Romani is usually used at home because...

During the past two decades astonishing progress has been made in fighting infectious diseases in poor countries. Polio has almost been eradicated; malaria is being tamed; AIDS is slowly being brought under control. Yet almost unnoticed, another epidemic is raging across the developing world, this one man-made. Road crashes now kill 1.3 m people a year, more than malaria or tuberculosis. On present trends, by 2030 they will take a greater toll than the two together, and greater even than AIDS. The vast majority of victims die in poor and middle-income countries—1.2m in 2011, compared with 99, 000 in rich ones. For every 100,000 cars in the rich world, fewer than 15 people die each year. In Ethiopia the figure is 250 times higher. It is tempting to see the kill as the price of development. Building roads is a highly effective way of boosting growth: the World Bank finds many projects to fund that do better than its minimum acceptable economic rate of return of 12%. In the rich world road deaths and growth went hand-in-hand for decades: the first death-by-car was in 1896 and the peak came in the 1970s. However, since then, restraints on driver and investment in safety have slashed road deaths in the rich world by more than half. New York’s roads are now at their safest since records began in 1910. Sweden is still some way from its stated goal of ending road deaths altogether, but in 2013 just one Swedish child under seven died in a crash. Technology such as alcolocks, which prevent drunk-driving, and self-driving cars will make roads in the rich world safer still. Governments in poor countries tend to assume that they, too, must see deaths soar before they are rich enough to think about saving lives. Aid donors and development banks may conclude that a dangerous road is better than no road at all. But the experience of rich countries has shown that roads can be made safer cheaply and simply. And far from being an unaffordable luxury, safe roads make better economic sense than dangerous ones. Most crash victims are boys and working-age men. Their death or disability leaves families in poverty and deprives countries of their most economically valuable citizens. In medical bills, care, lost output and vehicle damage, the kill costs desperately poor countries as much as 10% of GDP.The underlined word "epidemic" (Para. 1, Line 3) may be closest to ______.

Every two weeks a language disappears. By 2100 nearly half of the 6,000 spoken today may be gone. Migration, either between countries or from the countryside to cities, is one reason; though new arrivals generally stick with their mother tongue, at least at home, their children rarely do. The dominance of English is another. But one tongue against the trend is Romani, spoken by 4m of the roughly 11m Roma people worldwide. Its health attests to the importance of language in shaping identity. Unlike most languages, Romani has no country to call home. Its roots lie in India, but since the 10th century its speakers have scattered and kept moving. One result is that they are everywhere a linguistic minority. Another is that 150 different dialects are in use. "Anglo-Romani", spoken in Britain, differs widely from dialects in France, Bulgaria and Latvia. One Roma man in New Zealand speaks a dialect previously only heard in Wales. The 290,000 native Swedish speakers in Finland show no signs of dropping their language—but it is their country’s second official one, compulsory in all schools and spoken by 9. 5m Swedes next door. Irish hangs on partly because of government spending on translating road signs and documents, broadcasting, teaching and extra marks for brave students who use the tongue in their final school exams. But without a government to champion it, Romani is used mostly in the home. Academics and linguists have written it down and tried to standardise it, but many of those who speak it do not read it. America printed a Romani guide to its 2000 census form, but that is a rarity; it almost never features in official documents. The lack of texts complicates attempts to teach it formally. Roma Kulturklass, a Swedish Romani-language school, is one of a handful in the world. Its 35 pupils study everything except Swedish and English in both Romani and Swedish. But with few textbooks, says Angelina Dimiter Taikon, the head teacher, staff must make do with their own translations.We learn from the first paragraph that ______.

A．children nowadays seldom speak mother tongue at home
B．people all over the world will speak just 3 000 languages by 2100
C．Romani may never disappear in the near future
D．migration can to some degree make English more popular

单项选择题

With its sandy beaches, picturesque ruins and blue waters, the Isle of Wight is an idyllic spot off England’s southern coast. Wealthy Londoners sail their boats there. It seems odd that such a place should contain some of the worst-performing schools in England. But it does; and in this, the Isle of Wight is not quite as strange as it seems. Provisional figures show that in 2013 just 49% of 16-year-olds on the island got at least five C grades, including in English and maths, in GCSE exams. That is fewer than in any of London’s 32 boroughs, or indeed anywhere in the southern half of England apart from nearby Portsmouth. In the previous year the Isle of Wight was second to bottom in the whole country. Just 23% of pupils entitled to free school meals got five decent grades, compared with a national average of 36%. In September the island’s schools were deemed so bad that Hampshire County Council took them over. Part of the explanation is distinctively local. Luring good teachers to an out-of-the-way spot is hard. In 2011 the island endured a muddled transition from the sort of three-tier school system common in America, with primary, middle and secondary schools, to the two-tier one that is standard in England. But its results were bad even before that change. The Isle of Wight’s real problems are structural. It suffers from three things that might appear to be advantages but are actually the opposite. The island lacks a large city; it has some, but not many, poor children; and it is almost entirely white. But these days pupils, including poor ones, often fare better in inner cities than elsewhere. In Tower Hamlets, an east London borough that is the third most deprived place in England, children entitled to free school meals do better in GCSE exams than do all children in the country as a whole. Bangladeshis, who are concentrated in that borough, used to perform considerably worse than whites nationally; now they do better.The beaches, ruins and waters are mentioned to ______.

