单选题 .  Child psychologists—and kindergarten teachers—have long known that when children first show up for school, some of them speak a lot more fluently than others. Psychologists also know that children's socioeconomic status tends to be closely connected with their language facility. The better off and more educated a child's parents are, the better vocabulary ability that child tends to have by school age—and vocabulary skill is a key predictor for success in school. Children from low-income families, who may often start school knowing significantly fewer words than their better-off peers, will struggle for years to make up that ground.
    Previous studies have shown that wealthier, educated parents talk to their young children more, using more complex vocabulary and sentences, than parents of lesser means. And these differences may help explain why richer kids start school with richer vocabularies. But what goes on before children can talk, during that phase—familiar to any parent—when communication takes the form of pointing, waving, grabbing and other kinds of baby sign language? Do well—off parents also gesture more to their kids?
    Indeed they do, say psychologists Susan Goldin-Meadow and Meredith Rowe of the University of Chicago. The researchers found that at 14 months of age, babies already showed a wide range of "speaking" ability through gestures, and that those differences were closely linked with their socioeconomic background and how frequently their parents used gestures to communicate. High-income, better-educated parents gestured more frequently to their children to convey meaning and new concepts, and in turn, their kids gestured more to them. When researchers tested the same children at 54 months of age, they found that those early gesturers turned out to have better vocabulary ability than other students.
    At 14 months of age, researches say, pointing toward an object is the way most kids use gestures. If a parent responds to that gesture by identifying the object in words—by saying, "That's a doll," for example—children get a head start on growing their original vocabularies. "That's a teachable moment, and mothers are teaching the kids the word for an object," says Goldin-Meadow.1.  Psychologists have found that children's language ability largely depends on ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】 第1段第2、3句。
   该句表明孩子的语言能力与其家庭的社会经济背景有关，父母越富有、受教育程度越高，孩子的语言能力就越强。题干中的language ability与文中的language facility对应，largely depends on与closely connected with对应，该句中的主语socioeconomic status为本题答案，A与其为同义替换，故为答案。
   本题最具干扰性的是B。文中提到词汇能力(vocabulary ability)是孩子学习成功的风向标，也就是词汇能力决定在学校是否能成功，而B代入题干中则表示学习的成功表现决定孩子的语言能力，因果颠倒了，故错误。
[参考译文] 儿童心理学家及幼儿园教师们早就知道，孩子刚开始上学时，有些孩子说话要比其他孩子流利得多。心理学家也知道孩子的社会经济地位往往与他们的语言能力密切相关。孩子的父母越富裕、受教育程度越高，孩子在入学的年龄时所具备的词汇能力就越强——词汇能力是预测孩子学习成功的一个关键风向标。来自低收入家庭的孩子在刚开始上学时知道的词汇往往比来自富俗家庭的孩子少很多，他们需要几年的时间才能弥补这差距。
   之前的研究表明，较富裕、受过良好教育的父母与较贫困、受教育较少的父母相比，他们与小孩交谈得更多，使用的词汇和句子更复杂。这些差异可能有助于解释为什么富有的孩子在开始上学时拥有更丰富的词汇。但是在孩子学会说话之前是怎么样的呢?在这个任何父母都很熟悉的阶段，我们都是通过指、挥、抓等动作和其他形式的婴儿手势语来与孩子交流的。富裕的父母向他们的孩子打的手势更多吗?
   事实上的确如此，芝加哥大学的心理学家苏珊·戈尔丁·梅多和梅雷迪思·罗说道。研究人员发现，在14个月大时，婴儿就已经可以通过各种手势表现出了不同程度的“说话”能力，而当中的差异是与他们的社会经济背景和他们的父母使用手势与他们交流的频率密切相关的。高收入、受过良好教育的家长更频繁地使用手势向他们的孩子传达意义和新的概念，反过来，他们的孩子也向他们作出更多的手势。当研究人员在这些孩子54个月大的时候再测试他们时，发现这些早期作手势多的孩子比其他孩子的词汇能力更强。
   研究人员表示，在14个月大的时候，指向一个物体是大多数孩子使用的手势。如果父母对孩子的手势作出反应，用语言将这个物体说出来——比如说“这是一个玩偶”，这些孩子在增长其原始词汇方面便走在了别的孩子的前面。“这是一个教育的机会，母亲正好教孩子学习指示事物的语言，”戈尔丁·梅多说道。