单选题The optimum age for second language acquisition is ______.A.early teenage B. after puberty C.at puberty D.after the brain lateralization

单选题Which of the following activities is NOT done by Americans to celebrate Christmas? A.They send dozens of Christmas cards or "season's greetings" to relatives, friends and business associates. B.They enjoy a traditional Christmas dinner—turkey, pumpkin pie and Indian Pudding. C.They join with friends and walk from house to house singing the traditional carols of Christmas. D.They decorate homes and churches with evergreens.

单选题 Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the news.

单选题Ulysses and Dubliners were written by ______.A. Alfred TennysonB. ThackerayC. James JoyceD. William Wordsworth

单选题What was the author's attitude toward the radical?

单选题Americans may have been distracted by two reports reminding them of a widening gap between the rich and poor. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, two liberal research groups, put out a state-by-state breakdown of Census Bureau data, which found nine states (led by New York) in which the richest 20 percent of households now earn at least 11 times the income of the poorest 20 percent. This indicated a much sharper disparity between the top and bottom than existed two decades ago. Then the Federal Reserve Bank released its latest survey of consumer finances. It showed that the average net worth of families earning less than $10,000 a year had fallen by $6,600 over the past three years, while households earning more than $100,000 a year had seen their wealth jump by more than $300,000. Our response is: So what? Few of us should be surprised—or threatened—by statistics on inequality. Some Americans believe the more equality the better, but the fact is that the distribution of income and wealth isn"t arbitrary. It emerges from broad trends in the economy and is a byproduct of a decade that created 17 million jobs and added 20 percent to median household net worth. The unstated implication of the state-by-state report was that the states where income disparities are lower are somehow "fairer" than the states with high disparities. But the truth is that among communities, states and regions, income and wealth will vary for many reasons, several of them unavoidable and laudable. Consider, for example, that income varies with education. According to census data, high school dropouts in the work force earn an average of $26,207, while workers with a professional degree average $127,499. Census figures show that many of the states with the widest income gaps have greater diversity in education levels than states with smaller income gaps. Twenty-six percent of those over the age of 24 in New York—the state with the greatest income disparity—have at least a bachelor"s degree, whereas in Indiana, which was among the seven states with the lowest income disparity, only 16 percent do. Should we be lamenting that so many New Yorkers went to college? Another non-nefarious cause of increasing income disparity may be our ever-higher immigration rates. Immigrants tend to cluster in low-and high-income groups. Thus it is no surprise that in the seven most unequal states—New York, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, California, Rhode Island and Texas—about 13 percent of the population is foreign-born (in California, it"s 25 percent). Among the seven states with the smallest income disparities, the immigrant population is only 3.8 percent. The shift away from manufacturing is also a factor. Service workers span the gamut from hotel maids to brain surgeons, while the pay range is generally narrower in the manufacturing sector. States that are industrial tend to have more equal distributions of income. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that about 10 percent of workers in Arizona, Louisiana and New York have manufacturing jobs, whereas in more equal states like Indiana and Wisconsin the figure is 23 percent. Also, in the seven states with the greatest income inequality, more than 80 percent of the population lives in or near metropolitan areas. In states with the most equality, only about half does. If we were to turn back the clock 100 years and again become a largely rural nation, we might not see such large income disparities, but that"s because America"s cities are our engines of wealth and offer greater prospects for those who succeed. Inequality is not inequity. Artificial efforts to try to curb wealth gaps invariably do more harm than good. Heavier taxation might narrow the division between rich and poor, but it would be a hollow triumph if it stifled the economy. What Americans ought to care most about is maintaining our growth, not the red herring of gaps in income and wealth.

