c. The development of mathematical ability in children.
d. The fundamental concepts of mathematics that children must
learn.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析]
People appear to be born to compute. The numerical skills of children develop so early and so inexorably that it is easy to imagine an internal clock of mathematical maturity guiding their growth. Not long after learning to walk and talk, they can set the table with impressive accuracy—one plate, one knife, one spoon, one fork, for each of the five chairs. Soon they are capable of noting that they have placed five knives, spoons, and forks on the table and, a bit later, that this amounts to fifteen pieces of silverware. Having thus mastered addition, they move on to subtraction. It seems almost reasonable to expect that if a child were secluded on a desert island at birth and retrieved seven years later, he or she could enter a second-grade mathematics class without any serious problems of intellectual adjustment.
Of course, the truth is not so simple. This century, the work of cognitive psychologists has illuminated the subtle forms of daily learning on which intellectual progress depends. Children were observed as they slowly grasped—or, as the case might be encountered—concepts that adults take for granted, as they refused, for instance, to concede that quantity is unchanged as water pours from a short stout glass into a tall thin one. Psychologists have since demonstrated that young children, asked to count the pencils in a pile, readily report the number of blue or red pencils, but must be coaxed into finding the total. Such studies have suggested that the rudiments of mathematics are mastered gradually, and with effort, They have also suggested that the very concept of abstract numbers—the idea of a oneness, a twoness, a threeness that applies to any class of objects and is a prerequisite for doing anything more mathematically demanding than setting a table—is itself far from innate.
[分析] 主旨题。
该题的解题关键是把握整个听力材料内容的脉络。文章一开始声明儿童似乎天生具有计算能力，而后举例说明，但随后话锋一转，作者提出实际情况并非如此简单，认知心理学家的研究证明，儿童是逐步通过自身努力来学习掌握数学基础知识的。总之，虽然作者对儿童数学能力的发展有不同见解，但全篇都围绕该话题展开。因此，选项c的说法是正确的。
[解题关键] 掌握全文的主要内容是解题的关键。
单选题
It can be inferred from the passage that children normally learn
simple counting ______.
a. soon after they learn to talk
b. by looking at the clock
c. when they begin to be mathematically mature
d. after they reach second grade in school
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 推理判断题。
文章在第一段第二句说明“The numerical skills of children develop so early”，即“儿童数字能力在早期便得以发展”，随后在第三句作者用儿童学会走路和说话不久便在摆放刀叉方面显现出的数字能力来说明上述观点，由此可推断，儿童是在学会说话后就可学会简单的计数，这与选项a的观点是吻合的。因此，选项a的说法是正确的。
[解题关键] 正确判断主题和支持性细节之间的关系，本文中develop so early是主题，其后具体提及的时间段是支持性细节。
单选题
The author implies that most small children believe that the
quantity of water changes when it is transferred to a container of a different
______.
a. color
b. quality
c. weight
d. shape
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 隐含事实的找寻和判断。
根据题干关键词可找寻到原文相关信息处第二段第三句“they refused, for instance, to concede that quantity is unchanged as water pours from a short stout glass into a tall thin one”，可知小孩认为将水从矮粗的杯子倒入细高的杯子，其量会有变化。由此可见他们认为杯子的形状发生改变，水量也会改变，因此，选项d的说法是正确的。
[解题关键] 正确归纳有关信息有助于解答本题，如知道将原文中short stout glass和tall thin one归纳为不同形状的杯子。
单选题
According to the passage, what did small children do when they
were asked to count a pile of red and blue pencils?
a. They counted the number of pencils of each color.
b. They guessed at the total number of pencils.
c. They counted only the pencils of their favorite color.
d. They subtracted the number of red pencils from the number of blue
pencils.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节的找寻和判断。
根据题干线索找寻到原文第二段第四句可知当被要求数红、蓝铅笔时，孩子们会“report the number of blue or red pencils, but must be coaxed into finding the total”，即“他们会将红、蓝铅笔分开来数，只有经过诱导，他们才会将这些铅笔的总数数出来”。因此，选项a的说法与原文相符。
[解题关键] 正确理解单词含义有助于解题，如原文中coax意思是“哄骗，诱导”，通过该词可推测出其背后的意思，即如不经诱导，儿童不会将不同颜色的铅笔的总数数出来。
单选题
With which of the following statements would the author be least
likely to agree?
a. Children naturally and easily learn mathematics.
b. Children learn to add before they learn to subtract.
c. Most people follow the same pattern of mathematical development.
d. Mathematical development is subtle and gradual.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 观点态度的判断。
该题要求注意听力材料中有关观点态度方面的用语或信号词，文中在说到儿童天生具有计算能力时，作者使用了“appear，seems”等词，向听者发出信号，表明作者实际并不赞同这种说法；此外，作者也从正面表示了对这种说法的不同意见，在第二段第一句，作者便称“Of course, the truth is not so simple.”由此可见，选项a的说法与原文相符。
[解题关键] 注意表示观点态度的信号词的使用。