You probably hear it all the time — people telling you to “learn English”. But does this mean children in English-speaking countries don’t need to bother learning a new language? Not at all. In fact, an even larger number of young people will soon be taught foreign languages, thanks to the mental advantages of bilingualism.
Psychologists once thought that growing up bilingual might lead to verbal delays－a late or absent development of talking. But US magazine Scientific American has revealed that this is not true, and reported that children who speak more than one language “show greater mental flexibility, a superior grasp of abstract concepts and a better working memory.” As the New York Times put it, “being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter.”
In Europe, learning foreign languages is increasingly popular. A European report shows that from 2005-2010, the percentage of European students learning a foreign language rose from 67.5 percent to 79.2 percent. Most European kids start learning another language at age 6. In Belgium, it starts at 3. New reforms being introduced in the UK will mean all children could be taught a foreign language, such as Mandarin or Greek, from the age of 7. The most popular foreign language for European kids was English, followed by German and French.
In comparison, Americans don’t give a fig for learning foreign languages. Compared to 50 percent of European adults who are bilingual, only 9 percent of adults in the US are fluent in more than one language, according to a 2011 report. American students are often not exposed to a second language until high school.
However, recent statistics show demand is growing in the US for people to become more bilingual. According to a USA Today chart released in July, 21 percent of US children speak another language at home. A number of institutions in the country are also pushing foreign languages in schools. Three school districts in Delaware will launch Chinese and Spanish programs next year. More people are learning Chinese, French and Spanish.Psychologist used to believe that children who grow up bilingual ________.
| A．are more flexible mentally |
| B．are slow in the development of talking |
| C．have a poorer working memory |
| D．are smarter in understanding abstract concept |
It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
| A．Americans are more interested in learning another language than Europeans |
| B．British kids began to learn foreign languages at the earliest age |
| C．21% of US children study a foreign language in the school |
| D．not all schools in America are teaching foreign languages |
What does the underlined phrase”give a fig for” in Paragraph 4 mean?
| A．Attach importance to |
| B．Have talent for |
| C．Invest money in |
| D．Have demand for |
Which are the most popular foreign languages in the US?
| A．Mandarin and Greek |
| B．English, German and French |
| C．Chinese, French and Spanish |
| D．Chinese, German and Greek |
What is the main idea of this passage?
A. Chinese is becoming more popular in western countries.
B. The benefits and advantages of growing up bilingual.
C. Western worlds are paying more attention to learning foreign languages.
D. The differences between bilingual education in Europe and USA.
Online shoppers would rather receive an offer for a product or service than make their own offer, according to a study led by a Michigan State University scholar that has implications for the fast-growing e-commerce industry. The findings may come as a surprise given that shopping online is an anonymous（匿名的）process that seemingly can give consumers more confidence to drive a hard bargain, said Don Conlon, Professor of Management in MSU's Broad College of Business.
But the study found that participants who made their own offers were less successful in sealing the deal and, when they were successful, worried they overpaid. Many shoppers found the process of researching an offer to be a hassle. "Americans are very busy, and it's less time-consuming to be the one receiving the offer rather than the one proposing the offer,” Conlon said. “People tend to be happier when they're in the receiver role.”
Online spending in the United States is expected to jump 45 percent in the next four years, from＄226 billion this year to＄327 billion in 2017, according to Forrester Research Inc. Nevertheless, researches into this prosperous market remain largely focused on the strategies of companies, rather than those of shoppers. Conlon's study is, obviously, a rare exception. Conlon got the idea for the study after considering the difference between two popular sites for hotels and airline flights, priceline.com, which takes bids, and hotwire.com, which provides offers. Using these two models, Conlon and his fellow researchers conducted a series of experiments with more than 850 people who were charged with booking a fictional hotel room and acquiring a fictional antique car. Not only did participants prefer to receive bids, Conlon said, but they also secured more deals in that receiver role. Further, when they had to make the bids, they were left more mentally taxed and regretful.
From an industry perspective, putting customers in the receiver role may help fill more hotel rooms and airplane seats. “If you're a business with a lot of products, ” Conlon said, “you may want to be the one making the offers.” However, when selling single items, such as an antique car, accepting bids may be a better option since that typically drives up the price, he said.What can we learn from Para. 1?
| A．The result of the study gives customers more confidence. |
| B．Scholars aren't surprised at the findings of the study. |
| C．E-commerce industry drives more hard bargains. |
| D．Online shoppers don't bargain as much as expected. |
It can be concluded from Conlon's experiments that _____.
| A．online shopping is time-consuming |
| B．given prices help promote online sales |
| C．online businesses provide a lot of products |
| D．receiving offers makes online shoppers regretful |
The underlined word “taxed" in Para. 4 probably means _____.
| A．burdened | B．numbed |
| C．relieved | D．challenged |
The passage is mainly about _____.
| A．the big advantages of online shopping |
| B．the rapid development of online shopping |
| C．online shoppers' preference for taking offers |
| D．online companies' strategies to improve service |
When should a child start learning to read and write? This is one of the questions I am most frequently asked. There is no hard and fast rule, for no two are alike, and it would be wrong to set a time when all should start being taught the intricacies（复杂）of reading letters to form words.