单选题"Leave him alone" I yelled as I walked out of the orphanage gate and saw several of the Spring Park School bullies pushing the deaf kid around. I did not know the boy at all but I knew that we were about the same age, because of his size. He lived in the old white house across the street from the orphanage where I lived. I had seen him on his front porch several times doing absolutely nothing, except just sitting there making funny like hand movements. In the summer time we didn't get much to eat for Sunday supper, except watermelon and then we had to eat it outside behind the dining room so we would not make a mess on the tables inside. About the only time that I would see him was through the high chain-link fence that surrounded the orphanage when we ate our watermelon outside. The deaf kid started making all kinds of hand signals, real fast like. "You are a stupid idiot!" said the bigger of the two bullies as he pushed the boy down on the ground. The other bully ran around behind the boy and kicked him as hard as he could in the back. Tile deaf boy's body started shaking all over and he curled up in a ball trying to shield and hide his face. He looked like he was trying to cry, or something but he just couldn't make any sounds. I ran as fast as I could back through the orphanage gate and into the thick azalea bushes. I uncovered my home-made bow which I had constructed out of bamboo and string. I grabbed four arrows that were also made of bamboo and they had Coca Cola tops bent around the ends to make real sharp tips. Then I ran back out of the gate with an arrow cocked in the bow and I just stood there quiet like, breathing real hard just daring either one of them to kick or touch the boy again. "You're a dumb freak just like him, you big eared creep!" said one of the boys as he grabbed his friend and backed off far enough so that the arrow would not hit them. "If you're so brave kick him again now," I said, shaking like a leaf. The bigger of the two bullies ran up and kicked the deaf boy in the middle of his back as hard as he could and then he ran out of arrow range again. The boy jerked about and then made a sound that I will never forget for as long as I live. It was the sound like a whale makes when it has been harpooned and knows that it is about to die. I fired all four of my arrows at the two bullies as they ran away laughing about what they had done. I pulled the boy up off the ground and helped him back to his house which was about two blocks down the street from the school building. The boy made one of those hand signs at me as I was about to leave. I asked his sister "If your brother is so smart then why is he doing things like that with his hands?" She told me that he was saying that he loved me with his hands. Almost every Sunday for the next year or two I could see the boy through the chain-link fence as we ate watermelon outside behind the dining room, during the summer time. He always made that same funny hand sign at me and I would just wave back at him, not knowing what else to do. On my very last day in the orphanage I was being chased by the police. They told me that I was being sent off to the Florida School for Boys Reform School at Marianna so I ran to get away from them. They chased me around the dining room building several times and finally I made a dash for the chain-link fence and tried to climb over in order to escape. I saw the deaf boy sitting there on his porch just looking at me as they pulled me down from the fence and handcuffed me. The boy, now about twelve jumped up and ran across San Diego Road, placed his fingers through the chain-link fence and just stood there looking at us. They dragged me by my legs, screaming and yelling for more than several hundred yards through the dirt and pine-straw to the waiting police car. All I could hear the entire time was the high pitched sound of that whale being harpooned again.

单选题What the reporter stole would have been valuable to ______.

单选题Thousands of teachers at the elementary, secondary, and college levels can testify that their students' writing exhibits a tendency toward a superficiality that wasn't seen, say 10 or 15 years ago. It shows up not only in their lack of analytical skills, but in poor command of grammar and rhetoric. I' ye been asked by a graduate student what a semicolon is. The mechanics of the English language have been tortured to pieces by' TV. Visual, moving images—which are the venue of television—can't be held in the net of careful language. They want to break out. They really have nothing to do with language, grammar, and rhetoric, and they have become fractured. Recent surveys by dozens of organizations also suggest that up to 40% of the American public is functionally illiterate. That is, our citizens' reading and writing abilities, if they have any, are impaired so seriously as to render them, in that handy jargon of our times, dysfunctional. The reading is taught - TV teaches people not to read. It renders them incapable of engaging in an activity that now is perceived as strenuous, because it is not a passive hypnotized state. Passive as it is, television has invaded our culture so completely that the medium's effects are evident in every quarter, even the literary world. It shows up in supermarket paperbacks, from Stephen King (who has a certain clever skill) to pulp fiction. These really are forms of verbal TV-literature that is so superficial that those who read it can revel in the same sensations they experience when watching television. Even more importantly, the growing influence of television, Kernan says, has changed people's habits and values and affected their assumptions about the world. The sort of reflective, critical, and value laden thinking encouraged by books has been rendered obsolete. In this context, we would do well to recall the Cyclops— the race of giants that, according to Greek myth, predated man. Quite literally, TV affects the way people think. In Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, Jerry Mander quotes from the Emery Report, prepared by the Center for Continuing Education at the Australian National University, Canberra, that, when we watch television, "our usual processes of thinking and discern ment are semi-functional at best." The study also argues that, "while television appears to have the potential to provide useful information to viewers—and is celebrated for its educational function—the technology of television and the inherent nature of the viewing experience actually inhibit learning as we usually think of it./

单选题{{I}} Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each question. Now listen to the news. {{/I}}

单选题Yellow Stone National Park is located in A. the northern part of Wyoming. B. the western part of Wyoming. C. the southern part of Wyoming. D. the eastern part of Wyoming.

