单选题 It was said by Sir George Bernard Shaw that "England and America are two countries separated by the same language." My first personal experience of this was when I worked as a camp counselor for two months in 2000 in Summer Camp run by the Boy Scouts of America, as part of an international leader exchange scheme. Before I went, all the participants in the scheme were given a short list of words that are in common use in the UK which Americans would either be confused by or would even offend them. I memorized the words and thought "I’ll cope".
When I finally arrived in the States three months later, I realized that perhaps a lifetime of watching American television was not adequate preparation for appreciating and coping with the differences between American and British speech. In the first hour of arriving at the camp I was exposed to High School American English, Black American English and American English spoken by Joe Public, all every different to each other. Needless to say, I did cope in the end. The Americans I met were very welcoming and helpful, and I found they were patient with me when I made a social faux pas when I used an inappropriate word or phrase.
Upon my return I began to wonder whether anyone had documented the differences between American and British English. I found several books on the subject but often these were written in a dry and academic way. I felt that I could do better and use my sense of humor and personal experiences to help people from both sides of Atlantic to communicate more effectively when they meet.
My research into the subject led me to several conclusions.
Firstly, American English and British English are coveting, thanks to increased transatlantic travel and the media. The movement of slang words is mostly eastwards, though a few words from the UK have been adopted by the Ivy League fraternities, This convergent trend is a recent one dating from the emergence of Hollywood as the predominant film making center in the world and also from the Second World War when large numbers of American GIs were stationed in the UK. This trend was consolidated by the advent of television. Before then, it was thought that American English and British English would diverge as the two languages evolved. In 1789, Noah Webster stated that: "Numerous local causes, such as a new country, new associations of people, new combinations of ideas in the arts and some intercourse with tribes wholly unknown in Europe will introduce new words into the American tongue." He was right, but his next statement has since been proved to be incorrect. "These causes will produce in the course of time a language in North America as different from the modern Dutch, Danish and Swedish are from the German or from one another."
Webster had underrated the mount of social intercourse between England and her former colony. Even before Webster had started to compile his dictionary, words and expressions from the America had already infiltrated the British language, for example "canoe" and "hatchet".
Secondly, there are some generalizations that can be made about American and British English which can reveal the nature of the two nations and their peoples. British speech tends to be less general, and directed more, in nuances of meaning, attendant murmurings and pauses, carries a wealth of shared assumptions and attitudes. In other words, the British are preoccupied with their social status within society and speak and act accordingly to fit into the social class they aspire to. This is particularly evident when talking to someone from "the middle class" when he points out that he is "upper middle class" rather than "middle class" or "lower middle class". John Major (the former UK Prime Minister) may have said that we are now living in a "classless society" but the class system still prevails. At that moment both he and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Blair, were talking about capturing the "middle England", " middle class vote" as the key to winning the next general election. American speech tends to be influenced by the over-heated language of much of the media, which is designed to attach an impression of exciting activity to passive, if sometimes insignificant events. Yet, curiously, really violent activity and life-changing events are hidden in blind antiseptic tones that serve to disguise the reality. Two examples come readily to mind—the US Military with their "friendly fire" and "collateral damages" and the business world with their "downsizing". British people tend to understatement whereas Americans towards hyperbole. A Briton might respond to a suggestion with a word such as "Terrific!" only if he is expressing rapturous enthusiasm, whereas an American might use the word merely to signify polite assent.
Thirdly, The American language has less regard than the British for grammatical form, and will happily bulldoze its way across distinctions rather than steer a path between them. American English will casually use one form of a word for another, for example turning nouns into verbs or verbs and nouns into adjectives.

单选题 The sentence "England and America are two countries separated by the same language" in the first paragraph implies that
A. England and America used to be one country but were separated by the language.
B. England and America share the same language but the language separates them.
C. England and America share the same language but show differences in the language use.
D. British English and American English are almost the same in the two countries.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[定位] 根据题干直接定位到文章第1段。
[解析] 作者在文章开头引用了萧伯纳的话,接着在第1、2段叙述了自己对此话的第一次亲身感受。第2段第 1句作者夸张地说到用一辈子看电视也不足以充分准备欣赏和应对美式英语,从而说明,英语和美语虽然是同一种语言,但在使用上却有很大区别。因此对该句的正确理解应为C项。
[点睛] 句意题。这种题应联系上下文解答,下文作者所列举的事例说明了这个观点。
单选题 The author decided to write about the differences between American and British English to
A. support the statement of Bernard Shaw. B. describe his personal experiences.
C. show his sense of humor. D. help people’s communication.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[定位] 根据题干中的the differences between American and British English定位到第3段。
[解析] 第3段提到,有关这个主题的书都比较枯燥学术,作者觉得自己能用幽默感和亲身经历帮助人们更好的沟通,因此答案为D。
[点睛] 细节辨析题。选项B和C都是作者描述的方式,不是目的,故不正确;而A项所提到的支持萧伯纳的观点是作者在第1、2段提到的例证的目的,而不是写书的目的。
单选题 Which of the following does NOT contribute to the convergent trend of American English and British English?
A. More international travel between the two countries.
B. The emergence of Hollywood as a film making center.
C. The advent of television.
D. The individual evolution of the two languages,
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[定位] 根据题干中的convergent trend定位到文章第5段。
[解析] 选项A与第5段第1句提到的“更多的跨洋旅游”表述一致;选项B在该段第3句直接提及;选项C在第4句直接提及;选项D说“两种语言的各自发展”与文中说的“美语和英语将随着两种语言的演化发展而加大差异(would diverge as the two languages evolved)”一致,但这是过去被认为的趋势,实际则不同,因此选D。
[点睛] 细节辨析题。本题选项中的individual本身就与题干中的convergent矛盾,根据这一点可快速确定D项。
单选题 The British people, as is revealed by their language
A. are now living in a "classless society". B. are more inclined to hyperbole.
C. think much about their social status. D. are more enthusiastic about voting.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[定位] 题目提到从其语言反映出来的英国人,相关内容出现在第7段。
[解析] 文章第7段第3句提到,英国人的心思都放在了对其在社会中地位的关注上(are preoccupied with their social status),而C项中的think much about与are preoccupied with意思相近,因此答案为C。
[点睛] 细节辨析题。选项A出现在John Mayor的话语中,而后文的but表明实际上英国的阶级体制仍然浒,因此A项不符合题干的要求“根据语言所显示的来看”;选项B描述的是美国人;选项D在文中没有提到。
单选题 In terms of grammatical form,
A. the American language has more regard than the British.
B. American English uses word form more casually than British English.
C. American English and British English exhibit the same features.
D. the British language shows more flexibility than the American.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[定位] 根据题干中的grammatical form定位到最后一段。
[解析] 最后一段提到美式英语会很随意地把一种词性用成另一种词性,B项中的uses word form more casually是原文casually use one form of a word for another的同义替换,因此答案为B。
[点睛] 细节辨析题。选项A与最后一段第1句不符;选项C与本篇文章的内容表述矛盾,本文讨论的是英语与美语的差别,显然不可能有同样的特征;选项D与最后一段所述相反。