Language is always changing. In a society where life continues year after year with few changes, the language does not change either. The earliest known languages had difficult grammar but a small, limited vocabulary. Over the century, the grammar changed, and the vocabulary grew. For example, the English and Spanish people who came to America during the sixteenth century gave names to all the new plants and animals they found. In this way, hundreds of new words were introduced into English and Spanish vocabularies. Today life is changing very fast, and language is changing fast too.
There are several major language families in the world. Some scientists say there are nine main families, but other scientists divide them differently. The languages in each family are connected, and scientists think that they came from the same parent language. About 3 percent of the people in the world speak languages that are not in these major families.
【小题1】The early language had ________.

If you are thinking of putting your child in a private high school instead of a public one, you should do some research. You will find that most private schools offer some advantages.

One of the most important details of a good high school is small class size. Many public schools might have 30 or even 35 students in each class. However, many private schools limit the size to about 15 to 20 kids per class. This is a good thing because it allows each teacher to offer every student more attention.

Another thing to mention is the interesting classes. For example, while the typical (典型的) high school might only offer Spanish and French as foreign languages, private schools often have several other languages to choose from. This is especially important if your child is actually interested in studying a particular language that is not usually offered. Of course, many colleges also consider the various (各种各样的) classes as a good thing, since they can teach students more different subjects than usual.

Some colleges actually work closely with schools to make sure students are prepared well to get an advanced education. This means that teachers are careful to teach skills that can be used in college. Also, college teachers may be on-hand to talk to students and give them advice. If you think your child could use some help of this kind, which would likely help prepare him or her for college, you should look into schools offering these things.

A simple visit to the website or campus (校园) of a local private high school could give you the answers you are looking for. If you think your child would benefit from and appreciate these advantages, you should start researching. You are sure to find at least one that offers these benefits.

1.By writing this text, the author is probably encouraging parents to    .

A．pay attention to their children’s study

B．appreciate the advantages of public schools

C．help their children choose right colleges

D．send their children to private high schools

2.In the third paragraph the author stresses the importance of      .

A．teacher’s role                        B．different kinds of classes

C．learning foreign languages                D．proper study methods

3.According to the text, colleges might like to choose students who    .

A．live close to colleges                     B．have interest in sports

C．have wide knowledge                    D．come from public high schools

Language is always changing. In a society where life continues year after year with few changes, the language does not change, either. The earliest known languages had difficult grammar but a small, limited vocabulary. Over the century, the grammar changed, and the vocabulary grew. For example, the English and Spanish people who came to America during the sixteenth century gave names to all new plants and animals they found. In this way, hundreds of new words were introduced into English and Spanish vocabularies. Today life is changing very fast, and language is changing fast too.

There are several major language families in the world. Some scientists say there are nine main families, but other scientists divide them differently. The languages in each family are connected, and scientists think that they came from the same parent language About 3 percent of the people in the world speak languages that are not in these major families.

1. The early language had ______.

2.In the next few hundred years we can expect language to ______.

3.What this article shows is that ______.

4. From this article we can see that ______.

The average person learns most of the 30 000～40 000 words whose meanings he or she recognizes by hearing them or getting familiar with them in the context or simply absorbing them without conscious effort. The best way to build a good vocabulary, therefore, is to read a great deal and to participate in a lot of good talks. There are relatively few words that we learn permanently by purposefully referring to dictionaries or keeping word lists. However, even those extra few are of value, and no one will make a mistake by working on developing a larger vocabulary. Here are some suggestions of how to do it.

Read plenty of good books. When you come across a new word, or a new meaning of an old word, stop and see if you can understand it from its context. If you can't, and if you can manage without interrupting the thought of the book too much, look it up in a dictionary or ask somebody and then repeat its meaning to yourself a couple of times. If you are really conscientious(认真的), write the word and its meaning in a personal vocabulary list － preferably using it in a sentence, or you can keep a special vocabulary notebook. Go over the list from time to time. Further, try to use a new word in writing or conversation a few times over the next several days.

Listen to good talks and be alert to new words you hear or to new meanings of words you already know. Then treat them just as you treat the new words you read.

Learn and be alert to the parts of words: prefixes, suffixes and roots. Knowing them enables you to make intelligent guesses about the meanings of words.

If you are studying a foreign language, be alert to words in that language which relate to words in English. English has inherited(继承) or borrowed much of its vocabulary of 500 000～600 000 words from Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and German.

1.When you meet a new word in reading, what should you do?

2.According to this passage, the best way to build a good vocabulary is ______.

3. The phrase “be alert to” in the third paragraph may best be replaced by “______”.

4. In the fourth paragraph, the word “them” refers to ______

During the early years of American settlement, a new form of English was beginning to develop in the islands of the West Indies and the southern part of the mainland, spoken by the black population. The beginning of the seventeenth century saw the happening of the slave trade. Ships from Europe travelled to the West African coast, where they exchanged cheap goods for black slaves. The slaves were shipped in terrible conditions to the Caribbean islands and the American coast, where they were in turn exchanged for such products as sugar and molasses(糖蜜). The ships then returned to England, completing an “Atlantic triangle”of journeys, and the process began again. Britain and the United States had outlawed the slave trade by 1865, but by that time, nearly 200 years of trading had taken place. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there were over four million black slaves in America.

The policy of the slave-traders was to bring people of different language backgrounds together in the ships, to make it difficult for groups to plan rebellion. The result was the growth of several pidgin (混杂语言) forms of communication, and in particular a pidgin between the slaves and the sailors many of whom spoken English. Once arriving in the Caribbean, this pidgin English continued to act as a major means of communication between teh black population and the new landowners, and among the blacks themselves. Then, when children came to be born, the pidgin became their mother tongue, thus producing the first black Creole(克里奥尔语) speech in the region. This Creole English rapidly came to be used throughout the cotton plantations (种植园), and in the coastal towns and islands.

1.Which of the following shows the route of slave trade correctly?

A．EuropeWest African coastthe Caribbean islands and the American coastEurope

B．EuropeWest African coastEuropethe Caribbean islands and the American coast

C．West African coastEuropethe Caribbean islands and the American coastEurope

D．West African coastEuropethe Caribbean islands and the American coastWest African coast

2.It can be inferred that the slaves in the same ship ____.

A．didn’t communicate with each other

B．could understand several languages

C．spoke different languages

D．came from the same place

3.Creole speech comes from _____.

A．Spanish and English

B．English and an African language

C．a European language and an American language

D．an African language and an American language

4.What is the text mainly about?

A．The history of slave trade.                 B．“Atlantic triangle” of journeys.

C．Languages spoken in America              D．The birth of black English