单选题According to the author, the breakthrough of this technology starts firm ______.

单选题Which of the following statements is TRUE about the essay?

单选题X: John"s bike needs repairing. Y: John has a bike. The relationship of X and Y is ______.

单选题At the beginning of the passage the writer sounds critical of

单选题What does the word "hip "mean in this passage?

单选题CattleraisingisnotnecessarilyaprofitablebusinessbecauseA.thedemandistoolowB.thesupplyistoolargeC.thecostistoohighD.thepriceischangeable

单选题Which day is Lincoln"s Birthday?

单选题{{B}}TEXT C{{/B}} There is a great concern in Europe and North America about declining standards of literacy in schools. In Britain, the fact that 30 percent of 16 year olds have a reading age of 14 or less has helped to prompt massive educational changes. The development of literacy has far-reaching effects on general intellectual development and thus anything that impedes the development of literacy is a serious matter for us all. So the hunt is on for the cause of the decline in literacy. The search so far has forced on socioeconomic factors, or the effectiveness of" traditional" versus" modem" teaching techniques. The fruitless march for the cause of the increase in illiteracy is a tragic example of the saying" They can't see the wood for the trees". When teachers use picture books, they are simply continuing a long-established tradition that is accepted without question. And for the past two decades illustrations in reading primers have become increasingly detailed and obtrusive, while language has become impoverished—sometimes to the point of extinction. Amazingly, there is virtually no empirical evidence to support the use of illustrations in teaching reading. On the contrary, a great deal of empirical evidence shows that pictures interfere in a damaging way with all aspects of learning to read. Despite this, from North America to the Antipodes, the first books that many school children receive are totally without text. A teacher's main concern is to help young beginner readers to develop not only the ability to recognize words, but the skills necessary to understand what these words mean. Even if a child is able to read aloud fluently, he or she may not be able to understand much of it: this is called" barking at text". The teacher's takes of improving comprehension is made harder by influences outside the classroom. But the adverse effects of such things as television, video games, or limited language experiences at home, can be offset by experiencing "rich" language at school. Instead, it is not unusual for a book of 30 or more pages to have only one sentence full of repetitive phrases. The artwork is often marvelous, but the pictures make the language redundant, and the children have no need to imagine anything when they read such books. Looking at a picture actively prevents children younger than nine from creating a mental image, and can make it difficult for older children. In order to learn how to comprehend, they need to practice making their own meaning in response to text. They need to have their innate powers of imagination trained. As they grow older, many children turn aside from books without pictures, and it is a situation made more serious as our culture becomes more visual. It is hard to wean children off picture books when pictures have played a major part throughout their formative reading experiences, and when there is competition for their attention from so many other sources of entertainment. The least intelligent are most vulnerable, but tests show that even intelligent children are being affected. The response of educators has been to extend the use of pictures in books and to simplify the language, even at senior levels. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge recently held joint conferences to discuss the noticeably rapid decline in literacy among their undergraduates. Pictures are also used to help motivate children to read because they are beautiful and eye-catching. But motivation to read should be provided by listening to stories well read, where children imagine in response to the story. Then, as they start to read, they have this experience to help them understand the language. If we present pictures to save children the trouble of developing these creative skills, then I think we are making a great mistake. Academic journals ranging from educational research, psychology, language learning, psycholinguistic, and so on cite experiments, which demonstrate how detrimental picture are for beginner readers. Here is a brief selection: The research results of the Canadian educationalist Dale Willows were clear and consistent pictures affected speed and accuracy and the closer the pictures were to the words, the slower and more inaccurate the child's reading became. She claims that when children come to a word they already know, then the pictures are unnecessary and distracting. If they do not know a word and look to the pictures, which are not closely related to the meaning of the word, they are trying to understand. Jay Samuels, an American psychologist, found that poor readers given no pictures learnt significantly more words than those learning to read with books with pictures. He examined the work of other researchers who reported problems with the use of pictures and who had found that a word without a picture was superior to a Word plus a picture. When children were given words and pictures, those who seemed to ignore the pictures and pointed at the words learnt more words than the children who pointed at the pictures, but they still learnt fewer words than the children who had no illustrated stimuli at all.

单选题______ is generally regarded as John Steinbeck’s masterpiece.