A．reveal rich Londoners’ life
B．present typical English lifestyle
C．introduce the topic of bad schools
D．show a tourist attraction in England

单项选择题

Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action. It was 50 years ago this month that America’s surgeon-general sounded that warning, marking the beginning of the end of cigarette manufacturing—and of smoking itself—as a respectable activity. Some 20m Americans have died from the habit since then. But advertising restrictions, smoking bans and stigma have had their effect: the proportion of American adults who smoke has dropped from 43% to 18%; smoking rates among teenagers are at a record low. In many other countries the trends are similar. The current surgeon-general, Boris Lushniak, marked the half-century with a report on January 17th, declaring smoking even deadlier than previously thought. He added diabetes, colorectal cancer and other ailments to the list of ills it causes, and promised "end-game strategies" to stamp out cigarettes altogether. Were that to happen America’s three big tobacco firms, Altria, Reynolds and Lorillard, could be snuffed out , too. Public health officials plot the same fate for multinationals that supply other markets. The hit list includes Philip Morris International (PMI), which along with Altria makes Marlboro, the top-selling global brand; Japan Tobacco; and British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco of Britain. They are a hardy group, unlikely to be frightened. But the methods they have used to withstand a half-century of battering by regulators may be losing power. In the rich world, where the economy is stagnant, smokers are trading down to cheaper puffs. The regulatory climate in developing countries is becoming more hostile. New technologies such as e-cigarettes promise to deliver nicotine less riskily. Big tobacco firms may master them, but it would be a radical shift, similar to converting the car industry from internal-combustion engines to battery power. David Adelman of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, does not "see anything that’s reversing the conventional tobacco business model." But the model needs adjustment. Some reasons for Mr. Adelman’s confidence are sound. Advertising bans and the industry’s status prevent would-be competitors. When cigarette-makers raise prices, smokers cough up. Global consumption keeps rising, thanks largely to population growth in poorer countries. The cigarette giants indulge investors with big dividends and share buy-backs; they have flocked to tobacco share.According to Paragraph 1, it can be learned that ______.

A．proper medical treatment can help decrease the hazard of smoking
B．the action of smoking was considered a respectable activity 50 years ago
C．the effect of restrictions on smoking can be considered remarkable
D．Smoking rates among grown-ups and adolescents have not dropped obviously

单项选择题

During the past two decades astonishing progress has been made in fighting infectious diseases in poor countries. Polio has almost been eradicated; malaria is being tamed; AIDS is slowly being brought under control. Yet almost unnoticed, another epidemic is raging across the developing world, this one man-made. Road crashes now kill 1.3 m people a year, more than malaria or tuberculosis. On present trends, by 2030 they will take a greater toll than the two together, and greater even than AIDS. The vast majority of victims die in poor and middle-income countries—1.2m in 2011, compared with 99, 000 in rich ones. For every 100,000 cars in the rich world, fewer than 15 people die each year. In Ethiopia the figure is 250 times higher. It is tempting to see the kill as the price of development. Building roads is a highly effective way of boosting growth: the World Bank finds many projects to fund that do better than its minimum acceptable economic rate of return of 12%. In the rich world road deaths and growth went hand-in-hand for decades: the first death-by-car was in 1896 and the peak came in the 1970s. However, since then, restraints on driver and investment in safety have slashed road deaths in the rich world by more than half. New York’s roads are now at their safest since records began in 1910. Sweden is still some way from its stated goal of ending road deaths altogether, but in 2013 just one Swedish child under seven died in a crash. Technology such as alcolocks, which prevent drunk-driving, and self-driving cars will make roads in the rich world safer still. Governments in poor countries tend to assume that they, too, must see deaths soar before they are rich enough to think about saving lives. Aid donors and development banks may conclude that a dangerous road is better than no road at all. But the experience of rich countries has shown that roads can be made safer cheaply and simply. And far from being an unaffordable luxury, safe roads make better economic sense than dangerous ones. Most crash victims are boys and working-age men. Their death or disability leaves families in poverty and deprives countries of their most economically valuable citizens. In medical bills, care, lost output and vehicle damage, the kill costs desperately poor countries as much as 10% of GDP.Polio and malaria are mentioned in the text to ______.

