单选题
Passage 4 In her 26 years of teaching
English, Shannon McGuire has seen countless misplaced commas, misspelled words
and sentence fragments. But the instructor at US's Louisiana
State University in Baton Rouge said her job is getting harder every
day. "I kid you not, the number of errors that I've seen in the
past few years have multiplied five times," she said. Experts
say email and instant messaging are at least partly to blame for an increasing
indifference toward the rules of grammar, spelling and sentence
structure. They say the problem is most noticeable in college
students and recently graduates. "They used to at least feel
guilty (about mistakes)," said Naomi Baron, professor of linguistics at American
University in Washington, D. C. "They didn't necessarily write a little better,
but at least they felt guilty." Ironically, Baron's latest
book, "Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading,"
became a victim of sloppy proofreading. The book's title is capitalized
differently on the cover, spine and title page. "People used to lose their jobs
over this," she said. "And now they just say 'whatever'."
"Whatever" describes Jeanette Henderson's attitude toward writing. The sophomore
at the University of Louisiana at Monroe admits that her reliance on spellcheck
has hurt her grades in English class. "Computer has spoiled us," she
said. But the family and consumer sciences major believes her
future bosses won't mind the mistakes as much as her professor does. "They're
not going to check semicolons, commas and stuff like that," Henderson
said. LSU's McGuire said she teaches her students to use
distinct writing styles that fit their purpose. She emphasizes
that there's the informal language of an email to a friend, but there's also the
well thought out and structured academic or professional style of
writing. It's not just email and instant messaging that are
contributing to slack writing habits. Society as a whole is
becoming more informal. Casual wear at work used to be reserved for Friday, for
example, but is now commonplace at most offices. There's also a greater emphasis
on youth culture, and youth tend to use instant messaging more than adults
do. English language has been neglected at different points in
history but always rebounds. During Shakespearen times, for example, spelling
wasn't considered important, and early publishers rarely proofread.
There will likely be a social force that recognizes the need for clear
writing and swings the pendulum back.
单选题
According to Shannon McGuire, what is making her job harder than
before?
A. More and more students ask her to teach how to write instant
messages.
B. More and more structural errors are seen in her students' writings.
C. Students are becoming increasingly indifferent to learning English.
D. Parents are more demanding as to the teaching content of the
school.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】
单选题
We can infer from the passage that college students ______.
A. are the victims of the deteriorating education
B. mostly have very bad handwriting
C. don't think they're writing bad English
D. are ashamed of their poor writing skills
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】
单选题
What happened to Baron's latest book?
A. It was poorly edited.
B. It failed to come out.
C. It was renamed "Whatever".
D. It caused her to lose her job.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】
单选题
What does Jeanette Henderson mainly study at the university?
A. Computer Science.
B. Linguistics.
C. Editing and Publishing.
D. Family and Consumer Sciences.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】
单选题
According to the passage, sloppy writing ______.
A. parallels a social tendency of being informal
B. worries students as well as professors
C. is taken as trivial by employers
D. is ignored in all business concerned sciences
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】
单选题
The word "distinct" (in boldface) in the context means ______.
A. clear
B. different
C. elegant
D. appropriate
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】
单选题
Which is NOT mentioned as a cause of American students' casual
writing?
A. Emailing.
B. Slack teaching.
C. Youth culture.
D. Instant messaging.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】
单选题
How does the author feel about the future of the English language?