Question

    A study showed that the experiences children have in their first few years are important . These experiences affect the development of the brain. When children receive more attention, they often have higher IQs. Babies receive information when they see, hear and feel things, which makes connections between different parts of the brain. There are a hundred trillion(万亿)connections in the brain of a three-year-old child.

Researcher Judit Gervain tested how good newborns are at distinguishing different sound patterns. Her researchers produced images of the brains of babies as they heard different sound patterns. For example, one order was mu-ba-ba. This is the pattern"A-B-B". Another order was mu-ba-ge. This is the pattern “A-B-C”. The images showed that the part of the brain responsible for speech was more active during the" A-B-B"pattern. This shows that babies can tell the difference between different patterns. They also were sensitive to where it occurred in the order.

Gervain is excited by these findings because the order of sounds is the building block of words and grammar."Position is key to language," she says. "If something is at the beginning or at the end, it makes a big difference:'John caught the bear.' is very different from 'The bear caught John.'”

Researchers led by scientist Patricia Kuhl have found that language delivered by televisions, audio books,the Internet, or smartphones－no matter how educational－doesn’t appear to be enough for children’s brain development. They carried out a study of nine-month-old American babies. They expected the first group who’d watched videos in Chinese to show the same kind of learning as the second group who were brought face-to-face with the same sounds. Instead they found a huge difference. The babies in the second group were able to distinguish between similar Chinese sounds as well as native listeners. But the other babies －regardless of whether they had watched the video or listened to the audio－learned nothing.

1.What makes connections in a baby’s brain?

A. Having a higher IQ. B. Experiencing new information

C. The baby’ early age D. The connection with other babies

2.What did Judit Gervain and her team find in the experiment?

A. Babies identify different sound patterns.

B. Word order is relevant to meaning.

C. Babies can well understand different words.

D. A certain brain region processes language.

3.What does the underlined sentence mean in Paragraph 3?

A. Grammar is important in learning languages.

B. Different orders have different meanings.

C. Different languages have different grammar.

D. Words have different sounds.

4.What is the main conclusion from the study led by Patricia Kuhl?

A. Babies shouldn’t watch a lot of television.

B. Listening to different languages develops babies’ brain

C. Foreign languages help babies’ brain develop

D. Social communication improves babies’ brain development.

Answer

1.B

2.A

3.B

4.D

【解析】

本文属于科普文，介绍小孩最初几年的经历对大脑发育很重要，而媒介输入对孩子大脑发育效果不明显，最有效的是面对面语言输入。

1.细节理解题。根据第一段Babies receive information when they see, hear and feel things, which makes connections between different parts of the brain.可知，婴儿接收到不同信息，可以让大脑不同部分形成连接，故选B。

2.推理判断题。根据第二段The images showed that the part of the brain responsible for speech was more active during the" A-B-B" pattern. This shows that babies can tell the difference between different patterns.可知，实验表明婴儿可以区别不同的声音模式，故选A。

3.句意猜测题。根据第三段"If something is at the beginning or at the end, it makes a big difference: 'John caught the bear.' is very different from 'The bear caught John.'”可知，有些东西放在句首和句尾，会有很大的不同，比如John抓住了熊，和熊抓住了John，意思是不一样的，可知本句意思为位置对于语言来说很重要的，顺序不同，意思不同，故选B。

4.推理判断题。根据最后一段Researchers led by scientist Patricia Kuhl have found that language delivered by televisions, audio books, the Internet, or smartphones－no matter how educational－doesn’t appear to be enough for children’s brain development.可知，通过电视、网络等媒介的语言教学，对于婴儿大脑发展是不够的，并且后面的实验表明，面对面的语言输入才有效，故选D。