【文章內容簡介】 ugh, 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】本文為介紹說明文。文章介紹了東西方數(shù)字系統(tǒng)之間的差異對東西方人數(shù)學能力的影響，同時也發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個非常不同的地方：善于數(shù)學也可能植根于一個群體的文化中。（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)之間的差異對東西方人數(shù)學能力的影響。同時根據(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.（英語中的數(shù)字系統(tǒng)是高度不規(guī)則的。在中國、日本、韓國則不是這樣的。他們有一個邏輯計數(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兒童學的要快得多。）可推知，本文主要探討了亞洲兒童在數(shù)學方面的優(yōu)勢可能來源于他們的文化的問題。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.（因為我們最容易記住我們在一兩秒鐘內能說或讀的東西。與英語不同，漢語允許他們把這七個數(shù)字放在兩秒鐘之內）可推知，比起美國人，中國人的母語讓中國人更容易記住一列數(shù)字。故選B。（3）細節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)倒數(shù)第二段中對亞洲孩子與美國孩子在基本數(shù)學運算方面的對比可知，亞洲兒童可以更快地在基本數(shù)學運算中找到答案，是因為他們不必先把語言翻譯成數(shù)字。故選C。5．閱讀理解 In 1947 a group of famous people from the art world headed by an Austrian conductor decided to hold an international festival of music, dance and theatre in Edinburgh. The idea was to reunite Europe after the Second World War. It quickly attracted famous names such as Alec Guinness, Richard Burton, Dame Margot Fonteyn and Marlene Dietrich as well as the big symphony orchestras(交響樂團). It became a fixed event every August and now attracts 400,000 people yearly. At the same time, the Fringe appeared as a challenge(挑戰(zhàn)) to the official festival. Eight theatre groups turned up uninvited in 1947, in the belief that everyone should have the right to perform, and they did so in a public house disused for years. Soon, groups of students firstly from Edinburgh University, and later from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Durham and Birmingham were making the journey to the Scottish capital each summer to perform theatre by little known writers of plays in small church halls to the people of Edinburgh. Today the Fringe, once less recognized, has far outgrown the festival with around 1,500 performances of theatre, music and dance on every one of the 21 days it lasts. And yet as early as 1959, with only 19 theatre groups performing, some said it was getting too big. A paid administrator(行政人員) was first employed only in 1971, and today there are eight administrators working all year round and the number rises to 150 during August itself. In 2004 there were 200 places housing 1,695 shows by over 600 different groups from 50 different countries. More than million tickets were sold.（1）What was the purpose of Edinburgh Fe