A．show the remarkable progress in medical treatment
B．indicate the tremendous advance in fighting disease
C．introduce the topic of road death problem
D．demonstrate the danger of infectious diseases

单项选择题

Every two weeks a language disappears. By 2100 nearly half of the 6,000 spoken today may be gone. Migration, either between countries or from the countryside to cities, is one reason; though new arrivals generally stick with their mother tongue, at least at home, their children rarely do. The dominance of English is another. But one tongue against the trend is Romani, spoken by 4m of the roughly 11m Roma people worldwide. Its health attests to the importance of language in shaping identity. Unlike most languages, Romani has no country to call home. Its roots lie in India, but since the 10th century its speakers have scattered and kept moving. One result is that they are everywhere a linguistic minority. Another is that 150 different dialects are in use. "Anglo-Romani", spoken in Britain, differs widely from dialects in France, Bulgaria and Latvia. One Roma man in New Zealand speaks a dialect previously only heard in Wales. The 290,000 native Swedish speakers in Finland show no signs of dropping their language—but it is their country’s second official one, compulsory in all schools and spoken by 9. 5m Swedes next door. Irish hangs on partly because of government spending on translating road signs and documents, broadcasting, teaching and extra marks for brave students who use the tongue in their final school exams. But without a government to champion it, Romani is used mostly in the home. Academics and linguists have written it down and tried to standardise it, but many of those who speak it do not read it. America printed a Romani guide to its 2000 census form, but that is a rarity; it almost never features in official documents. The lack of texts complicates attempts to teach it formally. Roma Kulturklass, a Swedish Romani-language school, is one of a handful in the world. Its 35 pupils study everything except Swedish and English in both Romani and Swedish. But with few textbooks, says Angelina Dimiter Taikon, the head teacher, staff must make do with their own translations.Which one is true about Romani

A．Its speakers spread all over the world.
B．It is spoken by a large group of people.
C．It has 150 dialects, most of which have died down.
D．It is widely spoken in Britain and some other countries.

单项选择题

With its sandy beaches, picturesque ruins and blue waters, the Isle of Wight is an idyllic spot off England’s southern coast. Wealthy Londoners sail their boats there. It seems odd that such a place should contain some of the worst-performing schools in England. But it does; and in this, the Isle of Wight is not quite as strange as it seems. Provisional figures show that in 2013 just 49% of 16-year-olds on the island got at least five C grades, including in English and maths, in GCSE exams. That is fewer than in any of London’s 32 boroughs, or indeed anywhere in the southern half of England apart from nearby Portsmouth. In the previous year the Isle of Wight was second to bottom in the whole country. Just 23% of pupils entitled to free school meals got five decent grades, compared with a national average of 36%. In September the island’s schools were deemed so bad that Hampshire County Council took them over. Part of the explanation is distinctively local. Luring good teachers to an out-of-the-way spot is hard. In 2011 the island endured a muddled transition from the sort of three-tier school system common in America, with primary, middle and secondary schools, to the two-tier one that is standard in England. But its results were bad even before that change. The Isle of Wight’s real problems are structural. It suffers from three things that might appear to be advantages but are actually the opposite. The island lacks a large city; it has some, but not many, poor children; and it is almost entirely white. But these days pupils, including poor ones, often fare better in inner cities than elsewhere. In Tower Hamlets, an east London borough that is the third most deprived place in England, children entitled to free school meals do better in GCSE exams than do all children in the country as a whole. Bangladeshis, who are concentrated in that borough, used to perform considerably worse than whites nationally; now they do better.According to Paragraph 2, which one is true about the Isle of Wight

A．Less than a quarter of its students enjoy free school meals.
B．The rank of students’ performance on the island is at the bottom.
C．Half of its students do well in English, maths and GCSE exams.
D．There are fewer students getting at least five C grades in other areas.

