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Is language, like food, like food, a basic human need withoutwhich a child at a critica l period of life can be starved anddamaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of F rederick I inthe thirteenth century, it may be hoping to discover whatlanguage a chil d would speak if he heard no mother tongue, hetold the nurses to keep silent.All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of lang uage here.What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the fi rst year of life especially,the capacity to survive is seriously affected.Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some c hildren are stillbackward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mothe r is insensitive to the signalsof the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn langu age rapidly. If these sensitive periods areneglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again.A bird learns to sing and to fl y rapidly at right time, but the process is slow and hard once thecritical stage has pa ssed.Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constan t age, butthere are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually tur ns out to be of high IQ.At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes bowel –like sounds; at twelve months he can speaksimple words and understand simple co mmands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of threeto fifty words. At three he knows about 1,000 words which he can put into sentences, and at fourhis language differs from that of his parents in born with the capacity to speak. What is specialabo ut man’s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which ena bles achild to commect the sight and feel of, say, a toy –bear with the sound pattern “toy–bear”. Andeven more incredible is the young brain’s ability to pick out an order in la nguage from the mixtureof sound around him, to analyse, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways.But speech has to be induced, and this depends on interaction between the mother a nd the child,where the mother recognizes the signals in the child’s babbling, grasping and smiling, and respondsto them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child getsdiscouraged and sends out only the obvious sig nals,. Sensitivity to the child’s non –verbal signalsis essential to the growth and development of language.1. The purpose of Frederick I’s experiment was ____.A. to prove that children are born with ability to speakB. to discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speakC. to find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speakD. to prove that a child could be damaged without learning a language2. The reason that some children are backward in speaking is most likely that ____.A. they are incapable of learning language rapidlyB. they are exposed to too much language at onceC. their mothers respond inadequately to their attempts to speakD. their mothers are not intelligent enough to help them3. What is particularly remarkable about a child is that ____.A. he is born with the capacity to speakB. he has a brain more complex than an animal’sC. he can produce his own sentencesD. he owes his speech ability to good nursing4. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?A. The faculty of speech is inborn in man.B. The child’s brain is highly selective.C. Most children learn their language in definite stages.D. All the above5. If a child starts to speak later than others, he will ____in future.A. have a high IQB. be less intelligentC. be insensitive to verbal signalsD. not necessarily be backwardHong Kong, major commercial center for Asia, and with apopulation which has grow n at an alarming rate to over 5million, is a city highly dependent on mass transit of al l sorts,both local and long distance. The average Hong Kong worker orbusinessman, going about his daily activities, simply must usepublic transportation at one time or a nother.Because Hong Kong is in two parts, Kowloon, on the mainlandside, and Hong Kong, t he island, with Hong Kong’s harbor in between, Hong Kong’s mass transitsystems, in addition to going over land must also cross water.Going from home to work, or going shopping from one side of the harbor to the othe r, the HongKong resident has three choices. One way is to take a bus, which will cros s the harbor through anunderwater traffic tunnel moving slowly through bumper-to-bumper traffic. Another way is byferryboat, a pleasant ride which crosses the harbor in from seven to fifteen minutes.But by far the fastest way of crossing the harbor is the newly built underground elect ric railway,the Hong Kong Metro. If one boards the train in the Central District, the c ommercial area of HongKong on the island side, he can speed across the harbor in a n astonishing three minutes. On theother side of the harbor the railway continues, sn aking back and forth through the outlyingdistricts of Kowloon, allowing one to get off a short distance from his destination.The story of the Metro is an encouraging one for supporters of mass transit. Althoug h building thesystem was certainly a challenging task, the Japanese firm hired to con struct it did so in recordtime. Construction got underway in 1979 and it was complete d in 1980.For the average commuter the system has only one disadvantages: it is more expens ive than bybus or ferry. One can ride the bus across the harbor for half as much, or he can ride the ferryacross for less than one-fifth as much.1. Hong Kong ___.A. can do without mass transit.B. finds public transportation too expensive.C. needs public transportation.D. has an insufficient mass transit system.2. Hong Kong Public transportation extends ___.A. over hills and valleys.B. across land and water.C. through mountains.D. throughout the Kowloon area.3. The traffic in the underwater traffic tunnel is ___.A. heavyB. lightC. fastD. dangerous4. Crossing the harbor by train is ___.A. by far the most economical method.B. the most pleasant method.C. the least pleasant method.D. the fastest method.5. The business area on the island side of Hong Kong is referred to be as ___.A. KowloonB. the Central DistrictC. the Hong Kong MetroD. the Hong Kong’s harbor.Is it possible to persuade mankind to live without war? War is anancient institution, which has existed for at least six thousandyears. It was always bad and usually foolis h, but in the pasthuman race managed to live with it. Modern ingenuity haschanged this. Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.For the present, it is nuclear weapons that cause the mostserious danger, but bacteriological or chemical weapon s may,before long, offer an even greater threat. If we succeed in abolishing nuclear weapons, our workwill not be done. It will never be done until we have succeeded in abolishing war. To do this, weneed to persuade mankind to look upon international questions in a new way, not as contests offorce, in which the victory goes to the side which is most skillful in killing people, but by arbitrationin accordance with agreed pr inciples of law. It is not easy to change very old mental habits, but thisis what must be attempted.There are those who say that the adoption of this or that ideology would prevent war . I believethis to be a big error. All ideologies are based upon dogmatic statements th at are, at best, doubtful,and at worst, totally false. Their adherents believe in them s o fanatically that they are willing to goto war in support of them.The movement of world opinion during the past few years has been very largely such as we canwelcome. It has become a commonplace that nuclear war must be avoided. Of course very difficultproblems remain in the world, but the spirit in which they are being approached is a better onethan it was some years ago. It has begun to be th ought, even by the powerful men who decidewhether we shall live or die, that negoti ations should reach agreements even if both sides do notfind these agreements whol ly satisfactory. It has begun to be understood that the importantconflict nowadays isnot between different countries, but between man and the atom bomb.1. This passage implies that war is now ___.A. worse than in the past.B. as bad as in the pastC. not so dangerous as in the pastD. as necessary as in the past2. In the sentence “To do this, we need to persuade mankind” (Para 1),“this” refers to ___.A. abolish warB. improve weaponsC. solve international problemsD. live a peaceful life3. From Paragraph 2 we learn that the author of the passage ___.A. is an adherent of some modern ideologies.B. does not think that adoption of any ideology could prevent war.C. believe that the adoption of some ideology could prevent war.D. does not doubt the truth of any ideologies.4. According to the author, ___.A. war is the only way to solve international disputes.B. war will be less dangerous because of the improvement of weapons.C. it is impossible for the people to live without war.D. war must be abolished if man wants to survive.5. The last paragraph suggests that ___.A. international agreements can be reached more easily now.B. man begins to realize the danger of nuclear war.C. nuclear war will definitely not take place.D. world opinion welcomes nuclear warIn general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprisesdirected by a bureaucrati c(官僚主义的) management in whichman becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oilingis done with higher wages, Nell-ventilated factories and pipedmusic, and by psychologists and “human–relations” experts;yet all this oiling does not alter the fact that man has becomepow erless, that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue and thewhite-collar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management.The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find themselves out of a job;they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any real satisfa ction of interesting life.They live an die without ever having confronted the fundame ntal realities of human existence asemotionally and intellectually independent and pr oductive human beings.Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less empt y than thoseof their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some respects. They are in a highlycompetitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is not a matter o f salary but even more amatter of self-respect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of submissiveness and independence. From the moment on the y are testedagain and again –by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors,who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This constant need to pro ve thatone is as good as or better than one’s fellow –competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, thevery causes of unhappiness and i llness.Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode of production or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise “capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by retu rning to astage which one has already outgrown. I suggest transforming our social s ystem form abureaucratically managed industrialism in which maximal production an d consumption are ends inthemselves into a humanist industrialism in which man an d full development of his potentialities –those of all love and of reason –are the aims of social arrangements. Production and consumptionshould serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.1. By “a well-oiled cog in the machinery “the author intends to deliver the idea that man is ____.A. a necessary part of the society though each individual’s function is negligibleB. working in complete harmony with the rest of the societyC. an unimportant part in comparison with the rest of the societyD. a humble component of the society, especially when working smoothly2. The real cause of the anxiety of the workers and employees is that ____.A. they are likely to lose their hobsB. they have no genuine satisfaction or interest in lifeC. they are faced with the fundamental realities of human existenceD. they are deprived of their individuality and independence3. From the passage we can conclude that real happiness of life belongs to those __ ___.A. who are at the bottom of the societyB. who are higher up in their social statusC. who prove better than their fellow – competitorsD. who could dip far away from this competitive world4. To solve the present social problems the author puts forward a suggestion that we should______.A. resort to the production mode of our ancestorsB. offer higher wages to the workers and employeesC. enable man to fully develop his potentialitiesD. take the fundamental realities for granted5. The author’s attitude towards industrialism might best be summarized as one of _ _____.A. approvalB. dissatisfactionC. suspicionD. susceptibilityThe government-run command post in Tunis is staffed aroundthe