If a three-year-old wants to read（or even a two-year-old for that matter）, the child has the right to be given every encouragement. The fact that he or she might later be “bored” when joining a class of non-readers at child school is the teacher’s affair. It is up to the teacher to see that such a child is given more advanced reading material.
Similarly, the child who still cannot read by the time he goes to junior school at the age of seven should be given every help by teachers and parents alike. They should make certain that he is not dyslexic（having difficulty in reading）.
Although parents should be careful not to force youngsters aged two to five to learn to read（ if badly done it could put them off reading for life ）, there is no harm in preparing them for simple recognition of letters by labeling various items in their rooms. For instance, tie a nice piece of cardboard to their bed with BED written in neat, big letters.
Should the young child ask his parents to teach him to read, and if the parents are capable of doing so, such an attraction should not be ignored. But the task should never be made to look like a hard job and the child should never be forced to continue, or his interest should start to flag.This passage is mainly about ____.
| A．what qualities people teaching children reading should have |
| B．when and how children should be taught reading |
| C．different age groupings of children to be taught reading |
| D．various problems of children who start learning to read |
In the writer’s opinion, children start learning to read ____.
| A．at different times | B．from word games |
| C．by a certain rule | D．early and fast |
The purpose of labeling items in the room is to ____.
| A．make it more colorful |
| B．help children recognize simple letters |
| C．force children to develop the habit of reading |
| D．teach children to write neatly |
The writer suggests that ____.
| A．children should ask their parents to teach them to read |
| B．children starting to read should ask specialists for help |
| C．children should be taught with patience, care and a sense of humor. |
| D．children should not feel bored if given advanced reading material |
Back those photos up
The images were striking. Homes on the East Coast were washed away by Superstorm Sandy. People were in tears, picking up faded photographs, among their only remaining possessions.
If that doesn’t move you to get serious about safekeeping your lifetime of memories, what will? The digital age offers tools never imaginable before—including one-click access to a lifetime of family photos.
Here is a brochure on how to back up (存) your photos and save them online, where they can live forever and be accessible in good times and bad.
Scanning
The first step for those old photos is to scan them and save them to a digital format. Most printers come with scanners these days, so that’s an easy but extremely time-consuming step.
Storing the photos
With your scans in place, import the photos into your computer, and back them up.
You could make multiple copies of the disks and spread them to loved ones. Or you could choose external(外接的) hard drives or USB thumb drive, and add your photo and video collection from your computer.
Online backup
If you need lots of space, look at a pure online backup service, Caronite.
Caronite backs up 300 million files daily. Once you sign up, it starts to pick up everything you have on your hard drive. But photo collection on your computer’s main hard drive charges for $59 a year.
Cloud Storage
For folks who don’t need automatic backup, but instead want to take a more active approach, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft’s SkyDrive let you store files online by yourself, share and instantly access them. All offer free options—2GB of free storage for Dropbox, 5GB for Google and 7GB for SkyDrive. But if you want more, you need to pay.
Bottom Line
The hard drive or flash drive is the cheapest and easiest. But drives can fail. Online services are more expensive, but more secure. With more of us switching back and forth between our computers, such services are the best way to get access to our data from wherever we are.Why does the author mention Superstorm Sandy?
| A．To tell the background of the scanning photos.. |
| B．To attract the readers’ interest in the backups. |
| C．To describe a severe natural disaster. |
| D．To win the readers’ sympathy. |
What can we know from the passage?
| A．Scanning photos takes little time but costs a lot. |
| B．The hard drive or flash drive is the cheapest and safest. |
| C．Google Drive offers unlimited free photo storage on line. |
| D．Caronite charges for backing up photos from hard drive. |
Which of the following allows storing files automatically?
| A．Caronite. | B．Dropbox. |
| C．SkyDrive. | D．Flash drive. |
The main purpose of the passage is to _____.
| A．tell real stories about storage services |
| B．describe the functions of storage services |
| C．introduce some of the storage services |
| D．argue about the advantage of storage services |
Mrs. Squirrel and I Negotiated Terms
I was sitting in the room reading when I heard a loud noise. To defend my home from break-in, I picked up my defense weapon--- a broom and went out. There on the roof of my porch（门廊）, I saw a grey fluffy squirrel. I drove her away with the broom, but the next day I heard her again.
I searched squirrels on the net and found because their teeth keep growing, they have to constantly chew on things to shorten their teeth. This was disturbing so I asked my husband to call in some wildlife control people.
On Monday morning two men showed up, with guns in their hands. I pointed uneasily to the hole in my porch roof. They held up their guns. Suddenly I saw in my mind the baby nursery inside. I stopped them and confirmed that they wouldn’t harm her. They hesitated, but finally put down their guns. Then they brought out a bottle of deodorizer（除臭剂）and sprayed it into the squirrel’s home. They told me she would not like the smell and would leave.
There was no sign of Mrs. Squirrel, so they blocked the hole, took mychequefor $250 and left.
Shortly after they left, Mrs. Squirrel returned from her shopping trip. She was mad at being
driven out and began feverishly clawing at the porch roof. In order to stop the destruction of my home, I drove her away with the broom again.
