Question

As an Englishman, I can speak three languages—English, German and French, so do you think the British people are very good language learners? The fact is that they aren’t.

Some statistics（数据）from the survey done by the European Commission（欧盟委员会）showed that 62% of the British people only speak English. 38% speak at least one foreign language and 18% speak two or more. Compared with the British people, 56% of the people in other European countries speak at least one foreign language and 28% speak two or more. From this you can see that the British people are famous for not speaking foreign languages and that they are not good language learners in Europe.

And the survey also showed that English is the most widely-spoken foreign language. Many European people can have a conversation in English. That’s why my people don’t think it is necessary to learn a foreign language.

In Britain, students are not required to learn a foreign language. That means learning a foreign language is only an option at school. In UK schools it is common for children to start learning a foreign language at 11 and many of them give it up at 14. So why don’t students continue learning foreign languages at school? Because they think it is more difficult to get good marks in languages than in other subjects such as science or history.

To solve this situation, the British government is looking for different ways to improve language learning at school. One way is to start learning it at a much younger age. Another one is to give school children more choices.

Changing the British attitude（态度）to learning foreign languages may be a hard task but the government decided to try!

1.Which of the following about the British people is TRUE?

A. They are good language learners.

B. 62% of them speak two or more languages.

C. More than half of them only speak English.

D. They are famous for speaking foreign languages.

2.In Paragraph 4, “option” means       .

A. game    B. choice    C. mistake    D. conversation

3.What is the best title of the passage?

A. Speaking English    B. Young English learners

C. Schools in the UK    D. Foreign Language Learning in the UK

Answer

1. C

2. B

3. D

【解析】

文章大意：本文主要介绍英国人在语言方面学习的情况，我们都知道英语是使用最广泛的外语，因此英国人对于学外语没有什么热度和兴趣，而且比其它学科要难，为了解决这种情况，英国政府正在寻找不同的方法来改善学校的语言学习。

1.推理判断题。根据第二段第一句Some statistics （数据） from the survey done by the European Commission （欧盟委员会）showed that 62% of the British people only speak English．欧盟委员会进行的一些调查显示，62%的英国人只会说英语，可知C选项"一半以上的人只会说英语"正确。故选：C。

2.词义猜测题。根据上句In Britain，students are not required to learn a foreign language．在英国，学生不需要学习外语，可知，那意味着在学校学习外语只是一种"选择"。故选：B。

3.主旨大意题。根据最后一句Changing the British attitude （态度） to learning foreign languages may be a hard task but the government decides to try!改变英国人学习外语的态度可能是一项艰巨的任务，但政府决定试一试！及短文内容可知，主要介绍的是英国的外语学习情况。故选：D。