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  劍11雅思閱讀Test4passage3原文

  A Of all mankinds manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions — the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread — may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human. Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it. Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over nature itself.

  B But language is foremost not just because it came first. In its own right it is a tool of extraordinary sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity: ‘this marvellous invention of composing out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite variety of expressions which, whilst having in themselves no likeness to what is in our mind, allow us to disclose to others its whole secret, and to make known to those who cannot penetrate it all that we imagine, and all the various stirrings of our soul’. This was how, in 1660, the renowned French grammarians of the Port-Royal abbey near Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no one since has celebrated more eloquently the magnitude of its achievement. Even so, there is just one flaw in all these hymns of praise, for the homage to languages unique accomplishment conceals a simple yet critical incongruity. Language is mankind’s greatest invention — except, of course, that it was never invented. This apparent paradox is at the core of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.

  C Language often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything other than the perfected handiwork of a master craftsman. How else could this instrument make so much out of barely three dozen measly morsels of sound? In themselves, these configurations of mouth — p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,sh,a,e and so on — amount to nothing more than a few haphazard spits and splutters, random noises with no meaning, no ability to express, no power to explain. But run them through the cogs and wheels of the language machine, let it arrange them in some very special orders, and there is nothing that these meaningless streams of air cannot do: from sighing the interminable boredom of existence to unravelling the fundamental order of the universe.

  D The most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn’t have to be a genius to set its wheels in motion. The language machine allows just about everybody — from pre-modern foragers in the subtropical savannah, to post-modern philosophers in the suburban sprawl — to tie these meaningless sounds together into an infinite variety of subtle senses, and all apparently without the slightest exertion. Yet it is precisely this deceptive ease which makes language a victim of its own success, since in everyday life its triumphs are usually taken for granted. The wheels of language run so smoothly that one rarely bothers to stop and think about all the resourcefulness and expertise that must have gone into making it tick. Language conceals art.

  E Often, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and outlandish features, that brings home the wonder of languages design. One of the showiest stunts that some languages can pull off is an ability to build up words of breath-breaking length, and thus express in one word what English takes a whole sentence to say. The Turkish word ?ehirlili?tiremediklerimizdensiniz, to take one example, means nothing less than ‘you are one of those whom we cant turn into a town-dweller’. (In case you were wondering, this monstrosity really is one word, not merely many different words squashed together — most of its components cannot even stand up on their own.)

  F And if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language spoken on the banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who invented writing and thus enabled the documentation of history. A Sumerian word like munintuma’a (‘when he had made it suitable for her’) might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus above. What is so impressive about it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse — the thrifty compactness of its construction. The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of meaning. This sleek design allows single sounds to convey useful information, and in fact even the absence of a sound has been enlisted to express something specific. If you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian word corresponds to the pronoun ‘it’ in the English translation when he had made it suitable for her, then the answer would have to be nothing. Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing: the nothing that stands in the empty slot in the middle. The technology is so fine-tuned then that even a non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a specific function. Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?

  劍11雅思閱讀Test4passage3題目：

  You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on the following pages.

  Questions 27-32

  Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs, A-F.

  Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-F from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.

  List of Headings

  i Differences between languages highlight their impressiveness

  ii The way in which a few sounds are organised to convey a huge range of meaning

  iii Why the sounds used in different languages are not identical

  iv Apparently incompatible characteristics of language

  v Even silence can be meaningful

  vi Why language is the most important invention of all

  vii The universal ability to use language

  27 Paragraph A

  28 Paragraph B

  29 Paragraph C

  30 Paragraph D

  31 Paragraph E

  32 Paragraph F

  Questions 33-36

  Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G, below.

  Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet.

  The importance of language

  The wheel is one invention that has had a major impact on 33 __________ aspects of life, but no impact has been as 34 __________ as that of language. Language is very 35 __________, yet composed of just a small number of sounds. Language appears to be 36 __________ to use. However, its sophistication is often overlooked.

