阅读理解 Below each of the following four passages you will find questions or incomplete statements about the passage. Each statement or question is followed by lettered words or expressions. Select the word or expression that most satisfactorily completes or answers each question in accordance with the meaning of the passage. Write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET(40 points).
(1)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 bumped into—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.
单选题 1.What does the passage mainly discuss?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】文章第一段讲述孩子数字技能的发展，从加到减的过程。第二段讲述日常学习在孩子数学技能发展中的作用，由此可知，本文主要内容是儿童数学能力的发展，因此，正确答案为C。
单选题 2.It can be inferred from the passage that children normally learn simple counting______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】文章第一段最后一句及第二段第一句指出，将孩子出生就放到荒岛上，七年后返回世间，他可以直接上小学二年级的数学课，而事实并非如此。第二段着重说明日常学习的重要作用，说明孩子学习数学是有一个渐渐成熟的过程的，因此C项正确。A项在第一段第三句提到，但它只是一个模棱两可的时间概念。B项第一段第二句提到，这只是一个比喻。D项显然不正确。
单选题 3.The author implies that most small children believe that the quantity of water changes when it is transferred to a container of a different______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】文章第二段倒数第四句中提到“as they refused，for instance，to concede that quantity isunchanged as water pours from a short stout glass into a tall thin one”，将水从短粗的瓶中倒人细长瓶中，这是形状的变化，因此，正确答案为D。
单选题 4.According to the passage, when small children were asked to count a pile of red and blue pencils they______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】文章第二段倒数第三句提到“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”，即让孩子们数一堆铅笔时，他们能顺利地报出蓝铅笔或红铅笔的数目，但却需诱导才能报出总的数目，因此，他们是分别数蓝色和红色铅笔的数量，正确答案为A。
单选题 5.With which of the following statements would the author be LEAST likely to agree?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】文章第一段结尾及第二段整段都强调了日常学习的重要性，即孩子掌握数学技能是有一个渐进的过程的，不是naturally and easily的。因此，A项不符合作者本意。第一段提及孩子掌握数学技能是由加到减的，因此B，C项正确。D项在第二段得到体现。