Passage  1　

Having no language, infants cannot be told what they need to learn. Yet by the age of three they will have mastered the basic structure of their native language and will be well on their way to communicative competence. Acquiring their language is a most impressive intellectual feat. Students of how children learn language generally agree that the most remarkable aspect of this feat is the rapid acquisition(習得) of grammar. Nevertheless, the ability of children to conform（遵守） to grammatical rules is only slightly more wonderful than their ability to learn words. It has been reckoned that the average high school graduate in the United States has a reading vocabulary of 80,000 words, which includes idiomatic（習語的） expressions and proper names of people and places. This vocabulary must have been learned over a period of 16 years. From the figures, it can be calculated that the average child learns at a rate of about 13 new words per day. Clearly a learning process of great complexity goes on at a rapid rate in children.

 

1.What is the main subject of the passage?　

A. Language acquisition in children

B. Teaching languages to children

C. How to memorize words

D. Communicating with infants

2. The underlined word “feat” is closest in meaning to which of the following ?

   A. Experiment         B. Idea                C. Activity         D.Accomplishment

3. The underlined word “reckoned” is closest in meaning to which of the following?

   A. Suspected           B. Estimated          C. Proved          D. Said

4. The underlined word “which” refers to which of the following?

  A. their ability         

  B. reading vocabulary

  C.  idiomatic expression

  D. learning process

5. According to the passage, what is impressive about the way children learn vocabulary?

  A.  They learn words before they learn grammar

  B. They learn even very long words.

  C. They learn words very quickly

  D. They learn the most words in high school

 

      An important new industry , oil refining, grew after the Civil War. Crude oil, or petroleum----a dark, thick ooze from the earth---had been known for hundreds of years.

        But little use had ever been made of it. In the 1850’s Samuel M. Kier, a manufacturer in western Pennsylvania, began collecting the oil from local seepages (滲透出來的液體) and refining it into kerosene. Refining, like smelting, is a process of removing impurities from a raw material.

        Kerosene was used to light lamps. It was a cheap substitute for whale oil, which was becoming harder to get. Soon there was a large demand for kerosene. People began to search for new supplies of petroleum.

         The first oil well was drilled by E. L. Drake, a retired railroad conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it “Drake’s Folly”. But when he had drilled down a bout 70 feet , Drake struck oil, his well began to yield 20 barrels of crude oil a day.

             News of Drake’s success brought oil prospectors to the scene. By the early 1860’s these wildcatters were drilling for “black gold” all over western Pennsylvania. The boom rivalled the California gold rush of 1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere. And it brought far more wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.