  A difficult B complex C original

  D admired E material F easy

  G fundamental

  Questions 37-40

  Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

  In boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet, write

  YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

  NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer

  NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

  37 Human beings might have achieved their present position without language.

  38 The Port-Royal grammarians did justice to the nature of language.

  39 A complex idea can be explained more clearly in a sentence than in a single word.

  40 The Sumerians were responsible for starting the recording of events.

  劍11雅思閱讀Test4passage3答案解析

  Question 27

  答案： vi

  關鍵詞： most important invention

  定位原文：A段內容

  解題思路：實際上，本段第一句話就點明此段主要談及“語言在人類的所有發明中占據最重要的地位”，take pride of place意為“有最重要的地位”;接下來的每一句話都是在以不同的方式反復闡述原因所在和表現形式。第二句話說“其他發明改變的是人類的物質生活，而語言則是使人真正稱其為人的原因”;第三句話說“一切發明跟語言比起來都會相形失色”;第四句話還說“要是沒有語言，人類不可能發展到今天這樣的狀態”。無論正確理解其中哪句話的大意都不難看出正確選項為vi。

  Question 28：

  答案：iv

  關鍵詞：incompatible characteristics

  定位原文：B段內容

  解題思路：本段的解題難度比較高，原因是本段整段都是典型的承上啟下，答案的定位主要集中在后三句話所表達的意思里。前三句話先是繼續對語言的重要地位進行了進一步描述和贊美。從倒數第三句開始話鋒一轉，指出雖然語言如此偉大，但還是存在著不一致、相矛盾之處，conceal，隱藏;incongruity，不一致;倒數第二句提出：“語言是最偉大的發明，然而它卻并不是被發明出來的”，進一步點出這其中存在邏輯上的矛盾;最后一句再次以paradox 一詞來確證。后三句共同表達了類似的意思，即語言雖然偉大但卻存在矛盾、悖論之處，正確答案為iv。

  Question 29：

  答案：ii

  關鍵詞：a few sounds, huge range of meaning

  定位原文：C段內容

  解題思路：本段的第一句話其實就是在委婉地夸獎贊美語言的設計精巧。第二句話則是以“設問”形式提出，語言用“three dozen”這么一點兒的發音元素是怎么組合成了“so much”意義表達呢?本句即是在表達“用一點點發音元素弄出許多許多表達”這個意思。之后的兩句也是在進一歩展開說明這個論點，本段采用的是“總一分”結構，主旨句在第二句中，正確答案為ii。

  Question 30：

  答案：vii

  關鍵詞：universal ability

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  定位原文：D段內容

  解題思路：本段是個“總-分-總”結構，第一句話即點明“每個人都能讓語言這部機器運轉起來”，接下來的幾句話分別指出：“無論什么人都能使用語言”、“但是正因如此人們才對它過于想當然了”、“也就沒有刻意去重視它研究它”，結尾句則做出總結：“語言遮掩了其藝術性”。但每句話都避開了“使用”這個詞匯，而是比喻性地反復提及“讓機輪運轉”、“串聯起意義”和“使機器運行”，増加了理解難度。正確答案為vii。

  Question 31：

  答案：i

  關鍵詞：differences, highlight, impressiveness

  定位原文：E段內容

  解題思路：第一句先指出“往往只有遭遇我們不熟悉的外語時我們才會注意到語言設計結構的精巧”;之后舉出一個特長的土耳其詞匯來對比與英語表達方式的不同;然后再進一步進行細節解釋說明。無論是“difference差異”還是“impressiveness令人驚嘆”的含義都沒有明確的同義替換詞在文中出現，需考生在讀懂句子后自行體會，正確答案為i。

  Question 32：

  答案：v

  關鍵詞：silence, meaningful

  定位原文：F段內容

  解題思路：本段的結構與B段有類似之處：前半段進一步列舉例證來說明不同語言之間存在著令人驚嘆的差異之處，后半段才開始說到“即使the absence of a sound也可以具有某些意義”。不過文章讀到了此處，備選答案只剩下iii和v兩項，也可利用排除法來找出相對更加合宜的選項，正確答案為v。

