Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed.

　　Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes bowel – like sounds; at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to fifty words. At three he knows about 1,000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in born with the capacity to speak. What is special about man’s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to commect the sight and feel of, say, a toy – bear with the sound pattern “toy – bear”. And even more incredible is the young brain’s ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyse, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways.

　　But speech has to be induced, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child’s babbling, grasping and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals,. Sensitivity to the child’s non – verbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.

　　1.The purpose of Frederick I’s experiment was ____.

　　A.to prove that children are born with ability to speak

　　B.to discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speak

　　C.to find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speak

　　D.to prove that a child could be damaged without learning a language

　　2.The reason that some children are backward in speaking is most likely that ____.

　　A.they are incapable of learning language rapidly

　　B.they are exposed to too much language at once

　　C.their mothers respond inadequately to their attempts to speak

　　D.their mothers are not intelligent enough to help them

　　3.What is particularly remarkable about a child is that ____.

　　A.he is born with the capacity to speak

　　B.he has a brain more complex than an animal’s

　　C.he can produce his own sentences

　　D.he owes his speech ability to good nursing

　　4.Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

　　A.The faculty of speech is inborn in man.

　　B.The child’s brain is highly selective.

　　C.Most children learn their language in definite stages.

　　D.All the above

　　5.If a child starts to speak later than others, he will ____in future.

　　A.have a high IQ B.be less intelligent

　　C.be insensitive to verbal signals D.not necessarily be backward

　　答案：BCCDD

　　英語六級閱讀理解積累練習(xí)二：

　　Hong Kong, major commercial center for Asia, and with a population which has grown at an alarming rate to over 5 million, is a city highly dependent on mass transit of all sorts, both local and long distance. The average Hong Kong worker or businessman, going about his daily activities, simply must use public transportation at one time or another.

　　Because Hong Kong is in two parts, Kowloon, on the mainland side, and Hong Kong, the island, with Hong Kong’s harbor in between, Hong Kong’s mass transit systems, in addition to going over land must also cross water.

　　Going from home to work, or going shopping from one side of the harbor to the other, the Hong Kong resident has three choices. One way is to take a bus, which will cross the harbor through an underwater traffic tunnel moving slowly through bumper-to-bumper traffic. Another way is by ferryboat, a pleasant ride which crosses the harbor in from seven to fifteen minutes.

　　But by far the fastest way of crossing the harbor is the newly built underground electric railway, the Hong Kong Metro. If one boards the train in the Central District, the commercial area of Hong Kong on the island side, he can speed across the harbor in an astonishing three minutes. On the other side of the harbor the railway continues, snaking back and forth through the outlying districts of Kowloon, allowing one to get off a short distance from his destination.

　　The story of the Metro is an encouraging one for supporters of mass transit. Although building the system was certainly a challenging task, the Japanese firm hired to construct it did so in record time. Construction got underway in 1979 and it was completed in 1980.

　　For the average commuter the system has only one disadvantages: it is more expensive than by bus or ferry. One can ride the bus across the harbor for half as much, or he can ride the ferry across for less than one-fifth as much.

　　1.Hong Kong ___.

　　A.can do without mass transit.

　　B.finds public transportation too expensive.

　　C.needs public transportation.

　　D.has an insufficient mass transit system.

　　2.Hong Kong Public transportation extends ___.

　　A.over hills and valleys.

　　B.across land and water.

　　C.through mountains.

　　D.throughout the Kowloon area.

　　3.The traffic in the underwater traffic tunnel is ___.

　　A.heavy B.light C.fast D.dangerous

　　4.Crossing the harbor by train is ___.

　　A.by far the most economical method.

　　B.the most pleasant method.

　　C.the least pleasant method.

　　D.the fastest method.

　　5.The business area on the island side of Hong Kong is referred to be as ___.

　　A.Kowloon

　　B.the Central District

　　C.the Hong Kong Metro

　　D.the Hong Kong’s harbor.

　　答案：CBADB