单选题 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 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 babies 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 ability to survive is seriously influenced.
Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick Ⅱ Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive (不敏感的) to the signals (信号) of the baby, whose brain is made 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 the 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 order and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be clever.
At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes 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 1000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four he knows his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar.
单选题 What was the purpose of the experiment of Frederick II in the thirteenth century?
  • A. To discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speech.
  • B. To prove that a baby couldn't live without his mother.
  • C. To find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speak.
  • D. To prove that a child would be damaged without learning a language.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 可以从短文的第3句话(Hoping to discover what language a child would speak…)找到此题的答案。
单选题 According to the passage, the reason that the children of Frederick II's experiment died is ______.
  • A. lack of language
  • B. lack of good mothering
  • C. without mother tongue
  • D. the nurses' careless nursing
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 第2段前3句话说明：实验表明，不到一岁的婴儿死亡，除了没有语言以外，更重要的是缺少精心的抚育(…there was more than lack of language here．What was missing wasgood mothering．)。因此，答案是B)。
单选题 Today some children are backward in speaking because ______.
  • A. they are incapable of learning language rapidly
  • B. they are faced with so much language at once
  • C. their mothers respond improperly to their attempts to speak
  • D. their brain is not made to learn language rapidly
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 第3段的第3句话解释了小孩说话滞后的原因：母亲对婴儿所发出的信号反映不敏感(…the mother is insensitive to the signals of the baby…)，这与答案C)their mothersrespond improperly to their attempts to speak的意思相同。因此，答案是C)。
单选题 If a child starts to speak later than other normal children, he will ______ in the future.
  • A. be more clever than others
  • B. be insensitive to verbal signals
  • C. be less intelligent
  • D. not necessarily be backward
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 第4段中提到：也有这样的情况，小孩开始说话晚，而后来事实证明却很聪明(…speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be clever．)。这就说明，说话晚的孩子不一定都笨，与“…not necessarily be backward”意义相同。因此，答案是D)。
单选题 A child can say "Mum" probably at ______.
  • A. twelve weeks
  • B. twelve months
  • C. three years
  • D. four years
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 题干中的“Mum”是一个简单词语，这与短文最后1段的第1句话“小孩12个月时，能说一些简单的词”(…at twelve months he can speak simple words…)相吻合，因此，答案是B)。