SECTION B PASSAGES
Directions: In this section, you will hear several passages. Listen to the passages carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
听力原文: Superb schools symbolize the modern transformation of Finland, a poor and agrarian nation half a century ago, and today one of the world's most prosperous, modern and adaptable countries. Finland finishes first in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams that test 15-year-olds in all of the world's industrial democracies. Finland also finishes at or near the top in many global comparisons of economic competitiveness: Internet usage, environmental practices and more. Finland, where the modern cell phone was largely invented, has more cell phones per capita than any other nation--nearly 85 per 100 citizens. The high quality of Finnish education depends on the high quality of Finnish teachers. You need to have a college-level degree to run a kindergarten. You need a master's-level degree to teach at a primary school. Many of the best students want to be teachers. Interestingly, given the overall success of Finnish education and Finns' pride in it, state spending on schools is actually declining. The number of old people is growing, which is causing a drain on the Finnish welfare state. So there is not enough money for schools. But it is difficult to imagine that Finns would allow their schools to fall very far now that they have achieved such excellence.
What is the passage mainly concerned with?
A. The transformation of Finland's economy.
B. The successful Finnish school education.
C. The facilities in Finnish schools.
D. The quality of teachers in Finnish schools.
What did writing mean to Miss White?
A perfect life.
B. An unhappy life.
C. A way to a new life.
D. A funny experience.
One summer night, on my way home from work I decided to see a movie. I knew the theatre would be air-conditioned and I couldn't face my 【C1】______ apartment.
Sitting in the theatre I had to look through the【C2】______ between the two tall heads in front of me. I had to keep changing the 【C3】______ every time she leaned over to talk to him,【C4】______ he leaned over to kiss her. Why do Americans display such 【C5】______ in a public place?
Though the movie would be good for my English, but 【C6】______ it turned out, it was an Italian movie.【C7】______ about an hour I decided to give up on the movie and【C8】______ on my popcorn. I've never understood why they give me so much popcorn! It tasted pretty good,【C9】______ . After a while I heard【C10】______ more of the romantic-sounding Italians. I just heard the【C11】______ of the popcorn crunching between my teeth. My thought started to 【C12】______ I remembered when I was in South Korea, I【C13】______ to watch Kojak On TV frequently. He spoke perfect Korean—I was really amazed. He seemed like a good friend to me,【C14】______ I saw him again in New York speaking 【C15】______ English instead of perfect Korean. He didn't even have a Korean accent and I 【C16】______ like I had been betrayed.
When our family moved to the United States six years ago, none of us spoke any English.【C17】______ we had begun to learn a few words, my mother suggested that we all should speak English at home. Everyone agreed, but our house became very 【C18】______ and we all seemed to avoid each other. We sat at the dinner table in silence, preferring that to 【C19】______ in a difficult language. Mother tried to say something in English but it【C20】______ out all wrong and we all burst into laughter and decided to forget it! We've been speaking Korean at home ever since.
【C1】
A. warm
B. hot
C. heated
D. cool
Learning is an essential process for living things to acquiring necessary skills and behaviours. Scientists have already found that there is a critical period for learning in man and animals. Once the right time for learning a skill or a certain behaviour has passed, this skill or behaviour can never be properly learned.
Thorpe of Cambridge University found that the chaffinch has to learn most of its songs, and that this learning has to occur during the early weeks of the bird's life and also during the first spring. If the bird is handreared and isolated from other birds from the time of hatching, it sings only very simple songs and it never learns the song of its species correctly.
That we speak our own language perfectly and the languages we learn later imperfectly also depends on learning this skill at the right time. The brain develops in such a way that it is ready to learn to speak between the ages of about ten months and ten years. Languages learned later are not spoken perfectly. The ability to speak a language is a mixed motor and sensory skill. It is necessary to hear all the sounds, the subtle differences between similar but not identical sounds, the rhythm and lilt of the language. One has also to work tongue, throat, and lips, to control breathing. All this has to be managed at one and the same time. From some time after birth until the age of six or seven, normal children can learn all this perfectly, and without much difficulty they can learn two or even three languages at the same time, without muddling them up. But later, most of us cannot acquire this skill. We may learn to write and read the new language perfectly; but to acquire the right inflexion and the accent and the ability to speak so that no one can detect that the language is not our mother-tongue hardly ever occurs.
But those of us who still want to learn foreign languages after these early milestones have been passed need not worry; for though we may not learn to speak a new language like the natives, we know from thousands of examples that we can go on learning languages beyond the age of eighty. There are so many activities adding to the simple word "learning" that although some of the processes become less efficient with ageing of the brain, our actual experience of learning helps us in learning new material.
According to the study by Thorpe, a chaffinch reared in isolation after its birth ______.
A. never sings
B. cannot learn songs from other species of birds
C. never sings as well as other chaffinches
D. sings the same song all the time