TEXT C It is hard to conceive of a language without nouns or verbs. But that is just what Riau Indonesian is, according to David Gil, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary .Anthropology, in Leipzig. Dr. Gil has been studying Riau for the past 12 years. Initially, he says, he struggled with the language, despite being fluent in standard Indonesian. However, a breakthrough came when he realized that what he had been thinking of as different parts of speech were, in fact, grammatically the same. For example, the phrase "the chicken is eating" translates into colloquial Riau as "ayam makan". Literally, this is "chicken eat". But the same pair of words also have meanings as diverse as "the chicken is making somebody eat", or "somebody is eating where the chicken is". There are, he says, no modifiers that distinguish the tenses of verbs. Nor are there modifiers for nouns that distinguish the definite from the indefinite. Indeed, there are no features in Riau Indonesian that distinguish nouns from verbs. These categories, he says, are imposed because the languages that western linguists are familiar with have them. This sort of observation flies in the face of conventional wisdom about what language is. Most linguists are influenced by the work of Noam Chomsky---in particular, his theory of "deep grammar". According to Dr. Chomsky, people are born with a sort of linguistic template in their brains. This is a set of rules that allows children to learn a language quickly, but also imposes constraints and structure on what is learnt. Evidence in support of this theory includes the tendency of children to make systematic mistakes which indicate a tendency to impose rules on what turn out to be grammatical exceptions (e. g. "I dided it" instead of "I did it"). There is also the ability of the children of migrant workers to invent new languages known as creoles out of the grammatically incoherent pidgin spoken by their parents. Exactly what the deep grammar consists of is still not clear, but a basic distinction between nouns and verbs would probably be one of its minimum requirements. Dr. Gil contends, however, that there is a risk of unconscious bias leading to the conclusion that a particular sort of grammar exists in an unfamiliar language. That is because it is easier for linguists to dis cover extra features in foreign languages--for example tones that change the meaning of words, which are common in Indonesian but do not exist in European languages--than to realize that elements which are taken for granted in a linguist’s native language may be absent from another. Despite the best intentions, he says, there is a tendency to fit languages into a mould. And since most linguists are westerners, that mould is usually an Indo-European language from the West. It needs not, however, be a modern language. Dr. Gil’s point about bias is well illustrated by the history of the study of the world’s most widely spoken tongue. Many of the people who developed modern linguistics had had an education in Latin and Greek. As a consequence, English was often described until well into the 20th century as having six different noun cases, because Latin has six. Only relatively recently did grammarians begin a debate over noun cases in English. Some now contend that it does not have noun cases at all, others that it has two while still others maintain that there are three or four cases. The difficulty is compounded if a linguist is not fluent in the language he is studying. The process of linguistic fieldwork is a painstaking one, fraught with pitfalls. Its mainstay is the use of "informants" who tell linguists, in interviews and on paper, about their language. Unfortunately, these informants tend to be better-educated than their fellows, and are often fluent in more than one language. If there is another paragraph following the passage, it might talk about ______.
A. what the results of Dr. Gil’s research on Riau Indonesian.
B. what the results of linguists’ research on Riau Indonesian.
C. how Dr. Gil carries out his research on Riau Indonesian.
D. how linguists carry out their research on Riau Indonesian.
Nowadays, children are apt to spend a lot of time playing computer games. Many parents point out that computer games have little educational value, so children should be prevented from computer games. What is your opinion Write an essay of about 400 words to state your view. In the first part of your writing you should state your main argument, and in the second part you should support your argument with appropriate details. In the last part you should bring what you have written to a natural conclusion or make a summary. Marks will be awarded for content, organization, grammar and appropriateness. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. Write your composition on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.
TEXT A "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 tames 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. The 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 hushes. I uncovered my homemade 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 mad 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 tike 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. The best title for the passage is probably _______.
A. The Wretched Life.
B. The Orphanage Bullies.
C. The Deaf Kid.
D. The Whale Sound.