单选题Passage 2Several research teams have found that newborns prefer their mothers' voices over those of other people. Now a team of scientists has gone an intriguing step further: they have found that newborns cry in their native language.We have provided

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Passage 2
Several research teams have found thatnewborns prefer their mothers' voices over those of other people. Now a team ofscientists has gone an intriguing step further: they have found that newbornscry in their native language. "We have provided evidence that languagebegins with the very first cry melodies," says Kathleen Wermke of theUniversity of Wurzburg, Germany, who led the research.
?"The dramatic finding of this study isthat not only are newborns capable of producing different cry melodies, butthey prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the?ambientlanguage they have heard during their fetal life, within the lasttrimester," said Wermke. "Contrary to orthodox interpretations, thesedata support the importance of human infants' crying for seeding languagedevelopment."
???Ithad been thought that babies' cries are constrained by-their breathing patternsand respiratory apparatus, in which case a crying baby would sound like acrying baby no matter what the culture is, since babies are anatomically identical."The prevailing opinion used to be that newborns could not activelyinfluence their production of sound," says Wermke. This study refutes thatclaim: since babies cry in different languages, they must have somecontrol?? (presumably unconscious) overwhat they sound like rather than being constrained by the acoustical propertiesof their lungs, throat, mouth, and larynx. If respiration alone dictated what a crysounded like, all babies would cry with a falling-pitch pattern, since that'swhat happens as you run out of breath and air pressure on the throat'ssound-making machinery decreases. French babies apparently didn't get thatmemo. "German and French infants produce different types of cries, eventhough they share the same physiology," the scientists point out."The French newborns produce ‘nonphysiological' rising patterns," showingthat the sound of their cries is under their control.
????Although phonemes-speech sounds such as "ki" or"sh"-don't cross the abdominal barrier and reach the fetus, so-calledprosodic characteristics of speech do. These are the variations in pitch,rhythm, and intensity that characterize each language. Just as newbornsremember and prefer actual songs that they heard in utero, it seems, so theyremember and prefer both the sound of Mom’s voice and the melodic signature ofher language.
?The idea of the study wasn't to make the sound of a screaming baby more interestingto listeners-good luck with that-but to explore how babies acquire speech. Thatacquisition, it is now clear, begins months before birth, probably in the thirdtrimester: Newborns "not only have memorized the main intonation patternsof their respective surrounding language but are also able to reproduce thesepatterns in their own [sound] production," conclude the scientists. Newborns'"cries are already tuned toward their native language," giving them ahead start on sounding French or German (or, presumably, English or American orChinese or anything else: the scientists are collecting cries from morelanguages). This is likely part of the explanation for how babies developspoken language quickly and seemingly without effort. Sure, we may come into the world wired for language (thank you, Noam Chomsky), but we also benefitfrom the environmental exposure that tells us which language.
??Until this study, scientists thought that babies became capable of vocal imitation noearlier than 12 weeks of age. That's when infants listening to an adultspeaker producing vowels can parrot the sound. But that's the beginning of truespeech. It's sort of amazing that it took this long for scientists to realizethat if they want to see what sounds babies can perceive, remember, and playback, they should look at the sound babies produce best. So let the littleangel cry: she's practicing to acquire language.

What does Kathleen Wermke's research indicate?

A.Babies are unable to do vocal imitation.
B.Babies’ cries could be their early language acquisition.
C.Babies start speech acquisition months after their birth.
D.A crying baby is a crying baby no matter what the culture is.

共用题干
Voice Your Opinion一Change is Needed in Youth Sports

Everywhere you look,you see kids bouncing。basketball or waving a tennis racquet（网球拍）.And
these kids are getting younger and younger. In some countries,children can compete on basketball,base-
ball,and volleyball teams starting at age nine._____________ (46)And swimming and gynmastics classes begin
at age four, to prepare children for competition.
It's true that a few of these kids will develop into highly skilled athletes and may even become members
of the national Olympic teams._____________ (47)This emphasis on competition in sports is having serious
negative effects.
Children who get involved in competitive sports at a young age often grow tired of their sport. Many
parents pressure their kids to choose one sport and devote all their time to it._____________ (48)But 66 per-
cent of the young athletes wanted to play more than one sport一for fun.
Another problem is the pressure imposed by over-competitive parents and coaches. Children are not
naturally competitive. In fact,a recent study by Paulo David found that most children don' t even understand
the idea of competition until they are seven years old._____________ (49)
The third,and biggest,problem for young athletes is the lack of time to do their homework,have fun,
be with friends一in short,time to be kids. When they are forced to spend every afternoon at sports practice,
they often start to hate their chosen sport. A research found that 70 percent of kids who take part in competi-
tive spoils before the age of twelve quit before they turn eighteen._____________(50) Excessive competitive
sports take away all the enjoyment.
Need to remember the purpose of youth sportsweto give kids a chance to have developing, strong,
healthy bodies.

