题目内容
How well Mary speaks Chinese. Her pronunciation is better than ________ in her class.
- A.anybody
- B.anybody else
- C.anybody's
- D.anybody else's
There are thousands of things to be sold that are of all colors and shapes in a supermarket, making you believe that they are good enough for you to have a try. How packaging(包装)is the quiet but persuading salesman?
There on the shelves，each bottle, can and box has been carefully designed to speak to the inner self of the consumer(消费者), so that he is buying not only a product but also his belief in life. Scientists have studied on this and found that the look of the package has a great influence on the “quality” of the product and on how well it sells, because “Consumers generally cannot tell between a product and its package. Many products are packages and many packages are products,” as Louis Cheskin, the first social scientist studying consumers’ feeling for packaging, noticed.
Colors are one of the best tools in packaging. Studies of eye movement have shown that colors draw human attention quickly. Take V8 for example. For many years，the bright red color of tomatoes and carrots on the thin bottle makes you feel that it’s very good for your body. And the word “green" today can keep food prices going up.
Shapes are another attraction．Circles often mean happiness, because they are pleasing to both the eye and the heart. That’s why the round yellow M sings of McDonald’s are inviting to both young and old.
This new consumer response(反应)to the colors and shapes of packages reminds(提醒)producers and sellers that people buy to meet the needs of both body and heart.
【小题1】According to the passage, ______ seems to be able to persuade a consumer to buy the product.
| A．the pleasing color of the package |
| B．the special taste of the product |
| C．the strange shape of the package |
| D．the belief in the product |
| A．vegetable dish | B．healthy juice |
| C．hard drink | D．red vegetable |
suggests that consumers today are .
| A．starting to notice the importance of new food |
| B．enjoying the beauty of nature more than before |
| C．beginning to like green vegetables |
| D．paying more attention to their health |
| A．Colors and Shapes |
| B．Packaging Can Talk |
| C．The response to the packages |
| D．What is packing? |
Any foreigner who has tried to learn Chinese can tell how hard it is to master the tones required to speak and understand. And anyone who has tried to learn to play the violin or other instruments can report similar challenges.
Now researchers have found that people with musical training have an easier time learning Chinese. Writing in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience，researchers from Northwestern University say that both skills draw on the same parts of the brain that help people discover ch
anges in pitch(音调)．
One of the study’s authors，Nina Kraus，said the findings suggested that studying music “actually tunes our sensory system”．This means that schools that want children to do well in languages should hesitate before cutting music programs，Dr.Kraus said. She said music training might also help children with language problems.
Mandarin(普通话)speakers have been shown to have a more complex encoding(编码) of pitch patterns in their brains than English speakers do. This is because in Mandarin and other Asian languages，pitch plays a central role. A singlesyllabl
e word can have several meanings depending on how it is intoned.
For this study，the researchers looked at 20 nonChinese speaking volunteers，half with no musical background and half who have studied an instrument for at least six years.
As they were shown a movie，the volunteers also heard an audio tape of the Mandarin word “mi” in three of its meanings：squint，bewilder and rice. The researchers recorded activities in their brain stems to see how well they were processing the sounds. Those with a music background showed much more brain activities in response to the Chinese sounds.
The lead author of the study，Patrick C．M.Wong，said it might work both ways. It appears that native speakers of tonal languages may do better at learning instruments.
【小题1】When learning Chinese，a foreigner will find ________.
| A．he has a difficult time learning music at the same time |
| B．he has an easier time learning music at the same time |
| C．it is hard to master the tones required to speak and understand |
| D．it is easy to use the brain to help him discover changes in pitch |
| A．Because there is the same difficulty in learning Chinese and music. |
| B．Because skills to learn the two make use of the same parts of the brain. |
| C．Because music training might help people with language study. |
| D．Because people who do well in Chinese study do well in music. |
| A．created | B．spelled |
| C．seemed | D．pronounced |
| A．Mandarin Speakers Are Smarter than English Speakers |
| B．Skilled Ear for Music May Help Language Study |
| C．Pitch Plays a Central Role in Chinese Learning |
| D．Schools Need to Develop Music Programs |