Question

Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 7, 9, 6. Read them loud. Now look away and spend 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, you’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 two-second period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.

That example comes from Stanislas Dahaene’s book The Number Sense. As Dahaene explains: Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be spoken out in less than one-quarter 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 number-naming 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 don’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 (twenty-one, twenty-two), 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 ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is two-tens-four and so on.

That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children. Four-year-old 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 English-speaking seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two 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 three-tens-seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation(等式) is right there, in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: it’s five-tens-nine.

When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have a built-in 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 group’s culture.

1.What does the passage mainly talk about?

A. The Asian number-naming 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 children’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 period

B. they practice math from an early age

C. they don’t have to translate language into numbers first

D. American children can only count to 15 at the age of four

Answer

1.D

2.B

3.C

【解析】本文为介绍说明文。文章介绍了东西方数字系统之间的差异对东西方人数学能力的影响，同时也发现了一个非常不同的地方：善于数学也可能植根于一个群体的文化中。

1.主旨大意题。通读全文可知，本文介绍了东西方数字系统之间的差异对东西方人数学能力的影响。同时根据第三段中的The number system in English is highly irregular.Not so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system.（英语中的数字系统是高度不规则的。在中国、日本、韩国则不是这样的。他们有一个逻辑计数系统。）及第四段中的That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children.（这种差异意味着亚洲儿童比美国儿童学的要快得多。）可推知，本文主要探讨了亚洲儿童在数学方面的优势可能来源于他们的文化的问题。故选D。

2.推理判断题。根据第一段中的Because we most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within a two-second period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.（因为我们最容易记住我们在一两秒钟内能说或读的东西。与英语不同，汉语允许他们把这七个数字放在两秒钟之内）可推知，比起美国人，中国人的母语让中国人更容易记住一列数字。故选B。

3.细节理解题。根据倒数第二段中对亚洲孩子与美国孩子在基本数学运算方面的对比可知，亚洲儿童可以更快地在基本数学运算中找到答案，是因为他们不必先把语言翻译成数字。故选C。

【名师点睛】

解答阅读理解时，一般遵循先读文章后的题目，标识出关键词（信息点），带着问题去阅读，做到心中有数，这样能够提高做题效率；在阅读过程中，将题目答案的原文信息源做好标识，这样能够做到自己的答案有凭有据，有助于提高自己的做题信心、有利于回头的自我检查。其中主旨大意题也是必考的一种题型，这要求同学们一定要全面把握文章大意，然后再权衡四个选项。如第1小题 “What does the passage mainly talk about?” 属于主旨大意题，通读全文可知，本文主要介绍了东西方数字系统之间的差异对东西方人数学能力的影响，全文主要在东西方儿童数学能力方面的差异展开介绍，由此可知本文主要讨论了亚洲儿童在数学方面的优势可能来源于他们的文化的问题。在解答主旨大意题时，要防止本末倒置、主次不分、以点代面、以偏概全、主观臆断（如本题中的A. The Asian number-naming system helps grasp advanced math skills better.；文章并没有提到亚洲数字系统能帮助更好地掌握高级数学技能；B. Western culture fail to provide their children with adequate number knowledge. 西方文化没有给他们的孩子提供足够数量的知识，明显与常识不符；C. Children in Western countries have to learn by heart the learning things. 西方国家的孩子必须把学习的东西背下来，这一点文章也没有提及。这三个选项明显不符合文章内容）。有些干扰项，从局部看也许不算错，但从全局看却又片面。这类干扰项与正确答案之差，其实是局部与全局之差。考生在做题时不要为局部现象（即细节）迷惑，而忽略了文章的整体思想。此外，大家在日常学习过程中，一定要加强词汇积累，只有词汇基础雄厚了，阅读过程中的障碍才会少。