【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 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, you39。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 twosecond period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds. That example es from Stanislas Dahaene39。s book The Number Sense. As Dahaene explains: Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be spoken out in less than onequarter 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 numbernaming 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 don39。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 (twentyone, twentytwo), 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 tenone. Twelve is tentwo. Twentyfour is twotensfour and so on. That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children. Fouryearold 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 Englishspeaking sevenyearold to add thirtyseven plus twentytwo 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 threetensseven and twotenstwo, and then the necessary equation(等式) is right there, in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: it39。s fivetensnine. When it es to math, in other words, Asians have a builtin 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 group39。s culture.（1）What does the passage mainly talk about?A.The Asian numbernaming system helps grasp advanced math skills better.B.Western culture fail to provide their children with adequate number knowledge.C.Children in Western countries have to learn by heart the learning things.D.Asian children39。s advantage in math may be sourced from their culture.（2）What makes a Chinese easier to remember a list of numbers than an American?A.Their understanding of numbers.B.Their mother tongue.C.Their math education.D.Their different IQ.（3）Asian children can reach answers in basic math functions more quickly because ____________.A.they pronounce the numbers in a shorter periodB.they practice math from an early ageC.they don39。t have to translate language into numbers firstD.American children can only count to 15 at the age of four【答案】 （1）D（2）B（3）C 【解析】【分析】本文為介紹說(shuō)明文。文章介紹了東西方數(shù)字系統(tǒng)之間的差異對(duì)東西方人數(shù)學(xué)能力的影響，同時(shí)也發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個(gè)非常不同的地方：善于數(shù)學(xué)也可能植根于一個(gè)群體的文化中。（1）主旨大意題。通讀全文可知，本文介紹了東西方數(shù)字系統(tǒng)之間的差異對(duì)東西方人數(shù)學(xué)能力的影響。同時(shí)根據(jù)第三段中的The number system in English is highly so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system.（英語(yǔ)中的數(shù)字系統(tǒng)是高度不規(guī)則的。在中國(guó)、日本、韓國(guó)則不是這樣的。他們有一個(gè)邏輯計(jì)數(shù)系統(tǒng)。）及第四段中的That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children.（這種差異意味著亞洲兒童比美國(guó)兒童學(xué)的要快得多。）可推知，本文主要探討了亞洲兒童在數(shù)學(xué)方面的優(yōu)勢(shì)可能來(lái)源于他們的文化的問(wèn)題。故選D。（2）推理判斷題。根據(jù)第一段中的Because we most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within a twosecond period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.（因?yàn)槲覀冏钊菀子涀∥覀冊(cè)谝粌擅腌妰?nèi)能說(shuō)或讀的東西。與英語(yǔ)不同，漢語(yǔ)允許他們把這七個(gè)數(shù)字放在兩秒鐘之內(nèi)）可推知，比起美國(guó)人，中國(guó)人的母語(yǔ)讓中國(guó)人更容易記住一列數(shù)字。故選B。（3）細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)倒數(shù)第二段中對(duì)亞洲孩子與美國(guó)孩子在基本數(shù)學(xué)運(yùn)算方面的對(duì)比可知，亞洲兒童可以更快地在基本數(shù)學(xué)運(yùn)算中找到答案，是因?yàn)樗麄儾槐叵劝颜Z(yǔ)言翻譯成數(shù)字。故選C。5．閱讀理解 Visitors must present all carried items for inspection upon entry. 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