Question

  The future of written English will owe more to Hollywood films than Dickens or Shakespeare,if the findings of a study into children's writing are anything to go by. Researchers who looked at the entries to a national compe?tition found they were increasingly using American words such as garbage,trash can,sidewalk,candy,sneakers,soda,and flashlight.

  The stories,written by pupils aged 7 to 13,show how fairy cakes are re?ferred to as cupcakes and a dinner jacket has become a tuxedo.

  Television also has a powerful influence on children's work,with Lady Gaga and Argentinean footballer Lionel Messi among the famous names from TV cropping up repeatedly.

  But pupils are let down by basic spelling,punctuation and grammar,ac?cording to the study by Oxford University Press (OUP) ， which looked at the entries to BBC Radio Two's 500 Words competition.

  Children struggled to correctly spell simple words such as "does" and "clothes" and often failed to use the past tense correctly,frequently writing "rised" instead of "rose" or "thinked" instead of "thought".

  Researchers also found that punctuation was underused,especially semi?colons and speech marks. Some did not know how to use capital letters. How?ever,exclamation marks were overused. Researchers found 35       ,171 examples in total,with some young writers using five at a time ！

  Popular US fiction such as the Tvuilight novels and films is thought to be fueling the increasing use of American vocabulary and spelling.Meanwhile,fears that texting was corrupting children's written work were unfounded,they said,with youngsters only using text language when they were referring to a text message.

  Samantha Armstrong from OUP said, "Perhaps we are catching a glimpse of the language of the future. " Chris Evans,whose radio show runs the com?petition,said the results were "fascinating", adding, "Who'd have thought that Messi and Gaga would be some of the most used names?"

1. According to the passage,which of the following is an example of British English?

   A. Sneakers. B. Fairy cakes.

   C. Tuxedo. D. Candy.

2. Which of the following was NOT frequently found in the pupils' stories?

   A. Text message language.

   B. A variety of Americanisms.

   C. Overuse of exclamation marks.

   D. Names of famous TV stars.

3. The underlined word "unfounded" in Paragraph 7 probably means "         ”.

   A. unbearable   B. unnoticeable

   C. not found   D. not based on facts

4. The passage is intended to          .

   A. show that British children have spelling and grammar abilities

   B. share the experience about how to teach written English in a correct way

   C. discuss the noticeable changes and evolution of written English in Britain

   D. criticize the influence of popular US cultu^re on British children's lan?guage use

Answer 1

1. B細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)第一段最后一句和第二段內(nèi)容可知，sneakers,tuxedo和candy是美式英語詞匯；fairy cakes在美式英語中是cupcakes故選B項(xiàng)。

2. A細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)第七段中"Meanwhile,fears that texting was corrupting children's written work were un?founded,they said,with youngsters only using text lan?guage when they were referring to a text message. ”可知，短信中的語言沒有在學(xué)生的故事中發(fā)現(xiàn)。故選A項(xiàng)。

3. D詞義猜測(cè)題。根據(jù)"...they said,with youngsters on?ly using text language when they were referring to a text message."可知unfounded意為"沒有根據(jù)的"。故選D項(xiàng)。

4. C寫作意圖題。全文討論了英國(guó)書面英語的明顯變化并分析了其演變過程。故選C項(xiàng)。