单项选择题It seemed normal when Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son wanted to play chess with his parents. However, it was unusual when he revealed that he already knew how to play—before anyone taught him. Apparently the two-year-old had learned all of the rules by watching his parents. By age 4, he was competing in national tournaments. By age 12, he was Vietnam’s youngest champion.
Another two-year-old child, Jay Greenberg, likewise surprised his parents by drawing pictures of musical instruments that he had never seen. They soon discovered that Jay " heard music in his head. " He began to compose music at age 3. By age 10, he was attending the prestigious Julliard Conservatory in New York, composing full symphonies. Jay was noted not only for the quality of his musical work, but also the speed at which he was able to produce it. That is, while talented professional composers normally write five or six symphonies in a lifetime, Jay wrote five by the age of 12. Child prodigies such as these are a mystery to experts and non-experts alike. On the one hand, they attract praise and attention from everyone they meet: on the other hand, they attract criticism and they find it difficult to fit in with the rest of the world. Child prodigies are highly intelligent, but this is not the only factor that sets them apart. They are considered prodigies because of their exceptional ability in one domain, or area. Experts define prodigy as "a young child who displays mastery of field that is usually undertaken by adults. " Child prodigies usually appear in structured areas such as language, math, drawing, chess, and music. They are not as likely to appear in less structured domains such as medicine, law, or creative writing, areas that require experience. Child prodigies can focus their attention for long periods of time, concentrating on tasks that would bore other children of the same age. Two-year-old Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son had the concentration to play chess for hours at a time. The distinction of "prodigy" thus goes beyond mere intelligence. For explanations, experts look in two directions: nature, the child’s unique biology, and nurture, the child’s environment. When researchers look to nature to explain child prodigies, they study innate or inborn qualities. For example, they look at whether the brain structure of a prodigy is different from that of a child with average intelligence. Technology is a great help on answering this question. For instance, scientists utilize imaging technology to see the amount of activity in different parts of the brain. These brain scans reveal that the frontal lobe of a prodigy’s brain is very active, unlike children with average intelligence doing the same tasks. Their frontal lobes are virtually inactive. Scientists have proven that the frontal lobe of the brain controls many aspects of thought and concentration. This may explain how prodigies can focus on a task, solve complex problems, and learn quickly. When researchers look to nurture to explain child prodigies, they focus on the child’s environment instead of the child’s biology. The most important factor on the nurture side is the parents. Raising a child prodigy is extremely challenging. It requires considerable patience, creativity, and resourcefulness. Some parents are delighted by the extraordinary abilities of their children. They make use of all the resources they have or can find to support them. For example, Jay Greenberg’s parents bought their 2-year-old son a cello when he requested it and arranged for music lessons. Other parents are not so supportive of their child prodigy. On the contrary, some parents even see their offspring’s gifts as a way to draw attention to themselves and their own interests. Boris Si-dis, for example, was a well-known scientist with strong opinions about making the most of one’s intelligence and about raising children. When his son Billy was born, Boris saw the child as an opportunity to test his theories. When people are unusual, they attract attention. In the case of child prodigies, the attention they receive is both positive and negative. It is positive because most people admire intelligence. It is negative because prodigies are very different from other people. They are a challenge for teachers, who expect 7-year-olds to prefer Batman to Beethoven. They are a challenge to parents, who want to help them but often lack the resources or find their needs and desires difficult to understand and meet. They present a challenge to scientists, who want to study them without further isolating them from normal society. And they challenge the world because they reveal the tendency that people have to reject those who are different from the norm. Questions 56 to 60Mark each statement as either true(T)or false(F)according to the passage.According to the passage, people with normal intelligence present fewer challenges to society and are more easily accepted.