clock by military personnel, meteoro logists and civilians. Onthe wall are maps, crisscrossed with brightly colors arrows th atpainstakingly track the fearsome path of the enemy.What kind of invader gives rise to such high-level monitoring?Not man, not beast, but the lowly desert locust（蝗虫）. Inrecent months, billions of the 3-inch-long winged warriors have descended on Algeria, Libya,Morocco and Tunisia, blacken ing the sky and eating up crops and vegetation. The insect invasion,the worst in 30 y ears, is already creating great destruction in the Middle East and is now treatingsout hern Europe. The current crisis began in late 1985 near the Red Sea. Unusually rainy weathermoistened the sands of the Sudan, making them ideal breeding grounds for the locust, which laysits eggs in the earth. The insect onslaught threatens to create y et another African famine. Eachlocust can eat its weight (not quite a tenth of an oun ce) in vegetation every 24 hours. A good-sizeswarm of 50 billion insects eats up 100,000 tons of grass, trees and crops in a sin gle night.All ﹩150 million may be needed this year. The U. S. has provided two spraying planes and about50,000 gal. of pesticide. The European Community has donated ﹩3.8 million in aid and the SovietUnion, Canada, Japan and China have provided chem ical-spraying aircraft to help wipe out thepests. But relief efforts are hampered by the rel ative mildness of approved pesticides, which quicklylose their deadly punch and requi re frequent replications. The most effective locust killer Dieldrinhas been linked to ca ncer and is banned by many Western countries and some of the affectedAfrican nati ons. More then 5 million acres have been dusted with locust-killing chemicals; another 5million will be treated by the end of June.On May 30, representatives of Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania will m eet in Algiers todiscuss tactics to wipe out the ravenous swarms. The move is an imp ortant step, but whateverplan is devised, the locust plague promised to get worse be fore the insects can be brought undercontrol.1. The main idea of the first sentence in the passage is that ___.A. the command post is stationed with people all the time.B. the command post is crowed with people all the time.C. there are clocks around the command post.D. the clock in the command post is taken care of by the staff.2. The favorable breeding ground for the locust is ___.A. rich soil.B. wet landC. paces covered crops and vegetationD. the Red Sea3. People are alert at the threat of the locust because ___.A. the insects are likely to create another African famine.B. the insects may blacked the sky.C. the number of the insects increases drastically.D. the insects are gathering and moving in great speed.4. Which of the following is true?A. Once the pesticides are used, locust will die immediately.B. Relief efforts are proved most fruitful due to the effectiveness of certain pesticides.C. Dieldrin, the most effective locust killer, has been widely accepted in many countri es.D. Over 10 million acres of affected area will have been treated with locust-killing chemicals by theend of June.5. The purpose for affected nations to meet in Algiers on May 30 is ___.A. to devise antilocust plans.B. to wipe out the swarms in two years.C. to call out for additional financial aid from other nations.D. to bring the insects under control before the plague gets worse.6、The American economic system is organized around a basicallyprivate-enterprise, market-oriented economy in whichconsumers largely determine what shall be produced bysp ending their money in the marketplace for those goods andservices that they want m ost. Private businessmen, striving tomake profits, produce these goods and services i n competitionwith other businessmen; and the profit motive, operating undercompeti tive pressures, largely determines how these goods and services are produced. Thus, inthe American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire ofbusinessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to ma ximize their incomes, whichtogether determine what shall be produced and how reso urces are used to produce it.An important factor in a market-oriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demandscan be expressed a nd responded to by producers. In the American economy, this mechanism isprovided by a price system, a process in which prices rise and fall in response to relative dem andsof consumers and supplies offered by seller-producers. If the product is in short supply relative tothe demand, the price will be bi d up and some consumers will be eliminated from the market. If, onthe other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend toincrease t he supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit moreconsumers to buy the p roduct. Thus, price is the regulating mechanism in the America economicsystem. The important factor in a private-enterprise economy is that individual are allowed to ownproductive resources (privat e property), and they are permitted to hire labor, gain control overnatural resources, and produce goods and services for sale at a profit. In the American economy,the co ncept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources b ut alsocertain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contractwith another private individual.1. In Para. 1, “the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes” means ___.A. Americans never feel satisfied with their incomes.B. Americans tend to overstate the amount of their incomes.C. Americans want to have their incomes increased.D. Americans want to increase the purchasing power of their incomes.2. The first two sentences in the second paragraph clarity the idea to us that ___.A. producers can satisfy the consumers by mechanized production.B. consumers can express their demands through producers.C. producers decide the prices of products.D. supply and demand regulate prices.3. The word “embraces” in Para. 3 probably parallels ___.A. enfoldB. hugC. comprehendD. support4. According to the passage, a private-enterprise economy is characterized by ___.A. private property and rights concerned.B. manpower and natural resources control.C. ownership of productive resourcesD. free contracts and prices.5. The passage is mainly talking about ___.A. how American goods are produced.B. how American consumers buy their goods.C. how American economic system works.D. how American businessman make their profits.。