二、阅读理解 Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick Ⅱ in the thirteenth century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent. All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected. Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed. Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and utters vowel—like sounds; at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to fifty words. At three he knows about 1,000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar. Recent evidence suggests that an infant is born with the capacity to speak. What is special about man's brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a teddybear with the sound pattern "teddybear". And even more incredible is the young brain's ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyze, 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 and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child's babbling, grasping and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child's non-verbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.
1. The purpose of Frederick's experiment was ______.
A.to prove that children are born with ability to speak
B.to discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speak
C.to find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speak
D.to prove that a child could be damaged without learning a language
A B C D
B
[解析] 细节题。短文第一段中指出to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue，由此可知Frederick实验的目的是：假设孩子在听不见母语的情况下，会说什么语言。
2. The reason that some children are backward in speaking is most likely that ______.
A.they are incapable of learning language rapidly
B.they are exposed to too much language at once
C.their mothers respond inadequately to their attempts to speak
D.their mothers are not intelligent enough to help them
A B C D
C
[解析] 细节题。根据短文第二段第三句Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant. 可知，孩子说话较晚是由于母亲对婴儿所发出的语言暗示和信号无动于衷，没有充分注意和重视。
3. What is particularly remarkable about a child is that ______.
A.he is born with the capacity to speak
B.he has a brain more complex than an animal's
C.he can produce his own sentences
D.he owes his speech ability to good nursing
A B C D
C
[解析] 细节题。根据第四段最后一句And even more incredible is the young brain's ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyze, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways，可知，不可思议的是孩子可以重新组合句子的单词，说出自己的句子。
4. Which of the following is NOT implied in 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.Children do not need to be encouraged to speak.
A B C D
D
[解析] 推断题。根据短文最后一段第一句But speech has to be induced可知言语需要诱发，即需要鼓励孩子说话，故D项表述不符合文意。
5. If a child starts to speak later than others, he will ______ in future.
A.have a high IQ
B.be less intelligent
C.be insensitive to verbal signals
D.not necessarily be backward
A B C D
D
[解析] 细节题。短文第三段指出but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. 即也存在这种状况：孩子开始说话晚但智商却很高。
The predictability of our mortality rates is something that has long puzzled social scientists. After all, there is no natural reason why 2,500 people should accidentally shoot themselves each year or why 7,000 should drown or 55,000 die in their cars. No one establishes a quota for each type of death. It just happens that they follow a consistent pattern year after year. A few years ago a Canadian psychologist named Gerald Wilde became interested in this phenomenon. He noticed that mortality rates for violent and accidental deaths throughout the western world have remained oddly static throughout the whole of the century, despite all the technological advances and increases in safety standards that have happened in that time. Wilde developed an intriguing theory called "risk homeostasis". According to this theory, people instinctively live with a certain level of risk. When something is made safer, people will get around the measure in some way to reassert the original level of danger. If, for instance, they are required to wear seat belts, they will feel safer and thus will drive a little faster and a little more recklessly, thereby statistically canceling out the benefits that the seat belt confers. Other studies have shown that where an intersection is made safer, the accident rate invariably falls there but rises to a compensating level elsewhere along the same stretch of road. It appears, then, that we have an innate need for danger. In all events, it is becoming clearer and clearer to scientists that the factors influencing our lifespan are far more subtle and complex than had been previously thought. It now appears that if you wish to live a long life, it isn't simply a matter of adhering to certain precautions..., eating the right foods, not smoking, driving with care. You must also have the right attitude. Scientists at the Duke University Medical Center made a 15-year study of 500 persons personalities and found, somewhat to their surprise, that people with a suspicious or mistrustful nature die prematurely far more often than people with a sunny disposition. Looking on the bright side, it seems, can add years to your life span.
6. What social scientists have long felt puzzled about? ______
A.The mortality rate cannot be predicted.
B.The death toll remained stable year after year.
C.A quota for each type of death has not come into being.
D.People lost their lives every year for this or that reason.
