科目:高中英語 來源: 題型:閱讀理解
Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 7, 9, 6. Read them loud. Now look away and spend 20 seconds memorizing them in order before saying them out loud again. If you speak English, you have about a 50% chance of remembering those perfectly. If you are Chinese, though, you’re almost certain to get it right every time. Why is that? Because we most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within a two-second period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.
That example comes from Stanislas Dahaene’s book The Number Sense. As Dahaene explains: Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be spoken out in less than one-quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is “si” and 7 “qi”). Their English pronunciations are longer. The memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in length.
It turns out that there is also a big difference in how number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, so one might expect that we would also say oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, and fiveteen. But we don’t. We use a different form: eleven, twelve, thirteen and fifteen. For numbers above 20, we put the “decade” first and the unit number second (twenty-one, twenty-two), while for the teens, we do it the other way around (fourteen, seventeen, eighteen). The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is two-tens-four and so on.
That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children. Four-year-old Chinese children can count, on average, to 40. American children at that age can count only to 15. By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian friends in the most fundamental of math skills.
The regularity of their number system also means that Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to change the words to numbers (37+22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation(等式) is right there, in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: it’s five-tens-nine.
When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have a built-in advantage. For years, students from China, South Korea, and Japan --- outperformed their Western classmates at mathematics, and the typical assumption is that it has something to do with a kind of Asian talent for math. The differences between the number systems in the East and the West suggest something very different --- that being good at math may also be rooted in a group’s culture.
What does the passage mainly talk about?
A. The Asian number-naming system helps grasp advanced math skills better.
B. Western culture fail to provide their children with adequate number knowledge.
C. Children in Western countries have to learn by heart the learning things.
D. Asian children’s advantage in math may be sourced from their culture.
What makes a Chinese easier to remember a list of numbers than an American?
A. Their understanding of numbers.
B. Their mother tongue.
C. Their math education.
D. Their different IQ.
Asian children can reach answers in basic math functions more quickly because ____________.
A. they pronounce the numbers in a shorter period
B. they practice math from an early age
C. English speaking children translate language into numbers first
D. American children can only count to 15 at the age of four
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科目:高中英語 來源: 題型:
What is most obvious in this book are all those details of daily living which make Mrs. Richard _____ common.
A. nothing but B. anything but C. above all D.rather than
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科目:高中英語 來源:2014屆云南省高二上學(xué)期期中考試英語試卷(解析版) 題型:完型填空
James sat outside the office waiting for the interview(面試). He felt so 36 that he didn’t know what to do with37 .The person who had gone in 38 him had been there for nearly an hour. And she looked so confident when she went in. 39 James. He felt 40 that she had already got the 41 . The problem was that he wanted this job 42 .It meant 43 to him. He had 44 it such a lot before the day of the interview. He had imagined himself 45 brilliantly at the interview and 46 the job immediately. But now here he was feeling 47 .He couldn’t48 all those things he had 49 to say. At that moment, he almost decided to get up and 50 .But no—he had to do this. He had spent so much time considering it that he couldn’t 51 like that. His hands were hot and sticky and his mouth felt dry. At last the door of the office opened . The woman who had gone in an hour earlier came out looking very 52 with herself. She smiled sympathetically at James. At that moment James 53 her. The managing director then appeared at the office door. “Would you like to come in now, Mr Davis? I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.” James suddenly 54 that he had gone home after all. He got up, legs 55 and forehead sweating and wondered whether he looked as terrified as he felt.
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科目:高中英語 來源:廣東省廣州市2009-2010學(xué)年度高一級第二學(xué)期期中考試英語科試題 題型:閱讀理解
As the sound of footsteps behind her grew louder, she quickened her pace. She didn’t want to turn around as the memory of that morning’s newspaper headline made her afraid of what she would see: “City Killer Claims Fourth Victim.”
“Why did I stop for a few drinks in the bar after work?” she thought to herself. Now it was dark and the streets deserted. She was alone and a sitting duck.
She felt as if she was walking in the rain. Her clothes were damp from nervous sweat and as each short hot breath hit the night air, it turned to steam, coating her glasses in a thin film so all she saw seemed covered in fog.
The footsteps were closer now. She needed to get off this street. Her eyes began a useless search for an open store or lighted window. Passing a small lane she looked through, for a possible escape route. But the lane was a dead - end and she laughed to herself at the irony ( 具有諷刺意味的事 ).
