not support, including; (1) God is a personal force capable of making a gift; (2) reason is a more important gift than heart, soul, or body; and (3) woman's mind is not a gift of God. Once we articulate these assumptions, we might heave a sigh.1. According to this passage, an assumption is________.A. something that everyone knowsB. the idea the writer wants to emphasizeC. the reader's knowledge about the topicD. foundation of the writer's reasoning2. Assumptions are important for critical readers because they can help readers to_______.A. grasp the topic exactlyB. understand the argument passage exactlyC. evaluate the argument passageD. compare the argument passage with similar argument passages3. The author's attitude toward Sophocles' statement is_________.A. positiveB. negativeC. neutralD. not mentioned4. What can we infer from the passage?A. A good writer should clearly state all his assumptions.B. Once we find assumptions, we will find the writer's problems.C. We need not clearly express our assumptions in oral communication.D. Major assumptions are important for both the writer and the reader.Text BIt is hard to conceive of a language without nouns or verbs. But that is just what Riau Indonesian is, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzigstates. Dr. Gil has been studying Riau for the past 12 years. Initially, he says, he struggled with the language, despite being fluent in standard Indonesian. However, a breakthrough came when he realized that what he had been thinking of as different parts of speech were, in fact, grammatically the same. For example, the phrase "the chicken is eating" translates into colloquial Riau as "ayam makan". Literally, this is pie, the phrase "chicken eat". But the same pair of words also have meanings as diverse as "the chicken is making somebody eat", "somebody is eating where the chicken is". There are, he says, no modifiers that distinguish the tenses of verbs. Nor are there modifiers for nouns that distinguish the definite from the indefinite. Indeed, there are no features in Riau Indonesian that distinguish nouns from verbs. The categories, he says, are imposed because the languages that western linguists are familiar with have them.This sort of observation flies in the face of conventional wisdom about what language is Most linguists are influenced by the work of Noam Chomsky—in particular, his theory of " deep grammar". According to Dr. Chomsky, people are born with a sort of linguistic template in the brains. This is a set of rules that allows children to learn a language quickly, but also imposes constraints and structure on what is learnt. Evidence in support of this theory includes the tendency of children to make systematic mistakes which indicate a tendency to impose rules on what turn to be grammatical exceptions (e. g. "I dided it" instead of "I did it"). There is also the ability of the children of migrant workers to invent new languages known as Creoles out of the grammatically incoherent pidgin spoken by their parents. Exactly what the deep grammar consists of is still not clear, but a basic distinction between nouns and verbs would probably be one of its minimum requirements.Dr. Gil contends, however, that there is a risk of unconscious bias leading to the conclusion that a particular sort of grammar exists in an unfamiliar language. That is because it is easier for linguists to discover extra features in foreign languages—for example, tones that change the meaning of words, which are common in Indonesian but do not exist in European languages—the to realize that elements which are taken for granted in a linguist's native language may be absent from another. Despite the best intentions, he says, there is a tendency to fit languages into mould. And since most linguists are westerners, that mould is usually an Indo-European language from the West.It needs not, however, be a modern language. Dr. Gil's point about bias is well illustrate by the history of the study of the world's most widely spoken tongue. Many of the people who developed modern linguistics had had an education in Latin and Greek. As a consequence, English was often described until well into the 20th century as having six different noun cases, because Latin has six. Only relatively recently did grammarians begin a debate over noun cases in English Some now contend that it does not have noun cases at all, others that it has two while still others maintain that there are three or four cases.The difficulty is compounded if a linguist is not fluent in the language he U studying. The process of linguistic fieldwork is a painstaking one, fraught with pitfalls. Its mainstay is the use of "informants" who tell linguists, in interviews and on paper, about their language. Unfortunately, these informants tend to be better-educated than their fellows, and are often fluent in more than one language.5. Which of the following statements is NOT true of Riau Indonesian?A. It is quite different from standard Indonesian.B. It shares some features with western languages.C. There are no distinct features between nouns and verbs.D. It is hard for western linguists to differentiate verb tenses.6. ________ cannot serve as evidence of Noam Chomsky's theory of "deep grammar".A. "He never forgaved her for teasing him. "B. "She beganed to feel a sense of panic. "C. "Sheeps were grazing on the hillside. "D. "There are a desk and two chairs here. "7. It can be inferred from the third paragraph that_______.A. linguists tend to choose a better way to explain unfamiliar languagesB. Riau Indonesian belongs to the Indo-European language familyC. Riau Indonesian might not fit into an existing mouldD. Dr. Gil's argument has been criticized by other linguists8. The author's attitude towards Dr. Gil's contentions is one of _______.A. disbeliefB. deprecationC. corroborationD. ambiguity9. The word "pitfalls" in the last paragraph probably means_______.A. problemsB. grievanceC. punsD. knowledge10. If there is another paragraph following the passage, it might talk about________.A. what the results of Dr. Gil's research on Riau IndonesianB. what the results of linguists' research on Riau IndonesianC. how Dr. Gil carries out his research on Riau IndonesianD. how linguists carry out their research on Riau Indonesian。