单项选择题

Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action. It was 50 years ago this month that America’s surgeon-general sounded that warning, marking the beginning of the end of cigarette manufacturing—and of smoking itself—as a respectable activity. Some 20m Americans have died from the habit since then. But advertising restrictions, smoking bans and stigma have had their effect: the proportion of American adults who smoke has dropped from 43% to 18%; smoking rates among teenagers are at a record low. In many other countries the trends are similar. The current surgeon-general, Boris Lushniak, marked the half-century with a report on January 17th, declaring smoking even deadlier than previously thought. He added diabetes, colorectal cancer and other ailments to the list of ills it causes, and promised "end-game strategies" to stamp out cigarettes altogether. Were that to happen America’s three big tobacco firms, Altria, Reynolds and Lorillard, could be snuffed out , too. Public health officials plot the same fate for multinationals that supply other markets. The hit list includes Philip Morris International (PMI), which along with Altria makes Marlboro, the top-selling global brand; Japan Tobacco; and British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco of Britain. They are a hardy group, unlikely to be frightened. But the methods they have used to withstand a half-century of battering by regulators may be losing power. In the rich world, where the economy is stagnant, smokers are trading down to cheaper puffs. The regulatory climate in developing countries is becoming more hostile. New technologies such as e-cigarettes promise to deliver nicotine less riskily. Big tobacco firms may master them, but it would be a radical shift, similar to converting the car industry from internal-combustion engines to battery power. David Adelman of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, does not "see anything that’s reversing the conventional tobacco business model." But the model needs adjustment. Some reasons for Mr. Adelman’s confidence are sound. Advertising bans and the industry’s status prevent would-be competitors. When cigarette-makers raise prices, smokers cough up. Global consumption keeps rising, thanks largely to population growth in poorer countries. The cigarette giants indulge investors with big dividends and share buy-backs; they have flocked to tobacco share.Boris claimed that smoking ______.

A．has led to many fatal diseases
B．will be completely prohibited soon
C．usually results in diabetes and other ills
D．may be ended in the following half-century

单项选择题

During the past two decades astonishing progress has been made in fighting infectious diseases in poor countries. Polio has almost been eradicated; malaria is being tamed; AIDS is slowly being brought under control. Yet almost unnoticed, another epidemic is raging across the developing world, this one man-made. Road crashes now kill 1.3 m people a year, more than malaria or tuberculosis. On present trends, by 2030 they will take a greater toll than the two together, and greater even than AIDS. The vast majority of victims die in poor and middle-income countries—1.2m in 2011, compared with 99, 000 in rich ones. For every 100,000 cars in the rich world, fewer than 15 people die each year. In Ethiopia the figure is 250 times higher. It is tempting to see the kill as the price of development. Building roads is a highly effective way of boosting growth: the World Bank finds many projects to fund that do better than its minimum acceptable economic rate of return of 12%. In the rich world road deaths and growth went hand-in-hand for decades: the first death-by-car was in 1896 and the peak came in the 1970s. However, since then, restraints on driver and investment in safety have slashed road deaths in the rich world by more than half. New York’s roads are now at their safest since records began in 1910. Sweden is still some way from its stated goal of ending road deaths altogether, but in 2013 just one Swedish child under seven died in a crash. Technology such as alcolocks, which prevent drunk-driving, and self-driving cars will make roads in the rich world safer still. Governments in poor countries tend to assume that they, too, must see deaths soar before they are rich enough to think about saving lives. Aid donors and development banks may conclude that a dangerous road is better than no road at all. But the experience of rich countries has shown that roads can be made safer cheaply and simply. And far from being an unaffordable luxury, safe roads make better economic sense than dangerous ones. Most crash victims are boys and working-age men. Their death or disability leaves families in poverty and deprives countries of their most economically valuable citizens. In medical bills, care, lost output and vehicle damage, the kill costs desperately poor countries as much as 10% of GDP.All the following can reduce road deaths EXCEPT ______.

A．new technology
B．investment in safety
C．restrictions on drivers
D．building of new roads

单项选择题

Every two weeks a language disappears. By 2100 nearly half of the 6,000 spoken today may be gone. Migration, either between countries or from the countryside to cities, is one reason; though new arrivals generally stick with their mother tongue, at least at home, their children rarely do. The dominance of English is another. But one tongue against the trend is Romani, spoken by 4m of the roughly 11m Roma people worldwide. Its health attests to the importance of language in shaping identity. Unlike most languages, Romani has no country to call home. Its roots lie in India, but since the 10th century its speakers have scattered and kept moving. One result is that they are everywhere a linguistic minority. Another is that 150 different dialects are in use. "Anglo-Romani", spoken in Britain, differs widely from dialects in France, Bulgaria and Latvia. One Roma man in New Zealand speaks a dialect previously only heard in Wales. The 290,000 native Swedish speakers in Finland show no signs of dropping their language—but it is their country’s second official one, compulsory in all schools and spoken by 9. 5m Swedes next door. Irish hangs on partly because of government spending on translating road signs and documents, broadcasting, teaching and extra marks for brave students who use the tongue in their final school exams. But without a government to champion it, Romani is used mostly in the home. Academics and linguists have written it down and tried to standardise it, but many of those who speak it do not read it. America printed a Romani guide to its 2000 census form, but that is a rarity; it almost never features in official documents. The lack of texts complicates attempts to teach it formally. Roma Kulturklass, a Swedish Romani-language school, is one of a handful in the world. Its 35 pupils study everything except Swedish and English in both Romani and Swedish. But with few textbooks, says Angelina Dimiter Taikon, the head teacher, staff must make do with their own translations.Romani is usually used at home because ______.