The sound of a car behind her turning onto the street interrupted her self – pity. Escape was at hand. But as she was about to throw herself onto the road and shout for the car to stop, the car’s headlights cast a shadow that paralyzed ( 使癱瘓 ) her with terror.
It was the footsteps’ owner. The figure was huge and in its raised arm it held what looked like a lead-pipe, no doubt the one that was about to claim victim number five.
The shadow dissolved as the car passed by and disappeared into the distance. She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was all happening as if in slow – motion. She was waiting for her life to flash before her eyes like all those novels said it would – but it didn’t. The only thing she thought of was her dear husband. She recalled phoning him from work that very afternoon and joking about, of all things, the city killer. It was a night full of ironies.
There was a voice talking to her now but she was lost in thoughts of her fate and didn’t respond. The hand then began turning her around. It was surprisingly gentle given what was about to come. She allowed it to guide her without resistance ( 抗拒 ).
She looked up. She recognized the face, but she didn’t know from where. Its mouth was still talking to her but she couldn’t understand. Then she remembered. The face belonged to the foreign looking man who had served her at the bar. She looked down to his hand and saw in it not a lead – pipe but a rolled up copy of a work report she had been correcting in the bar as she drank.
His words suddenly started to register in her brain and she could hear him. “Miss, Miss. Are you OK? You left this in the bar and it looked important so I thought I’d better give it to you.”
71. The woman was feeling nervous because .
A. she had left her report in the bar
B. there was a killer in the city
C. she was being followed by someone
D. the streets were dark and empty
72. The underlined expression “a sitting duck” (paragraph 2) is closest in meaning to “ ”.
A. an easy target B. a frightened person
C. a foolish animal D. a still position
73. What is the correct order of events that happened to the woman on the day of the story?
a. She went for a drink in a bar. b. She corrected the report.
c. She heard loud footsteps. d. She read the newspaper.
e. She called her husband. f. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
A. d,c,a,e,b,f B. c,d,a,e,f,b C. d,a,b,e,c,f D. d,e,a,b,c,f
74. Why did the woman laugh when she looked into the lane?
A. She was excited because she thought it may be a way to escape.
B. She felt bitter because she had no chance to escape.
C. She was becoming more and more nervous.
D. She realized that she was behaving foolishly.
75. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A. It was raining when she left the bar.
B. The woman had felt nervous about the city killer for days.
C. The temperature was very low that evening.
D. The woman was behaving unreasonably.
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科目:高中英語 來源:山西省2009----2010學(xué)年度高二下學(xué)期期中考試(英語) 題型:閱讀理解
A young officer was teaching some old soldiers. They had been in the army for many years and did not like officers, young or old.
They did not think this young officer could tell them anything about how to fight in a war.
Private Jones was nearly sixty years old and had fought in many wars. He had a row of medals on his chest.
“Imagine you are in a battle,” the young officer said to him. “You see seven hundred enemy soldiers coming towards you. What do you do?”
Private Jones thought for a few moments, and then he said, “I shoot them all with my rifle.”
“Now imagine there are seven hundred enemy soldiers coming towards you from the left,” the young officer said, “and seven hundred enemy soldiers coming to you from the right. What do you do?”
“I shoot them with my rifle,” Private Jones answered.
“OK,” the young officer went on, trying to get the answer he wanted, “but what if there are a thousand enemy soldiers coming at you from the right, a thousand coming at you from the left, and another thousand coming straight towards you. What do you do now?”
“I shoot them with my rifle,” Private Jones replied.
“But where are you getting all the bullets from?” the young officer demanded.
Private Jones smiled. “From the same place you are getting all those enemy soldiers.”
72. What was the young officer supposed to do?
A. Train the soldiers. B. Attack the soldiers.
C. Shoot the soldiers. D. Like the soldiers.
73. The old soldiers___________.
A. didn’t like Private Jones B. didn’t like any officers
C. wanted to fight in a war D. wanted to become officers
74. What was Private Jones doing in the story?
A. Answering questions. B. Shooting the enemy.
C. Getting a lot of bullets. D. Showing off his medals.
75. At the end of the story the young officer was probably__________.
A. pleased with Private Jones B. annoyed with Private Jones
C. delighted with Private Jones D. frightening Private Jones
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