Each day thereafter, Mrs. Squirrel continued her attack on my possession. I then called the company to report that “SHE’S BAAAAAACK…” The receptionist said that if Mrs. Squirrel had managed to find another way into my porch roof, it would be a new charge. I replied I couldn’t continue contributing my husband’s hard-earned income to their silly wildlife experts and hang up.
I went to the porch and banged on the roof. Mrs. Squirrel came out and glared at me. We negotiated some terms, came to an agreeable arrangement and went back into our respective homes.
All is quiet these days, although large quantities of materials have been removed from my garage wall and my daughter claims that some of her doll-house furniture has disappeared. I still hope that Mrs. Squirrel would leave, but I will wait until it is warmer and hopefully until after the birth of the little ones.What did the author think of the squirrel at first?
| A．Dangerous. | B．Troublesome. |
| C．Interesting. | D．Clever. |
Why didn’t the author ask the wildlife control people to come again?
| A．She thought the company charged too much. |
| B．She worried about the safety of the squirrel. |
| C．She decided to drive away the squirrel herself. |
| D．She doubted the ability of the wildlife control people. |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．Getting rid of the squirrel needs patience. |
| B．The squirrel has destroyed the author’s house. |
| C．The author has developed affection for the squirrel. |
| D．The author signed an agreement with Mrs. Squirrel. |
The author has written the passage in a (an) ________ way.
| A．persuasive | B．serious |
| C．amusing | D．informative |
Antarctica's icy lakes are home to a surprisingly diverse (various) community of viruses, including some that were not identified ( 确认) before.
At first sight, Antarctica's freshwater lakes don't seem very hospitable to life. They remain frozen for a good nine months out of the year, and they contain very few nutrients. Some of these lakes have little animal life and are ruled by microorganisms(微生物), including algae(海藻）, bacteria, protozoans (原生动物）and viruses.
With few animal and microbial predators (微生物的捕食性动物) around, viruses likely play an important role in controlling the number of other microorganisms, the researcher says. However, these viruses have been historically hard to study since many cannot be grown in a lab. But thanks to new technology, scientists can identify viruses without needing to grow them.
“We are just starting to uncover the world of viruses, and this is changing the way we think about viruses and the role they play in microbial ecosystems (微生物的生态系统)," said Antonio Alcami, a researcher from the Spanish Research Council.
A virus is little more than a package of DNA surrounded by a capsule structure. To survive, viruses must attack, or infect, living cells and use the host's equipment to reproduce.
Alcami and his colleagues analyzed DNA from viruses found in water samples collected from Antarctica's Lake Limnopolar, a surface lake on Livingston Island. They found nearly 10,000 species, including some small DNA viruses that had never before been identified. In total, the viruses were from 12 different families, some of which may be completely new to science, the researchers suggest.
The results show this Antarctic lake supports a virus community that's more diverse than most aquatic(水生的) environments studied in the world so far — a surprising find considering that the polar region is generally thought to have low biological variety due to the extreme environmental conditions. The scientists guess the newly discovered viruses may have got used to growing in such hard conditions.
The team also found the community of viruses changed greatly depending on the season. When the lake was ice-covered in the spring, small viruses ruled the liquid water under the ice mostly, but in the summer months when the ice melted, the lake was home to mostly larger viruses.
“It looks like a completely different lake in summer," Alcami said. The scientists think the change might be due to an increase in algae in the summertime, which affects the larger viruses.
The researchers hope to find out whether any of the viruses are unique to Antarctica. If so, that would shed light on (为…提供线索) whether microbial life developed independently in Antarctica, which has been separated for millions of years, or they were introduced there more recently.The underlined word hospitable in Paragraph 2 is the closest in meaning to ________.
| A．pleasant | B．disturbing |
| C．harmful | D．complex |
Why are viruses likely to play an important role in the icy water environment?
| A．Viruses are stronger and more ready to attack than other microorganisms. |
| B．Viruses are better at attacking other living cells than other microorganisms. |
| C．Viruses survive well in a place with few animal and microbial predators. |
| D．Viruses exist in larger quantities than other microorganisms. |
What do scientists think of viruses on Antarctica?
| A．Their discoveries of viruses there have made them change the way they think about viruses. |
| B．They were not surprised at all to find such a large quantity of viruses in an icy lake. |
| C．They think the viruses they found on Antarctica may do harm to people on earth. |
| D．They believe the discoveries of new viruses may help them find cure of diseases. |
Which of the following about the viruses is NOT correct?
| A．10,000 species of viruses including some newly-identified ones were found in the lake. |
| B．The community of viruses changed greatly depending on the season. |
| C．Scientists have found that many new viruses discovered there are unique to Antarctica. |
| D．The appearance of larger viruses in summer might have something to do with an increase in algae. |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．A research center was set up on Antarctica by scientists. |
| B．Thousands of more deadly viruses have been found on Antarctica. |
| C．A huge diverse community of viruses have been found in a lake on Antarctica. |
| D．Viruses on Antarctica have made scientists realize that viruses are important. |
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