__________(48)
A: But what about the others,the average kids?
B: The youth soccer organization has teams for children as young as five.
C: A survey found that 79 percent of parents of young athletes wanted their children to concentrate on one sport.
D: Very young kids don't know why their parents are pushing them so hard.
E: Sports for children have two important purposes.
F: Many of them completely lose interest in sports.

共用题干
Dangers Await Babies With Altitude

Women who live in the world's highest communities tend to give birth to underweight babies,a new
study suggests.These babies may grow into adults with a high risk of heart disease and strokes.
Research has hinted that newborns in mountain communities are lighter than average.But it wasn't
clear whether this is due to reduced oxygen levels at high altitude or because their mothers are
under-nourished一many people who live at high altitudes are relatively poor compared with those living lower
down.
To find out more,Dino Giussani and his team at Cambridge University studied the records of 400 births
in Bolivia during 1997 and 1998.The babies were born in both rich and poor areas of two cities:La Paz and
Santa Cruz.La Paz is the highest city in the world,at 3.65 kilometers above sea level,while Santa Cruz is
much lower,at 0.44 kilometers.
Sure enough,Giussani found that the average birthweight of babies in La Paz was significantly lower than
in Santa Cruz.This was true in both high and low-income families.Even babies born to poor families in
Santa Cruz were heavier on average than babies born to wealthy families in lofty La Paz."We were very
surprised by this result,"says Giussani.
The results suggest that babies born at high altitude are deprived of oxygen before birth."This may
trigger the release or suppression of hormones that regulate growth of the unborn child," says Giussani.
His team also found that high-altitude babies tended to have relatively larger heads compared with their
bodies.This is probably because a fetus starved of oxygen will send oxygenated blood to the brain in
preference to the rest of the body.
Giussani wants to find out if such babies have a higher risk of disease in later life. People born in La
Paz might be prone to heart trouble in adulthood,for example.Low birth weight is a risk factor for coronary
heart disease.And newborns with a high ratio of head size to body weight are often predisposed to high blood
pressure and strokes in later life.

According to the passage,one of the reasons why newborns in mountain communities are underweight is that their mothers are underweight.
A:Right
B:Wrong
C:Not mentioned

Which of the following can' NOT be used as a pre-reading task?__________

A．Predicting what a passage is about.
B．Creating a word web related to a topic.
C．Listening to the recording of a passage.
D．Sharing what is already known about a topic.

共用题干
Dangers Await Babies with Altitude
Women who live in the world's highest communities tend to give birth to underweight babies, a new study suggests.These babies may grow into adults with a high risk of heart disease and strokes.
Research has hinted that newborns in mountain communities are lighter than average.But it wasn't clear whether this is due to reduced oxygen levels at high altitude or because their mothers are under-nourished—many people who live at high altitudes are relatively poor compared with those living lower down.
To find out more,Dino Giussani and his team at Cambridge University studied the records of 400 births in Bolivia during 1997 and 1998 .The babies were born in both rich and poor areas of two cities:La Paz and Santa Cruz.La Paz is the highest city in the world,at 3 .65 kilometers above sea level,while Santa Cruz is much lower,at 0 .44 kilometers.
Sure enough,Giussani found that the average birthweight of babies in La Paz was significantly lower than in Santa Cruz.This was true in both high and low-income families.Even babies born to poor families in Santa Cruz were heavier on average than babies born to wealthy families in lofty La Paz.“We were very surprised by this result,”says Giussani.
The results suggest that babies born at high altitude are deprived of oxygen before birth.
“This may trigger the release or suppression of hormones that regulate growth of the unborn child,”says Giussani.
His team also found that high-altitude babies tended to have relatively larger heads compared with their bodies.This is probably because a fetus starved of oxygen will send oxygenated blood to the brain in preference to the rest of the body.
Giussani wants to find out if such babies have a higher risk of disease in later life.People born in La Paz might be prone to heart trouble in adulthood,for example.Low birthweight is a risk factor for coronary heart disease.And newborns with a high ratio of head size to body weight are often predisposed to high blood pressure and strokes in later life.

It can be learned from the last paragraph that______.
A: high-altitude babies tend to have high blood pressure in their later life
B: underweight babies have a shorter life span
C: babies born to poor families lack certain hormones before birth
D: newborns in wealthy families have larger heads compared with their bodies

The best statement of the main idea of this passage is that__________.

A.scientists have found a way to prolong the period of clinical death
B.biological death occurs when vital organs have suffered permanent damage
C.modern scientists divide the process of dying into clinical and biological death
D.cooling delays the processes leading to biological death