A．people do not use dialects in public
B．it needs support from the government
C．it never appears in official documents
D．people can only speak it but not read it

单项选择题

Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action. It was 50 years ago this month that America’s surgeon-general sounded that warning, marking the beginning of the end of cigarette manufacturing—and of smoking itself—as a respectable activity. Some 20m Americans have died from the habit since then. But advertising restrictions, smoking bans and stigma have had their effect: the proportion of American adults who smoke has dropped from 43% to 18%; smoking rates among teenagers are at a record low. In many other countries the trends are similar. The current surgeon-general, Boris Lushniak, marked the half-century with a report on January 17th, declaring smoking even deadlier than previously thought. He added diabetes, colorectal cancer and other ailments to the list of ills it causes, and promised "end-game strategies" to stamp out cigarettes altogether. Were that to happen America’s three big tobacco firms, Altria, Reynolds and Lorillard, could be snuffed out , too. Public health officials plot the same fate for multinationals that supply other markets. The hit list includes Philip Morris International (PMI), which along with Altria makes Marlboro, the top-selling global brand; Japan Tobacco; and British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco of Britain. They are a hardy group, unlikely to be frightened. But the methods they have used to withstand a half-century of battering by regulators may be losing power. In the rich world, where the economy is stagnant, smokers are trading down to cheaper puffs. The regulatory climate in developing countries is becoming more hostile. New technologies such as e-cigarettes promise to deliver nicotine less riskily. Big tobacco firms may master them, but it would be a radical shift, similar to converting the car industry from internal-combustion engines to battery power. David Adelman of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, does not "see anything that’s reversing the conventional tobacco business model." But the model needs adjustment. Some reasons for Mr. Adelman’s confidence are sound. Advertising bans and the industry’s status prevent would-be competitors. When cigarette-makers raise prices, smokers cough up. Global consumption keeps rising, thanks largely to population growth in poorer countries. The cigarette giants indulge investors with big dividends and share buy-backs; they have flocked to tobacco share.The underlined phrase "snuffed out" (Para. 3, Line 2) means ______.

A．called out
B．wiped out
C．found out
D．fallen out

单项选择题

With its sandy beaches, picturesque ruins and blue waters, the Isle of Wight is an idyllic spot off England’s southern coast. Wealthy Londoners sail their boats there. It seems odd that such a place should contain some of the worst-performing schools in England. But it does; and in this, the Isle of Wight is not quite as strange as it seems. Provisional figures show that in 2013 just 49% of 16-year-olds on the island got at least five C grades, including in English and maths, in GCSE exams. That is fewer than in any of London’s 32 boroughs, or indeed anywhere in the southern half of England apart from nearby Portsmouth. In the previous year the Isle of Wight was second to bottom in the whole country. Just 23% of pupils entitled to free school meals got five decent grades, compared with a national average of 36%. In September the island’s schools were deemed so bad that Hampshire County Council took them over. Part of the explanation is distinctively local. Luring good teachers to an out-of-the-way spot is hard. In 2011 the island endured a muddled transition from the sort of three-tier school system common in America, with primary, middle and secondary schools, to the two-tier one that is standard in England. But its results were bad even before that change. The Isle of Wight’s real problems are structural. It suffers from three things that might appear to be advantages but are actually the opposite. The island lacks a large city; it has some, but not many, poor children; and it is almost entirely white. But these days pupils, including poor ones, often fare better in inner cities than elsewhere. In Tower Hamlets, an east London borough that is the third most deprived place in England, children entitled to free school meals do better in GCSE exams than do all children in the country as a whole. Bangladeshis, who are concentrated in that borough, used to perform considerably worse than whites nationally; now they do better.We know from the third paragraph that ______.

A．good teachers are unwilling to teach in remote areas
B．the reform of the school system on the island seems effective
C．American school system is definitely superior to that of England
D．there is barely difference between American and English school systems