A B C D
B
[解析] 细节题。短文开篇就提出长期困扰科学家的问题，根据第一段最后一句It just happens that they follow a consistent pattern year after year. 即死亡率遵循着一种不变的模式。
7. In his research, Gerald Wilde finds that technological advances and increases in safety standards ______.
A.have helped solve the problem of so high death rate
B.have oddly accounted for mortality rates in the past century
C.have reduced mortality rates for violent and accidental deaths
D.have achieved no effect in bringing down the number of deaths
A B C D
D
[解析] 细节题。短文第二段第二句指出mortality rates for violent and accidental deaths throughout the western world have remained oddly static throughout the whole of the century, despite all the technological advances and increases in safety standards that have happened in that time. 即虽然技术取得了进步，安全标准也有了提高，但是西方国家的暴力和意外死亡率却保持着奇怪的恒定，由此可知，技术进步和安全标准的提高并未降低死亡人数。
8. According to the theory of "risk homeostasis", some traffic accidents result from ______.
A.our innate desire for risk
B.our fast and reckless driving
C.our ignorance of seat belt benefits
D.our instinctive interest in speeding
A B C D
A
[解析] 细节题。短文第二段中提到了risk homeostasis，即“风险平衡理论”，作者先列举了交通事故的例子，然后在最后一句得出结论：It appears, then, that we have an innate need for danger. 即正是我们天生的冒险欲望导致了交通事故。
9. By saying "...statistically canceling out the benefits that the seat belt confers" (Para.2), the author means ______.
A.wearing seat belts does not have any benefits from the statistic point of view
B.deaths from wearing seat belts are the same as those from not wearing them
C.deaths from other reasons counterbalance the benefits of wearing seat belts
D.wearing seat belts does not necessarily reduce deaths from traffic accidents
A B C D
C
[解析] 细节题。由题干可找到定位句If, for instance, they are required to wear seat belts, they will feel safer and thus will drive a little faster and a little more recklessly, thereby statistically canceling out the benefits that the seat belt confers. 意为当司机被要求系上安全带后，他们就会感到安全了，从而驾驶速度会快一些，也更鲁莽一些。这就造成其他方面的危险增大，抵消了安全带带来的安全。
10. Which of the following may contribute to a longer lifespan? ______
A.Showing adequate trust instead of suspicion of others.
B.Eating the food low in fat and driving with great care.
C.Cultivating an optimistic personality and never losing heart.
D.Looking on the bright side and developing a balanced level of risk.
A B C D
C
[解析] 细节题。短文最后一段指出a sunny disposition, looking on the bright side可以有助于长寿，结合选项可知C项正确。A项对别人信任不要怀疑是对最后一段people with a suspicious or mistrustful nature die prematurely far more often than people with a sunny disposition. 的误解；此句意为“疑心重和不信任他人的人比乐观豁达的人早死”，并不是长寿的秘诀；B项吃低脂肪食物和开车小心是对eating the right foods, not smoking, driving with care. 的误解，吃正确的食物并不代表吃低脂肪食物；D项看事物美好的一面并发展平衡的风险水平，其中后半句developing a balanced level of risk文中没有涉及，故排除。
Man is endlessly inventive. But his greatest invention is non-invention, the skill of transmitting intact (完美无损的) and unchanged from one generation to the next the fundamental ways of doing things which he learned from the generation which preceded him. Children are conceived and reared, houses built, fish caught, and enemies killed in much the same way by most of the members of any society; and these patterns are maintained for relatively long periods of time. From the perspective of those in each new generation, and for the society as an enduring, historical entity (统一的), this process of cultural transmission yields enormous economy. Thanks to it, each generation need not rediscover at great cost in time and subject to great risk of failure, what those coming before have already learned. Not only is knowledge thus conserved, but the basis for communal life, resting on common information and understanding is thus established. Since all those in each generation receive more or less the same cultural heritage from the preceding generation, they can more easily relate to one another and more effectively coordinate their actions. The grand total of all the objects, ideas, knowledge, ways of doing things, habits values, and attitudes which each generation in a society passes on to the next is what the anthropologist often refers to as the culture of a group. The transmission of culture is man's substitute for the instincts (本能) whereby most other living creatures are equipped with the means for coping with their environment and relating to one another. Yet it is more flexible than instinct, and can grow; that is, it can store new information, infinitely more rapidly than the process of mutation and biological evolution can enrich the instinctual storehouse of any other species.
