Question

Try reading the following sentences as fast as you can. “She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells on the seashore, I’m sure she sells seashore shells.”

Not very easy, was it? What you’ve just read is called a tongue twister (绕口令). It is an exercise made up of sounds that are hard to pronounce in order to help people pronounce words faster and more correctly. Try the next example.

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers? If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?”

Tongue twisters usually do not have much meaning. They are just designed to improve people’s ability to pronounce words. Although they may be very difficult, these exercises are very important to people who are trying to speak English correctly. This is because tongue twisters help people to tell the differences between similar sounds.

So if you wish to pronounce words more smoothly（顺利地，流利地）, you’d better try picking out some tongue twisters and practising them.

1. Tongue twisters are helpful in improving ______ skills.

A. listeningB. writing

C. pronunciationD. communication

2.The first tongue twister is hard because ______.

A. it is very boringto read

B. it teaches us a lot of knowledge

C. we don’t know who “she” is

D. the sounds of “s” and “sh” are similar

3. The passage is probably taken from ______ in a school newspaper.

A. Story TimeB. Study Garden

C. Latest NewsD. Lost and Found

 

Answer 1

1.C

2.D

3.B

【解析】

试题分析：这篇文章主要讲了绕口令通常没有太多的意义。他们只是设计来改善人们的发音能力，所以如果你想发音更顺利（顺利地，流利地），你最好试着挑选一些绕口令进行实践。

1.

2.

3.

考点：教育类短文阅读。