单项选择题

During the past two decades astonishing progress has been made in fighting infectious diseases in poor countries. Polio has almost been eradicated; malaria is being tamed; AIDS is slowly being brought under control. Yet almost unnoticed, another epidemic is raging across the developing world, this one man-made. Road crashes now kill 1.3 m people a year, more than malaria or tuberculosis. On present trends, by 2030 they will take a greater toll than the two together, and greater even than AIDS. The vast majority of victims die in poor and middle-income countries—1.2m in 2011, compared with 99, 000 in rich ones. For every 100,000 cars in the rich world, fewer than 15 people die each year. In Ethiopia the figure is 250 times higher. It is tempting to see the kill as the price of development. Building roads is a highly effective way of boosting growth: the World Bank finds many projects to fund that do better than its minimum acceptable economic rate of return of 12%. In the rich world road deaths and growth went hand-in-hand for decades: the first death-by-car was in 1896 and the peak came in the 1970s. However, since then, restraints on driver and investment in safety have slashed road deaths in the rich world by more than half. New York’s roads are now at their safest since records began in 1910. Sweden is still some way from its stated goal of ending road deaths altogether, but in 2013 just one Swedish child under seven died in a crash. Technology such as alcolocks, which prevent drunk-driving, and self-driving cars will make roads in the rich world safer still. Governments in poor countries tend to assume that they, too, must see deaths soar before they are rich enough to think about saving lives. Aid donors and development banks may conclude that a dangerous road is better than no road at all. But the experience of rich countries has shown that roads can be made safer cheaply and simply. And far from being an unaffordable luxury, safe roads make better economic sense than dangerous ones. Most crash victims are boys and working-age men. Their death or disability leaves families in poverty and deprives countries of their most economically valuable citizens. In medical bills, care, lost output and vehicle damage, the kill costs desperately poor countries as much as 10% of GDP.We can conclude from the last paragraph that ______.

A．most victims of car accidents are adolescents
B．building roads is unaffordable in poor countries
C．road crashes cost most countries much of their GDP
D．if roads are safer in poor countries, economy may be better

单项选择题

Every two weeks a language disappears. By 2100 nearly half of the 6,000 spoken today may be gone. Migration, either between countries or from the countryside to cities, is one reason; though new arrivals generally stick with their mother tongue, at least at home, their children rarely do. The dominance of English is another. But one tongue against the trend is Romani, spoken by 4m of the roughly 11m Roma people worldwide. Its health attests to the importance of language in shaping identity. Unlike most languages, Romani has no country to call home. Its roots lie in India, but since the 10th century its speakers have scattered and kept moving. One result is that they are everywhere a linguistic minority. Another is that 150 different dialects are in use. "Anglo-Romani", spoken in Britain, differs widely from dialects in France, Bulgaria and Latvia. One Roma man in New Zealand speaks a dialect previously only heard in Wales. The 290,000 native Swedish speakers in Finland show no signs of dropping their language—but it is their country’s second official one, compulsory in all schools and spoken by 9. 5m Swedes next door. Irish hangs on partly because of government spending on translating road signs and documents, broadcasting, teaching and extra marks for brave students who use the tongue in their final school exams. But without a government to champion it, Romani is used mostly in the home. Academics and linguists have written it down and tried to standardise it, but many of those who speak it do not read it. America printed a Romani guide to its 2000 census form, but that is a rarity; it almost never features in official documents. The lack of texts complicates attempts to teach it formally. Roma Kulturklass, a Swedish Romani-language school, is one of a handful in the world. Its 35 pupils study everything except Swedish and English in both Romani and Swedish. But with few textbooks, says Angelina Dimiter Taikon, the head teacher, staff must make do with their own translations.Romani is hard to teach because ______.

A．few people have mastered it
B．few people are willing to learn it
C．the written language is insufficient
D．the language is extremely complicated

单项选择题

Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action. It was 50 years ago this month that America’s surgeon-general sounded that warning, marking the beginning of the end of cigarette manufacturing—and of smoking itself—as a respectable activity. Some 20m Americans have died from the habit since then. But advertising restrictions, smoking bans and stigma have had their effect: the proportion of American adults who smoke has dropped from 43% to 18%; smoking rates among teenagers are at a record low. In many other countries the trends are similar. The current surgeon-general, Boris Lushniak, marked the half-century with a report on January 17th, declaring smoking even deadlier than previously thought. He added diabetes, colorectal cancer and other ailments to the list of ills it causes, and promised "end-game strategies" to stamp out cigarettes altogether. Were that to happen America’s three big tobacco firms, Altria, Reynolds and Lorillard, could be snuffed out , too. Public health officials plot the same fate for multinationals that supply other markets. The hit list includes Philip Morris International (PMI), which along with Altria makes Marlboro, the top-selling global brand; Japan Tobacco; and British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco of Britain. They are a hardy group, unlikely to be frightened. But the methods they have used to withstand a half-century of battering by regulators may be losing power. In the rich world, where the economy is stagnant, smokers are trading down to cheaper puffs. The regulatory climate in developing countries is becoming more hostile. New technologies such as e-cigarettes promise to deliver nicotine less riskily. Big tobacco firms may master them, but it would be a radical shift, similar to converting the car industry from internal-combustion engines to battery power. David Adelman of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, does not "see anything that’s reversing the conventional tobacco business model." But the model needs adjustment. Some reasons for Mr. Adelman’s confidence are sound. Advertising bans and the industry’s status prevent would-be competitors. When cigarette-makers raise prices, smokers cough up. Global consumption keeps rising, thanks largely to population growth in poorer countries. The cigarette giants indulge investors with big dividends and share buy-backs; they have flocked to tobacco share.New technologies like e-cigarettes ______.

