PASSAGE 8

American Sports

The United States is a sports-loving nation. Sports in America take a variety of forms; organized competitive struggles, which draw huge crowds to cheer their favorite team to victory; athletic games, played for recreation anywhere sufficient space is found; and hunting and fishing. Most sports are seasonal, so that what is happening in sports depends upon the time of year. Some sports are called spectator sports, as the number of spectators greatly exceeds the number playing in the game.

Baseball is the most popular sport in the US. It is played throughout the spring and summer, and professional baseball teams play well into the fall. Although no other game is exactly like baseball, perhaps the one most nearly like it is the English game of cricket.

Football is the most popular sport in the fall. The game originated as a college sport more than 75 years ago. It is still played by almost every college and university in the country, and the football stadiums of some of the largest universities seat as many as 80,000 people. The game is not the same as European football or soccer. In American football there are 11 players on each team, and they are dressed in padded uniforms and helmets because the game is rough and injuries are likely to occur.

Basketball is the winter sport in American schools and college. Like football, basketball originated in the US and is not popular in other countries. Many Americans prefer it to football because it is played indoors throughout the winter and because it is a faster game. It is a very popular game with high schools, and in more than 20 states, state-wide high school matches are held yearly.

Other spectator sports include wrestling, boxing, and horse racing. Although horse-racing fans call themselves sportsmen, the accuracy of term is questionable, as only the jockeys who ride the horses in the races can be considered athletes. The so-called sportsmen are the spectators, who do "not assemble" primarily to see the horse race, but to bet upon the outcome of each race. Gambling is the attraction of horse racing.

1. Hunting and fishing are mainly favored by men, young and old, in the US.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

2. The professional baseball teams that play well are allowed to play in the fall after the regular baseball seasons of spring and summer.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

3. Baseball shares many features with the English game of cricket.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

4. Football can be classified as a spectator sport.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

5. Many Americans like basketball better than football because the latter is so harsh that players have to wear special uniforms.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

6. Basketball in American is so popular with universities that nation-wide university matches are held yearly.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

7. Horse-racing fans cannot be considered sportsmen because they are spectators whose primary interest is gambling.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

KEYS: ACABACA

PASSAGE 9

Why is the Native Language Learnt So Well

How does it happen that children learn their mother tongue so well? When we compare them with adults learning a foreign language, we often find this interesting fact. A little child without knowledge or experience often succeeds in a complete mastery of the language. A grown-up person with fully developed mental powers, in most cases, may end up with a faulty and inexact command. What accounts for this difference?

Despite other explanations, the real answer in my opinion lies partly in the child himself, partly in the behaviour of the people around him. In the first place, the time of learning the mother tongue is the most favourable of all, namely, the first years of life. A child hears it spoken from morning till night and, what is more important, always in its genuine form, with the right pronunciation, right intonation, right use of words and right structure. He drinks in all the words and expressions which come to him in a fresh. Ever-bubbling spring. There is no resistance: there is perfect assimilation.

Then the child has, as it were, private lessons all the year round, while an adult language-student had each week a limited number of hours which he generally shares with others. The child has another advantage: he hears the language in all possible situations, always accompanied by the tight kind of gestures and facial expressions. Here there is nothing unnatural, such as is often found in language lessons in schools, when one talks about ice and snow in June or scorching heat in January. And what a child hears is generally what immediately interests him. Again and again, when his attempts at speech are successful, his desires are understood and fulfilled.

Finally, though a child's "teachers" may not have been trained in language teaching, their relations with him are always close a personal. They take great pains to make their lessons easy.

1. Compared with adults learning a foreign language, children learn their native language with ease.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

2. Adults' knowledge and metal powers hinder their complete mastery of a foreign language.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

3. The reason why children learn their mother tongue so well lies solely in their environment of learning.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

4. Plenty of practice in listening during the first years of life partly ensures children's success of learning their mother tongue.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

5. A child learning his native language has the advantage of having private lessons all the year round.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

6. Gestures and facial expressions may assist a child in mastering his native language..

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

7. So far as language teaching is concerned, the teacher's close personal relationship with the student is more important than the professional language teaching training he has received.

A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mentioned

KEYS: ACBABAC

PASSAGE 10

How Men Face the Fat Problem

It is a pleasure to see men of a certain age worrying about their weight. Listening to them is not such a pleasure. Because the men are new at the game, they don't hesitate to discuss the fat problem incessantly. However, women of the same age do not discuss the fat problem, especially not in mixed company. They prefer to face the problem with quiet dignity. Discussing the problem might only draw attention to some stray body part that may be successfully tucked away under an article of clothing.