11. What does the passage mainly discuss? ______
A.The relation between culture and invention.
B.The transmission of human culture.
C.The history of human civilization.
D.The biological evolution of man.
A B C D
B
[解析] 主旨题。通读全文可发现，文章主要在谈论“人类文化传播”，且文中多处提到transmitting, cultural transmission, the transmission of culture等关键词。
12. Which of the following is NOT included in the meaning of culture according to the passage? ______
A.Knowledge of various disciplines.
B.Production technology.
C.Ways of living, life habits and values.
D.Biological instincts.
A B C D
D
[解析] 细节题。根据短文第二段第一句The grand total of all the objects, ideas, knowledge, ways of doing things, habits values, and attitudes which each generation in a society passes on to the next is what the anthropologist often refers to as the culture of a group. 可知A、B、C三项中提到的知识、生产技术、生活方式、价值观念都属于文化概念的范畴。而D项biological instincts(生物本能)不属于文化范畴。故选D。
13. The word "heritage" used in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______.
14. According to the first paragraph, all of the following statements can be accepted EXCEPT that ______.
A.man is always inventive
B.learning from the preceding generation saves much effort
C.non-invention is a technique of learning skills from the preceding generation
D.non-invention is always contrary to invention
A B C D
D
[解析] 细节题。短文第一段第一、二句指出Man is endlessly inventive. But his greatest invention is non-invention, the skill of transmitting intact and unchanged from one generation to the next the fundamental ways of doing things which he learned from the generation which preceded him. 由此可知A、B、C三项均符合文中表述。
15. In the last sentence of the passage, the author implies, but does not directly state, that ______.
A.human culture can further develop and grow
B.biological evolution can improve the instinct of creatures
C.human culture is more flexible and can store new information far more rapidly than instinct
D.the instinct of living creatures may also grow, but at a much slower pace
A B C D
D
[解析] 推断题。短文最后一句Yet it is more flexible than instinct, and can grow, that is, it can store new information, infinitely more rapidly than the process of mutation and biological evolution can enrich the instinctual storehouse of any other species. 看出A、B、C三项表述的内容都是作者明确指出的，而D项the instinct of living creatures may also grow, but at a much slower pace作者并没有明确提出，只是一种暗示。
三、翻译
1. And it is imagined by many that the operations of the common mind can by no means be compared with these processes, and that they have to be required by a sort of special training.
It must be noted that improvement in agriculture seems to not be able to catch up with the increase in population of rural areas and there are millions of peasants who still live a miserable life and have to face the dangers of exposure and starvation.
四、写作
1. Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on the following, topic. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. Some people claim that there are more disadvantages of the ear than its advantages. Do you agree or disagree?
[范文]
Automobiles Bring Us More Advantages
The current hot issues include the one of weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the automobile. In my opinion, its advantages outstrip its disadvantages for two major reasons: social impact and economic impact. Firstly, the development of automobiles has had an enormous effect on people's way of life throughout the world. The automobile has given people freedom of movement. It influences where people live and work and how they spend their leisure time. Besides, the automobile itself is time-saving, which is consistent with the fast pace of modem life. Secondly, many nations depend on automobile production to provide jobs for millions of workers. Filling stations, restaurants, and other businesses that serve automobile travelers are of major importance to a country's economy. In addition, many developing nations have begun making automobiles stimulate industry. It is true that automobiles produce terrible air pollution that endangers people's health. But in many countries, steps have been taken to control air pollution caused by automobiles. In summary, the striking changes in people's lives and the economic impact created by the automobile have spread across much of the globe and its disadvantages are becoming insignificant.
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