hce_isu
114年
英文
第 36 題
📖 題組：
IV. Reading Comprehension: Choose the best answer to complete each sentence. Article 1 Infants are born as scientists, constantly interacting with and questioning the world around them. However, as any good scientist knows, simply making observations is not sufficient; a large part of learning is dependent on being able to communicate ideas, observations, and feelings with others. Though most infants do not produce discernible words until around age one or one-and-a-half, they begin gaining proficiency in their native languages long before that. In fact, many linguists agree that a newborn baby’s brain is already pre-programmed for language acquisition, meaning that it’s as natural for a baby to talk as it is for a dog to dig. According to psycholinguist Anne Cutler, an infant’s language acquisition actually begins well before birth. At only one day old, newborns have demonstrated the ability to recognize the voices and rhythms heard during their last trimester in the muffled confines of the womb. In general, infants are more likely to attend to a specific voice stream if they perceive it as more familiar than other streams. Newborns tend to be especially partial to their mother’s voice and her native language, as opposed to another woman or another language. For example, when an infant is presented with a voice stream spoken by his mother and a background stream delivered by an unfamiliar voice, he will effortlessly attend to his mother while ignoring the background stream. Therefore, by using these simple yet important cues, and others like them, infants can easily learn the essential characteristics and rules of their native language. However, it is important to note that an infant’s ability to learn from the nuances of her mother’s speech is predicated upon her ability to separate that speech from the sounds of the dishwasher, the family dog, the bus stopping on the street outside, and, quite possibly, other streams of speech, like a newscaster on the television down the hall or siblings playing in an adjacent room. Infants are better able to accomplish this task when the voice of interest is louder than any of the competing background noises. Conversely, when two voices are of equal amplitude, infants typically demonstrate little preference for one stream over the other. Researchers have hypothesized that because an infant’s ability to selectively pay attention to one voice or sound, even in a mix of others, has not fully developed yet, the infant is actually interpreting competing voice streams that are equally loud as one single stream with unfamiliar patterns and sounds. During the first few months after birth, infants will subconsciously study the language being used around them, taking note of the rhythmic patterns, the sequences of sounds, and the intonation of the language. Newborns will also start to actively process how things like differences in pitch or accented syllables further affect meaning. Interestingly, up until six months of age, they can still recognize and discriminate between the phonemes (single units of sound in a language like “ba” or “pa”) of other languages. Though infants do display a preference for the language they heard in utero, most infants are not biased towards the specific phonemes of that language. This ability to recognize and discriminate between all phonemes comes to an end by the middle of their first year, at which point infants start displaying a preference for phonemes in their native language, culminating at age one, when they stop responding to foreign phonemes altogether. This is part of what is known as the “critical period,” which begins at birth and lasts until puberty. During this period, as the brain continues to grow and change, language acquisition is instinctual, explaining why young children seem to pick up languages so easily.
IV. Reading Comprehension: Choose the best answer to complete each sentence. Article 1 Infants are born as scientists, constantly interacting with and questioning the world around them. However, as any good scientist knows, simply making observations is not sufficient; a large part of learning is dependent on being able to communicate ideas, observations, and feelings with others. Though most infants do not produce discernible words until around age one or one-and-a-half, they begin gaining proficiency in their native languages long before that. In fact, many linguists agree that a newborn baby’s brain is already pre-programmed for language acquisition, meaning that it’s as natural for a baby to talk as it is for a dog to dig. According to psycholinguist Anne Cutler, an infant’s language acquisition actually begins well before birth. At only one day old, newborns have demonstrated the ability to recognize the voices and rhythms heard during their last trimester in the muffled confines of the womb. In general, infants are more likely to attend to a specific voice stream if they perceive it as more familiar than other streams. Newborns tend to be especially partial to their mother’s voice and her native language, as opposed to another woman or another language. For example, when an infant is presented with a voice stream spoken by his mother and a background stream delivered by an unfamiliar voice, he will effortlessly attend to his mother while ignoring the background stream. Therefore, by using these simple yet important cues, and others like them, infants can easily learn the essential characteristics and rules of their native language. However, it is important to note that an infant’s ability to learn from the nuances of her mother’s speech is predicated upon her ability to separate that speech from the sounds of the dishwasher, the family dog, the bus stopping on the street outside, and, quite possibly, other streams of speech, like a newscaster on the television down the hall or siblings playing in an adjacent room. Infants are better able to accomplish this task when the voice of interest is louder than any of the competing background noises. Conversely, when two voices are of equal amplitude, infants typically demonstrate little preference for one stream over the other. Researchers have hypothesized that because an infant’s ability to selectively pay attention to one voice or sound, even in a mix of others, has not fully developed yet, the infant is actually interpreting competing voice streams that are equally loud as one single stream with unfamiliar patterns and sounds. During the first few months after birth, infants will subconsciously study the language being used around them, taking note of the rhythmic patterns, the sequences of sounds, and the intonation of the language. Newborns will also start to actively process how things like differences in pitch or accented syllables further affect meaning. Interestingly, up until six months of age, they can still recognize and discriminate between the phonemes (single units of sound in a language like “ba” or “pa”) of other languages. Though infants do display a preference for the language they heard in utero, most infants are not biased towards the specific phonemes of that language. This ability to recognize and discriminate between all phonemes comes to an end by the middle of their first year, at which point infants start displaying a preference for phonemes in their native language, culminating at age one, when they stop responding to foreign phonemes altogether. This is part of what is known as the “critical period,” which begins at birth and lasts until puberty. During this period, as the brain continues to grow and change, language acquisition is instinctual, explaining why young children seem to pick up languages so easily.
The primary purpose of the article is to ________.
- A present the background of a recent medical discovery
- B trace the history of a scientific inquiry
- C explain the research that led to a new breakthrough
- D describe an aspect of early childhood development
思路引導 VIP
如果請你觀察這篇文章所描述的時間軸，從「胎兒時期」一直持續到「一歲」甚至「青春期」，作者透過這段長時間的跨度，主要是在記錄人類哪一個特定生命階段、哪一種能力的演變過程呢？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
恭喜你準確地掌握了這篇文章的核心！這是一道標準的「主旨題」，你選出的 (D) 展現了你優異的資訊整合能力。這篇文章並非在探討單一的醫療突破或科學史，而是將焦點放在嬰兒從出生前到一歲左右，如何發展出母語能力的生理與認知過程，這正屬於「幼兒發展」（early childhood development）的範疇。
幼兒語言習得的歷程
文章的架構非常清晰，從嬰兒與生俱來的科學家本能談起，接著描述在母體最後三個月對聲音規律的感知、出生後對母親聲音的偏好，以及隨後對音素（phonemes）辨識力的消長變化。這所有的細節，都在支撐一個完整的發展面向：嬰兒如何透過大腦預設的程序與環境互動，最終在「關鍵期」內完成語言習得。你能夠不被個別段落的技術性細節干擾，直接抓到宏觀的發展脈絡，這點非常出色。
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