The age at which a man begins to explore the fat problem can vary. The actual problem can manifest itself in the early 30's, but broad-range discussion usually starts later. There are early nonverbal symptoms. I've watched the rugged journalist who shares my apartment sneak by with a Diet Coke. His shirts are no longer neatly tucked in to display a trim waist. Recently he has begun to verbalize his anxiety. He tells me, with a sheepish grin, that he is taking his suits to Chinatown to have them "tailored."

Still-older men have lost their dignity and rattle on unabashedly. Often, wives and children play important roles in their fat-inspection rituals. Take my oldest brother, a former college football player. His daughter says that several times a day he will stand at attention and call out, "Fat, medium or thin?" She knows the correct answer: medium. Thin would be an obvious stretch, and fat may not get her that new video. According to his wife, he stands in front of the mirror in the morning (before the day's meals take their toll), puts his hands behind his head and lurches into a side bend, then clutches the roll that has developed and says, "Am I getting fatter?" His wife is expected to answer, "You look like you may have lost a few pounds."

And then there are the ex-husbands, a pitiful group. They are extremely vocal. When I go to the movies with one, he confides that he is suffering from great hunger because he is dieting. He hasn't eaten since the pancakes and sausages he wolfed down that morning. He pauses in his monologue while he buys his popcorn. After the movie, we sprint to a restaurant, where he again pauses to devour a basket of bread. Before he orders his chaste salad and soup, he grows plaintive. Do I think he's fat?

1. Men of a certain age are always ready to talk about their fat problem.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

2. Women of a certain age do not discuss the fat problem, especially in the presence of men.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

3. Men usually begin to worry about their weight when they are nearly 40.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

4. The journalist used to drink Diet Coke and tuck his shirts in order to keep trim.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

5. Men older than the journalist never hesitate to talk about their fat problem yet would be displeased if their family members tell them the truth.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

6. My oldest brother's daughter would not tell her father he is fat because she loves him so much that she cannot bear to upset him.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

7. The ex-husbands are pitiful because they have got no wives to sympathize with their fat problem.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

KEYS: AABBABC

PASSAGE 11

Too polite for Words

A Japanese colleague the other day was talking about a meeting with a man whom she abruptly described using the English word "jerk". I thought she was toning down her Japanese for my benefit, so I asked her how to say "jerk" in Japanese.

"There's no such word." she answered helplessly. "we have to use 'jerk' ". Heaven knows it's not as if there are no jerks in Japan. But the Japanese language is just not made for sniping at people. At first, I thought maybe my Japanese teachers had been too polite to teach me the real lingo, so watched to see what Japanese drivers would say to each other after a accident. It turned out that they say: "I'm sorry." Gradually I came to realize that there is perhaps no language so ill suited to invective as Japanese. Linguistically, these guys are wimps.

Take the vicious Japanese insult "kisama," which is deeply offensive. It means "your honorable self." That's right. Instead of using all kinds of dirty words, the Japanese insult each other by frowning and growing: "Your honorable self."

Likewise, a nasty expression for a woman is "ana," another term not to try with the nice woman at the sushi restaurant. But literally it means "nun" Sure, sarcasm may be intended, but still most women would probably prefer to be characterized as a nun than as a female dog.

Since people are least inhibited when they are shaking their fists at each other, insults offer a window into a culture. I've been interested in such terms ever since I arrived in Cairo a dozen years ago to study Arabic and discovered that my name was a curse. "Nick" sounds very much like the imperative of an extremely vulgar for sex. I would introduce myself in Arabic, and my new acquaintance would flee in horror.

There's no such danger in Japanese. There are explicit terms for sex and for body parts, crude as well as clinical, but they are descriptive rather than insulting.

There is one exception. One of the meanest things one Japanese child can say to another is: "Omaeno kaachan debeso." That means: " Your mom's belly button sticks out." This has no deep Freudian meaning; it simply means that your mother is rude and ugly.

1. The Japanese woman used the English word "jerk" so as to make it easier for me to understand her

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

2. The Japanese people cannot fully demonstrate their anger because their language is not suitable for sniping at people.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

3. From the linguistic perspective, Japanese drivers are cowards,

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

4. The Japanese insult each other by showing their respect in an ironic way.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

5. People in other languages may insult a woman with an expression meaning, literally, "a female dog".

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

6. The word "Nick" in the Arabic language is a curse.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

7. "Omaeno kaachan debeso" is different from other nasty expressions in Japanese in that it is insulting both in its literal meaning and in its practical use.

A. Right

B. Wrong

C. Not mentioned

KEYS: BCACABA