外研版高中英语选修八20

语篇提能

Ⅰ.阅读理解

Americans have taken over from the Indians many things besides their continent! Where did corn, potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate and maple sugar come from? The Indians. Who invented moccasins, snowshoes and hammocks? The Indians!

A list of the tools, plants, materials, and designs we owe to the Indians would include hundreds of items. But there is something far more familiar, something that is always at hand. It is used daily by every American: a large vocabulary of Indian words.

Potato, tomato, chocolate, moccasin and hammock came into English from Indian languages. So did cocoa, tobacco, maize (an Indian word for corn) and succotash. Some words have changed on the way. Potato, for example, comes from a word that sounds like “batata”. Cocoa beg an as “cacahuatl”．

Some meanings have also changed. The long Indian word from which succotash comes means “something broken off in bits.” Indian women often varied their dishes by mixing bits of one food with another. White men who ate an Indian dish of mixed lima beans (青豆) and corn began using the Indian word to mean this particular mixture.

Put on your moccasins and take a walk in the country. If it is a cold day and you wear a mackinaw, your jacket will be as Indian as your shoes. But mackinaw came from “michilimackinac，” the Indian name of a place where a fort (集市) served as a trading post. Bright-coloured blankets or jackets bought at the post soon became known as “mackinaws.”

Early white visitors to the continent found Indian words useful for the thin gs new to them. But some Indian sounds, such as the “tl” at the end of many words, were hard to say. That is why “coyotl” became coyote and

“tomatl” became tomato.

Some words simply seemed too long. So, “musickwautash” became succotash and “rockahominy” be came hominy.

语篇解读美国人从印第安人那里学到了哪些东西？进入英语的印第安词语又是怎么来的？本文从各个层面阐述了这个话题。

1．The first two paragraphs may serve as a(n) ________.

A. explanation

B. introduction

C. comment

D. background

答案与解析B推理判断题。前两段通过介绍美国人从印第安人那里学到的事物引出了文章的话题——进入英语的印第安词语。

2．Which of the following has been changed for easier pronunciation?

A. Batata.

B. Chocolate.

C. Tomatl.

D. Rockahominy.

答案与解析C细节理解题。倒数第二段介绍了因为发音难而改变的一些词语，并举例说明，故选C项。

3．Some words have changed because ________.

A. they are too long

B. nobody can use them

C. the things they refer to have disappeared

D. they are too difficult for people to write

答案与解析A细节理解题。根据最后一段内容可知，有些词是因为太长了，所以被变短，故选A项。

4．What is the passage mainly about?

A. How Indian traditions affect us.

B. Why Indian words were changed.

C. Things we owe to the Indians.

D. Indian words all around us.