Question

Long before they can actually speak, babies pay special attention to the speech they hear around them. Within the first month of their lives, babies’ responses to the sound of the human voice will be different from their responses to other sorts of hearing stimulation. They will stop crying when they hear a person talking, but not if they hear a bell or the sound of a rattle. At first, the sounds that a baby notices might be only those words that receive the heaviest emphasis and that often occur at the ends of utterances(讲话，说话). By the time they are six or seven weeks old, babies can detect the difference between syllables pronounced with rising and falling tones. Very soon, these differences in adult stress and intonation can influence babies’ emotional states and behavior. Long before they develop actual language comprehension, babies can sense when an adult is happy or angry, attempting to begin or end new behavior, and so on, merely on the basis of clues such as the rate, volume, and melody of adult speech.

Adults make it as easy as they can for babies to pick up a language by exaggerating(夸张) such clues. One researcher observed babies and their mothers in six diverse cultures and found that, in all six languages, the mothers used simplified utterances and nonsense sounds, and transformed certain sounds into baby talk. Other researchers have noted that when mothers talk to babies who are only a few months old, they exaggerate the pitch, loudness, and intensity of their words. They also exaggerate their facial expressions, hold vowels(元音) longer, and emphasize certain words.

More significant for language development than their response to general intonation is observation that tiny babies can make relatively fine distinctions between speech sounds. In other words, babies enter the world with the ability to make those precisely perceptual（知觉的，感性的） recognition that are necessary if they are to acquire listening language.

Babies obviously obtain pleasure from sound input, too: even as young as nine months they will listen to songs or stories, although the words themselves are beyond their understanding. For babies, language is a sensory-motor delight rather than the route to boring meaning that it often is for adults.

1.The author mentions syllables with rising and falling tones to           .

A. show how difficult it is for babies to interpret emotions

B. provide an example of ways adults speak to babies

C. give a reason for babies’ difficulty in telling one adult from another

D. show a six-week-old baby can already tell some language differences

2.What can be inferred about the findings described in Paragraph 2?

A. Mothers from different cultures speak to their babies in similar ways.

B. Babies ignore facial expressions in understanding listening language.

C. The mothers were unconsciously teaching their babies to speak.

D. Mothers only exaggerate their tones when talking to babies.

3.Why do babies listen to songs and stories, even if they can’t understand?

A. They understand the rhythm.    B. They enjoy the sound.

C. They can remember them easily.    D. They focus on the meaning.

4.What’s the main idea of the passage?

A. Babies can detect sounds other than the human voice.

B. Babies’ ways to learn a language differ from adults’.

C. Babies can respond to the speech before they can speak.

D. Babies can tell the sound of the human voice from other sounds.

Answer

1.D

2.A

3.B

4.C

【解析】本文是一篇科普类文章。这篇文章主要讲了婴儿在他们能说话之前，已经可以对语言作出回复。

1.推理判断题。由第一段At first, the sounds that a baby notices might be only those words that receive the heaviest emphasis and that often occur at the ends of utterances(讲话，说话). By the time they are six or seven weeks old, babies can detect the difference between syllables pronounced with rising and falling tones.可推知作者提到音节的声调和降调是为了说明一个六周大的婴儿已经可以说出语言的一些不同，选D。

2.推理判断题。由第二段One researcher observed babies and their mothers in six diverse cultures and found that, in all six languages, the mothers used simplified utterances and nonsense sounds, and transformed certain sounds into baby talk.可知来自六种不同文化的母亲都使用简化的表达和夸张的声音，所以推断出来自不同文化的母亲们使用相同的方式和她们的婴儿说话，选A。

3.细节理解题。由最后一段For babies, language is a sensory-motor delight rather than the route to boring meaning that it often is for adults.可知婴儿听故事和音乐，即使他们并不明白其中的意思，因为他们喜欢这个声音，选B。

4.主旨大意题。由第一段Long before they can actually speak, babies pay special attention to the speech they hear around them.可知这篇文章主要讲了婴儿在他们能说话之前，已经可以对语言作出回复，选C。