Question

It is not unusual for people to speak two or three languages; they’re known as bilinguals or trilinguals. Speakers of more than three languages are known as polyglots. And when we refer to people who speak many languages, perhaps a dozen or more, we use the term hyper-polyglot.
The most famous hyper-polyglot was Giuseppe Mezzofanti, a 19^th century Italian cardinal, who was said to speak 72 languages. This claim sounds absurd. If you assume each language had 20,000 words, Mezzofanti would have to learn a word a minute, six hours a day, for eleven years—an impossible task. But Mezzofanti was tested by critics, and they were all impressed.
Did Mezzofanti have an extraordinary brain? Or are hyper-polyglots just ordinary people with ordinary brains who manage to do something extraordinary through hard work?
U.S. linguist Stephen Drashen believes that outstanding language learners just work harder at it and then they acquire unusually strong language ability. As an example, he mentions a Hungarian woman who worked as an interpreter during the 20^th century. When she was 86, she could speak 16 languages and was still working on learning new languages. She said she learned them mostly on her own, reading fiction or working through dictionaries or textbooks.
Some researchers argue to the contrary. They believe that there is such a thing as a talent for learning languages. In the 1930s, a German scientist examined parts of the preserved brain of a hyper-polyglot named Emil Krebs, who could speak 60 languages fluently. The scientist found that the area of Krebs’s brain called Broca’s area, which is associated with language, looked different from the Broca’s area in the brains of men who speak only one language. However, we still don’t know if Krebs was born with a brain ready to learn dozens of languages or if his brain adapted to the demands he put on it.
Although it is still not clear whether the ability to learn many languages is in born, there’s no doubt that just about all of us can acquire skills in a second, third, or even fourth language by putting our mind to it.
小題1:What does the underlined sentence imply?

A．Mezzofanti could remember 360 words a day.

B．Mezzofanti had a special way to learn languages.

C．Mezzofanti’s achievement was ridiculous.

D．Mezzofanti language ability was astonishing.

小題2:The Hungarian woman became a hyper-polyglot mainly because of her __.

A．good memory	B．hard work
C．unique brain	D．learning methods

小題3:The German scientist’s findings showed that Krebs ___.

A．had an unusual brain

B．was born with great talent

C．had worked hard at languages

D．expected too much of himself

小題4:The author seems to agree that ___.

A．it is not hard to learn foreign languages

B．hard work plays a part in language learning

C．there is no such thing as a talent for languages

D．hyper-polyglots have an inborn talent for language

Answer 1

小題1:D
小題2:B
小題3:A
小題4:B

試題分析：文章通過舉了幾個會說好幾種語言的人，可以看出有的人是非常勤奮，有的人似乎大腦非同尋常，但歸根結(jié)底努力是分不開的。
小題1:推理題：從劃線的句子：我們可以看出Mezzofant 一分鐘學(xué)一個單詞，一天６小時，學(xué)11年，這是an impossible task 可知Mezzofant 的語言學(xué)習(xí)能力是讓人驚訝的。選D
小題2:推理題；文章第四段的句子：believes that outstanding language learners just work harder at it and then they acquire unusually strong language ability.可知語言學(xué)習(xí)是需要努力的，后面舉例這個匈牙利女翻譯的例子，可知選B
小題3:細節(jié)題：從倒數(shù)第二段的句子：the scientist found that the area of Krebs’s brain called Broca’s area, which is associated with language, looked different from the Broca’s area in the brains of men who speak only one language.可知Krebs有著不尋常的大腦。選 A
小題4:推理題：從文章的最后一段的句子：there’s no doubt that just about all of us can acquire skills in a second, third, or even fourth language by putting our mind to it. 可知作者認(rèn)為學(xué)習(xí)語言需要勤奮。選B。
點評：文章通過舉了幾個會說好幾種語言的人，可以看出有的人是非常勤奮，有的人似乎大腦非同尋常，但歸根結(jié)底努力是分不開的。本文要求考生理解文章的主旨，通過題目篩選答案，讀者應(yīng)當(dāng)知道如何去做或按照某種方式傳遞思考問題。推理判斷題的答案不可能在文章中直接找到，因此推理時我們務(wù)必要忠于原文，在文章中尋找并確定可推論的依據(jù)。