A．will produce no harmful chemicals
B．will be widely accepted in the near future
C．may be much more expensive than cigarettes
D．may not easily substitute conventional tobacco

单项选择题

During the past two decades astonishing progress has been made in fighting infectious diseases in poor countries. Polio has almost been eradicated; malaria is being tamed; AIDS is slowly being brought under control. Yet almost unnoticed, another epidemic is raging across the developing world, this one man-made. Road crashes now kill 1.3 m people a year, more than malaria or tuberculosis. On present trends, by 2030 they will take a greater toll than the two together, and greater even than AIDS. The vast majority of victims die in poor and middle-income countries—1.2m in 2011, compared with 99, 000 in rich ones. For every 100,000 cars in the rich world, fewer than 15 people die each year. In Ethiopia the figure is 250 times higher. It is tempting to see the kill as the price of development. Building roads is a highly effective way of boosting growth: the World Bank finds many projects to fund that do better than its minimum acceptable economic rate of return of 12%. In the rich world road deaths and growth went hand-in-hand for decades: the first death-by-car was in 1896 and the peak came in the 1970s. However, since then, restraints on driver and investment in safety have slashed road deaths in the rich world by more than half. New York’s roads are now at their safest since records began in 1910. Sweden is still some way from its stated goal of ending road deaths altogether, but in 2013 just one Swedish child under seven died in a crash. Technology such as alcolocks, which prevent drunk-driving, and self-driving cars will make roads in the rich world safer still. Governments in poor countries tend to assume that they, too, must see deaths soar before they are rich enough to think about saving lives. Aid donors and development banks may conclude that a dangerous road is better than no road at all. But the experience of rich countries has shown that roads can be made safer cheaply and simply. And far from being an unaffordable luxury, safe roads make better economic sense than dangerous ones. Most crash victims are boys and working-age men. Their death or disability leaves families in poverty and deprives countries of their most economically valuable citizens. In medical bills, care, lost output and vehicle damage, the kill costs desperately poor countries as much as 10% of GDP.The best title for the text may be ______.

A．Road Crashes: Hard to Prevent
B．Road: Bringing Growth or Death
C．The Unnoticed Infectious Disease
D．The Most Serious Problem in Poor Countries

单项选择题

With its sandy beaches, picturesque ruins and blue waters, the Isle of Wight is an idyllic spot off England’s southern coast. Wealthy Londoners sail their boats there. It seems odd that such a place should contain some of the worst-performing schools in England. But it does; and in this, the Isle of Wight is not quite as strange as it seems. Provisional figures show that in 2013 just 49% of 16-year-olds on the island got at least five C grades, including in English and maths, in GCSE exams. That is fewer than in any of London’s 32 boroughs, or indeed anywhere in the southern half of England apart from nearby Portsmouth. In the previous year the Isle of Wight was second to bottom in the whole country. Just 23% of pupils entitled to free school meals got five decent grades, compared with a national average of 36%. In September the island’s schools were deemed so bad that Hampshire County Council took them over. Part of the explanation is distinctively local. Luring good teachers to an out-of-the-way spot is hard. In 2011 the island endured a muddled transition from the sort of three-tier school system common in America, with primary, middle and secondary schools, to the two-tier one that is standard in England. But its results were bad even before that change. The Isle of Wight’s real problems are structural. It suffers from three things that might appear to be advantages but are actually the opposite. The island lacks a large city; it has some, but not many, poor children; and it is almost entirely white. But these days pupils, including poor ones, often fare better in inner cities than elsewhere. In Tower Hamlets, an east London borough that is the third most deprived place in England, children entitled to free school meals do better in GCSE exams than do all children in the country as a whole. Bangladeshis, who are concentrated in that borough, used to perform considerably worse than whites nationally; now they do better.The real problems of the Isle of Wight include all EXCEPT ______.

A．shortage of metropolis
B．existence of needy pupils
C．uniformity of skin colour
D．lack of experienced teachers

