Question

Learning Colour Words

In the first few years of their lives, children brought up in English-speaking homes successfully master the use of hundreds of words, including those for objects, actions, emotions, and many other aspects of the physical world. However, when it comes to learning colour words, the same children perform very badly. If shown a blue cup and asked about its colour, typical two-year-olds seem as likely to come up with “red” as “blue”.

Cognitive (认知) scientists at Stanford University in California supposed that children's inability at colour-word learning may be directly linked to the way these words are used in English. They are used mostly in pre-nominal position (e. g.  “blue cup”), in contrast to post-nominal position (e. g.  “The cup is blue. ”). The difficulty children have may simply come down to the challenge of having to make predictions from colour words to the objects they refer to, rather than from the objects to the colour words.

To explore this idea further, the research team recruited (招募) 40 English children aged between 23 and 29 months and carried out a three-period experiment. It included a pre-test, followed by training in the use of colour words, and finally a post-test that was the same to the pre-test. The pre- and post- test materials contained six objects that were unfamiliar to the children. There were three examples of each object in each of three colours-red, yellow and blue. The objects were presented on trays (托盘), and in both tests, the children were asked to pick out objects in response to requests in which the colour word was either a pre-nominal ( “Which is the red one?”) or a post-nominal ( “Which one is red?”).

In the training, the children were introduced to five sets of familiar items (balls, cups, crayons, glasses,and toy bears) in each of the three colours. Half the children were presented with the items one by one and heard them labeled with colour words used pre-nominally, while the other half were introduced to the same items described with a post-nominal colour word. After the training, the children repeated the selection task on the novel items in the post-test. Correct choices on items that were consistent (一致的) across the pre-and post-tests were used to measure children's colour knowledge.

According to the assessment, children's performance was consistent when they were both trained and tested on post-nominal adjectives, and worst when trained on pre-nominal adjectives and tested on post-nominal adjectives. Comparing the pre-and post-test scores across each condition showed a significant decline in performance when children were both pre-and post-tested with questions that placed the colour words pre-nominally.

1.What is the purpose of Paragraph 2?

A.To present a phenomenon. B.To make a contrast.

C.To give a possible explanation. D.To provide an example.

2.What can we learn about the experiment from the passage?

A.The children had to place the pre-and post-test objects onto coloured trays.

B.The children were presented with the same objects in the pre-and post-tests.

C.Pre-nominal questions were less used than post-nominal questions in the training.

D.The researchers aimed to look for consistencies in children's knowledge of word order.

3.The outcome of the experiment shows that ______.

A.children are unable to accurately sort objects by colour.

B.children trained on pre-nominal adjectives perform well.

C.children learn colour words rapidly in post-nominal position.

D.children can make predictions from the objects to the colour words.

Answer

1.B

2.D

3.C

【解析】

本文大意：在一些说英语的家庭中长大的孩子们可以掌握很多单词，但是涉及到颜色单词时，他们的表现不尽如人意。科学家为此做了一项实验用来研究儿童对语序知识的一致性。研究发现儿童在名词后的位置上能很快地学会颜色词。

1.细节理解题。A：提出一种现象；B：来做个对比；C：给一个可能的解释；D：提供一个例子。第二段主要提出孩子们在面对把颜色词放在pre-nominal position和post-nominal position时的表现是不同的。用来做对比。故选B。

2.推理判断题。A：孩子们必须把测试前和测试后的物品放在有颜色的托盘上；B：在测试前和测试后，孩子们都看到了同样的物体；C：在训练中，名前问题比名后问题使用的少；D：研究人员的目的是寻找儿童对语序知识的一致性。根据文中实验可知，该实验想探讨语序问题对孩子的影响。故选D。

3.推理判断题。A：孩子们不能准确地按颜色把物体分类；B：接受过名词性前形容词训练的儿童表现良好；C：儿童在名词后的位置上能很快地学会颜色词；D：孩子们可以从物体到颜色词进行预测。根据“Comparing the pre-and post-test scores across each condition showed a significant decline in performance when children were both pre-and post-tested with questions that placed the colour words pre-nominally.”可知，颜色词放在名字前面的测试时，他们的表现明显下降，所以放在名词后的位置，孩子们能学得更快。故选C。