  Question 33：

  答案：E: material

  關鍵詞：wheel, major impact

  定位原文：A段第2句“Other inventions…”

  解題思路：題干說 “車輪這個發明對生活的______方面有著重大的影響”，要定位wheel一詞不難，通過對比原文也可以比較輕松地看出 existence與題干中的life互為同義替換關系，可得答案為選項E: material。

  Question 34：

  答案：G：fundamental

  關鍵詞：no impact

  定位原文：A段第3句“Compared to language…”

  解題思路：題干說“但是沒有任何影響能像語言產生的影響那樣_____”，原文中并未直接出現impact這樣的單詞，也沒有as...as的句型結構，而是用 Compared to表達了語言與其他發明的比較關系，需要認真閱讀理解原文。好在此空與上一題同處在一個句子之中，依序閱讀文章句子可得答案為選項G：fundamental。

  Question 35：

  答案： B: complex

  關鍵詞： yet, small number of sounds

  定位原文：B段第2句“In its own right…”

  解題思路：題干說“語言非常_____，然而卻由僅僅非常少量的聲音組成”。根據本句中的yet轉折關系可知空格中的答案應當與a small number of sounds所表達的“少量、簡單”形成對比、轉折的關系。找到“少量聲音”所對應的twenty-five or thirty sounds，對比可知此處用來形容語言另一屬性的詞匯為sophistication，對應答案為選項B: complex。

  Question 36：

  答案： F: easy

  關鍵詞：to use, overlooked

  定位原文：D段全段內容

  解題思路：題干說“語言看似用起來是_____ ”，考生如果感覺此句給出的信息不夠，可以再看下一句題干，得知“語言的復雜精密性常被忽略”這個補充定位信息。此題位置出在D段，如前文List of Headings中關于D段的講解所言，本段的句子其實并不很難理解，但卻用了大量比喻性用法拐彎抹角地表達語義，可以得出答案為選項F: easy。

  Question 37：

  答案： NO

  關鍵詞：achieved, present position, without language

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  定位原文：A段第3、4句“Compared to language…”

  解題思路：題干說“人類即使沒有語言也有可能發展到今天這樣的狀態”，achieved和without language的題干關鍵詞都是原詞重現地出現在文中，容易定位，閱讀對應的兩句原文可知，作者明確指出如果沒有語言人類不可能達到今天這樣凌駕其他動物甚至駕馭自然的成就，題干與此相矛盾，答案為NO。

  Question 38：

  答案： YES

  關鍵詞：Port-Royal grammarians

  定位原文：B段第3句“This was how…”

  解題思路：題干說“Port-Royal的語法學家們正確地評價了語言的本質”，根據Port- Royal 定位，do justice to是“公平對待、公正評價”的意思，以及原文中celebrated eloquently the magnitude是“以極具表現力的方式贊美了其重要地位”的意思，可得答案為YES。

  Question 39：

  答案： NOT GIVEN

  關鍵詞：complex idea, sentence, single word

  定位原文：E自然段

  解題思路： 題干說“一個復雜的概念用一個句子來解釋比用一個單詞來解釋會更清楚”，E段內容中第一句先指出“往往只有遭遇我們不熟悉的外語時我們才會注意到語言設計結構的精巧”;之后舉出一個特長的土耳其詞匯來對比與英語表達方式的不同，這是跟題干內容可能僅有聯系的定位區域，但是這個例子只是為了說明語言的奇妙性，是個特例，而且說的是一個單詞表達了一個句子的意思，并不是題目所表達的通用概念，這個觀點沒有出現過。所以答案是NG。

  Question 40：

  答案： YES

  關鍵詞：Sumerians, recording of events

  定位原文：F段第1句“And if that sounds like…”

  解題思路： 題干說“是蘇美爾人開始了記錄事件的做法”，Sumerians找到文中相應位置，看懂題干中recorcunff of events 與原文 documentation of history 的對應也應該沒有太大問題，答案為YES。

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