单项选择题

Every two weeks a language disappears. By 2100 nearly half of the 6,000 spoken today may be gone. Migration, either between countries or from the countryside to cities, is one reason; though new arrivals generally stick with their mother tongue, at least at home, their children rarely do. The dominance of English is another. But one tongue against the trend is Romani, spoken by 4m of the roughly 11m Roma people worldwide. Its health attests to the importance of language in shaping identity. Unlike most languages, Romani has no country to call home. Its roots lie in India, but since the 10th century its speakers have scattered and kept moving. One result is that they are everywhere a linguistic minority. Another is that 150 different dialects are in use. "Anglo-Romani", spoken in Britain, differs widely from dialects in France, Bulgaria and Latvia. One Roma man in New Zealand speaks a dialect previously only heard in Wales. The 290,000 native Swedish speakers in Finland show no signs of dropping their language—but it is their country’s second official one, compulsory in all schools and spoken by 9. 5m Swedes next door. Irish hangs on partly because of government spending on translating road signs and documents, broadcasting, teaching and extra marks for brave students who use the tongue in their final school exams. But without a government to champion it, Romani is used mostly in the home. Academics and linguists have written it down and tried to standardise it, but many of those who speak it do not read it. America printed a Romani guide to its 2000 census form, but that is a rarity; it almost never features in official documents. The lack of texts complicates attempts to teach it formally. Roma Kulturklass, a Swedish Romani-language school, is one of a handful in the world. Its 35 pupils study everything except Swedish and English in both Romani and Swedish. But with few textbooks, says Angelina Dimiter Taikon, the head teacher, staff must make do with their own translations.The best title for the text may be ______.

A．Romani: Struggling to Survive
B．The History and Future of Romani
C．Romani: A Language Dying Down
D．Disappearance of Minority Languages

单项选择题

Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action. It was 50 years ago this month that America’s surgeon-general sounded that warning, marking the beginning of the end of cigarette manufacturing—and of smoking itself—as a respectable activity. Some 20m Americans have died from the habit since then. But advertising restrictions, smoking bans and stigma have had their effect: the proportion of American adults who smoke has dropped from 43% to 18%; smoking rates among teenagers are at a record low. In many other countries the trends are similar. The current surgeon-general, Boris Lushniak, marked the half-century with a report on January 17th, declaring smoking even deadlier than previously thought. He added diabetes, colorectal cancer and other ailments to the list of ills it causes, and promised "end-game strategies" to stamp out cigarettes altogether. Were that to happen America’s three big tobacco firms, Altria, Reynolds and Lorillard, could be snuffed out , too. Public health officials plot the same fate for multinationals that supply other markets. The hit list includes Philip Morris International (PMI), which along with Altria makes Marlboro, the top-selling global brand; Japan Tobacco; and British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco of Britain. They are a hardy group, unlikely to be frightened. But the methods they have used to withstand a half-century of battering by regulators may be losing power. In the rich world, where the economy is stagnant, smokers are trading down to cheaper puffs. The regulatory climate in developing countries is becoming more hostile. New technologies such as e-cigarettes promise to deliver nicotine less riskily. Big tobacco firms may master them, but it would be a radical shift, similar to converting the car industry from internal-combustion engines to battery power. David Adelman of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, does not "see anything that’s reversing the conventional tobacco business model." But the model needs adjustment. Some reasons for Mr. Adelman’s confidence are sound. Advertising bans and the industry’s status prevent would-be competitors. When cigarette-makers raise prices, smokers cough up. Global consumption keeps rising, thanks largely to population growth in poorer countries. The cigarette giants indulge investors with big dividends and share buy-backs; they have flocked to tobacco share.When the price of cigarette goes up, smokers may ______.

A．have a cough
B．stop buying it
C．be reluctant to buy it
D．quit smoking at once

单项选择题

With its sandy beaches, picturesque ruins and blue waters, the Isle of Wight is an idyllic spot off England’s southern coast. Wealthy Londoners sail their boats there. It seems odd that such a place should contain some of the worst-performing schools in England. But it does; and in this, the Isle of Wight is not quite as strange as it seems. Provisional figures show that in 2013 just 49% of 16-year-olds on the island got at least five C grades, including in English and maths, in GCSE exams. That is fewer than in any of London’s 32 boroughs, or indeed anywhere in the southern half of England apart from nearby Portsmouth. In the previous year the Isle of Wight was second to bottom in the whole country. Just 23% of pupils entitled to free school meals got five decent grades, compared with a national average of 36%. In September the island’s schools were deemed so bad that Hampshire County Council took them over. Part of the explanation is distinctively local. Luring good teachers to an out-of-the-way spot is hard. In 2011 the island endured a muddled transition from the sort of three-tier school system common in America, with primary, middle and secondary schools, to the two-tier one that is standard in England. But its results were bad even before that change. The Isle of Wight’s real problems are structural. It suffers from three things that might appear to be advantages but are actually the opposite. The island lacks a large city; it has some, but not many, poor children; and it is almost entirely white. But these days pupils, including poor ones, often fare better in inner cities than elsewhere. In Tower Hamlets, an east London borough that is the third most deprived place in England, children entitled to free school meals do better in GCSE exams than do all children in the country as a whole. Bangladeshis, who are concentrated in that borough, used to perform considerably worse than whites nationally; now they do better.What can be learned from the last paragraph

A．Students in inner cities do better than other places in Europe.
B．Bangladeshis performed worse and made little progress.
C．Currently, poor students often do better in school performance.
D．Tower Hamlets is an area which is full of educational resources.

你可能感兴趣的试题