Yet the dream remains alive: if all men speak the same language, they can do anything. L. L. Zamenhof from Poland was among the men who pursue this dream. He developed Esperanto (世界语) between 1877 and 1885. As the most successful man-made world language, it is spoken by over two million people around the world. Last month, the World Esperanto Congress (大会), dealing with language rights, ended in Sweden. The 2004 conference will be held in Beijing.

    Most Esperanto speakers are in Central and Eastern Europe and in East Asia, particularly Chinese mainland. Esperanto has two advantages (优点). First, it’s easy. Each letter has exactly one sound and there are just 16 basic grammar rules. The second advantage is that it belongs to no one country.

    But Esperanto has only reached a small number of people compared with natural languages widely used around the world--such as English or Chinese. While these languages are deeply connected with their nations and cultures, Esperanto doesn’t have this background.

    Will Esperanto really become a global language? It remains a question.

    1. The writer tells us a story at the beginning to ________.

    A. explain why men have been making the effort to create a language shared by all

    B. explain why men now speak different languages

    C. show the relationship between man and God

    D. prove language is very important

   2. What does the word“pursue”in the second paragraph mean?

    A. Realize.　　　　　　 B. Work for.　　　　  C. Be against.　　　　 D. Follow.

    3. What is the basic difference between Esperanto and English?

    A. More people speak English than Esperanto.

    B. Esperanto words are easier to spell.

    C. Esperanto has fewer grammar rules.

    D. Esperanto is not supported by any country or culture.

    4. What does the story mainly talk about?

    A. Advantages and disadvantages of Esperanto.

    B. Men’s dream of sharing the same language.

    C. Comparison of Esperanto and other languages like English and Chinese.

    D. The most successful planned language-Esperanto.

A story from the Bible (圣经) tells of old Babylon, where the men decided to build a tower that would touch the sky. But God was unhappy, and he made them speak different languages. They couldn’t understand each other, so their dream never came true.

    Yet the dream remains alive: if all men speak the same language, they can do anything. L. L. Zamenhof from Poland was among the men who pursue this dream. He developed Esperanto (世界语) between 1877 and 1885. As the most successful man-made world language, it is spoken by over two million people around the world. Last month, the World Esperanto Congress (大会), dealing with language rights, ended in Sweden. The 2004 conference will be held in Beijing.

    Most Esperanto speakers are in Central and Eastern Europe and in East Asia, particularly Chinese mainland. Esperanto has two advantages (优点). First, it’s easy. Each letter has exactly one sound and there are just 16 basic grammar rules. The second advantage is that it belongs to no one country.

    But Esperanto has only reached a small number of people compared with natural languages widely used around the world--such as English or Chinese. While these languages are deeply connected with their nations and cultures, Esperanto doesn’t have this background.

    Will Esperanto really become a global language? It remains a question.

    1. The writer tells us a story at the beginning to ________.

    A. explain why men have been making the effort to create a language shared by all

    B. explain why men now speak different languages

    C. show the relationship between man and God

    D. prove language is very important

   2. What does the word“pursue”in the second paragraph mean?

    A. Realize.　　　　　　 B. Work for.　　　　  C. Be against.　　　　 D. Follow.

    3. What is the basic difference between Esperanto and English?

    A. More people speak English than Esperanto.

    B. Esperanto words are easier to spell.

    C. Esperanto has fewer grammar rules.

    D. Esperanto is not supported by any country or culture.

    4. What does the story mainly talk about?

    A. Advantages and disadvantages of Esperanto.

    B. Men’s dream of sharing the same language.

    C. Comparison of Esperanto and other languages like English and Chinese.

    D. The most successful planned language-Esperanto.

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.
【小题1】What does the passage mainly talk about?

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.

1. 1.

   What does the passage mainly talk about?

   1. A.
      The Asian number-naming system helps grasp advanced math skills better.
   2. B.
      Western culture fail to provide their children with adequate number knowledge.
   3. C.
      Children in Western countries have to learn by heart the learning things.
   4. D.
      Asian children’s advantage in math may be sourced from their culture.
2. 2.

   What makes a Chinese easier to remember a list of numbers than an American?

   1. A.
      Their understanding of numbers.
   2. B.
      Their mother tongue.
   3. C.
      Their math education.
   4. D.
      Their different IQ.
3. 3.

   Asian children can reach answers in basic math functions more quickly because ____________.

   1. A.
      they pronounce the numbers in a shorter period
   2. B.
      they practice math from an early age
   3. C.
      English speaking children translate language into numbers first
   4. D.
      American children can only count to 15 at the age of four

--You may talk to your friend on the phone.

--But I think it difficult to ________ about that by telephone.

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