Another two-year-old child, Jay Greenberg, likewise surprised his parents by drawing pictures of musical instruments that he had never seen. They soon discovered that Jay " heard music in his head. " He began to compose music at age 3. By age 10, he was attending the prestigious Julliard Conservatory in New York, composing full symphonies. Jay was noted not only for the quality of his musical work, but also the speed at which he was able to produce it. That is, while talented professional composers normally write five or six symphonies in a lifetime, Jay wrote five by the age of 12. Child prodigies such as these are a mystery to experts and non-experts alike. On the one hand, they attract praise and attention from everyone they meet: on the other hand, they attract criticism and they find it difficult to fit in with the rest of the world. Child prodigies are highly intelligent, but this is not the only factor that sets them apart. They are considered prodigies because of their exceptional ability in one domain, or area. Experts define prodigy as "a young child who displays mastery of field that is usually undertaken by adults. " Child prodigies usually appear in structured areas such as language, math, drawing, chess, and music. They are not as likely to appear in less structured domains such as medicine, law, or creative writing, areas that require experience. Child prodigies can focus their attention for long periods of time, concentrating on tasks that would bore other children of the same age. Two-year-old Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son had the concentration to play chess for hours at a time. The distinction of "prodigy" thus goes beyond mere intelligence. For explanations, experts look in two directions: nature, the child’s unique biology, and nurture, the child’s environment. When researchers look to nature to explain child prodigies, they study innate or inborn qualities. For example, they look at whether the brain structure of a prodigy is different from that of a child with average intelligence. Technology is a great help on answering this question. For instance, scientists utilize imaging technology to see the amount of activity in different parts of the brain. These brain scans reveal that the frontal lobe of a prodigy’s brain is very active, unlike children with average intelligence doing the same tasks. Their frontal lobes are virtually inactive. Scientists have proven that the frontal lobe of the brain controls many aspects of thought and concentration. This may explain how prodigies can focus on a task, solve complex problems, and learn quickly. When researchers look to nurture to explain child prodigies, they focus on the child’s environment instead of the child’s biology. The most important factor on the nurture side is the parents. Raising a child prodigy is extremely challenging. It requires considerable patience, creativity, and resourcefulness. Some parents are delighted by the extraordinary abilities of their children. They make use of all the resources they have or can find to support them. For example, Jay Greenberg’s parents bought their 2-year-old son a cello when he requested it and arranged for music lessons. Other parents are not so supportive of their child prodigy. On the contrary, some parents even see their offspring’s gifts as a way to draw attention to themselves and their own interests. Boris Si-dis, for example, was a well-known scientist with strong opinions about making the most of one’s intelligence and about raising children. When his son Billy was born, Boris saw the child as an opportunity to test his theories. When people are unusual, they attract attention. In the case of child prodigies, the attention they receive is both positive and negative. It is positive because most people admire intelligence. It is negative because prodigies are very different from other people. They are a challenge for teachers, who expect 7-year-olds to prefer Batman to Beethoven. They are a challenge to parents, who want to help them but often lack the resources or find their needs and desires difficult to understand and meet. They present a challenge to scientists, who want to study them without further isolating them from normal society. And they challenge the world because they reveal the tendency that people have to reject those who are different from the norm. Questions 56 to 60Mark each statement as either true(T)or false(F)according to the passage.According to the passage, people with normal intelligence present fewer challenges to society and are more easily accepted.A．TRUE
B．FALSE
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Where do tigers live North-eastern China, the Indian subcontinent , and the Russian Far East are all home to different species of this beautiful big cat, but maybe not for much longer. According to a recent study by leading conservationists, the wild tiger is now closer to extinction than previously realized. In fact, it is thought that there are fewer than 5000 tigers existing in the wild around the world. Illegal hunting is a huge factor. Most countries have laws that prohibit the hunting and trade of these animals , but the temptation for local poachers is great. A poor villager can earn up to 60 times his daily earnings by trapping and killing one tiger. This money may guarantee the survival of his family. The dead tiger is handed over to a middle man, who then often smuggles it abroad. Its fur may end up hanging on a wall and its bones may be used for medicinal purposes. The other factor affecting the survival of the wild tiger is the reduction of their natural habitat. When man moves into an area that was previously tiger territory, the tiger loses its natural prey since the villagers often hunt such animals for their own food. Then the tiger goes after the villagers’ cows and goats, and so it becomes the hunted. Another problem with reduced habitat is that the tigers will not cross open land, so they cannot get to isolated areas of forest to breed with other tigers. One country that has taken action over the competition for habitat is Russia. The ancient forests of Southern Siberia are being logged for their increasingly expensive timber. These loggers, a-long with the poaching of tigers and their prey, have posed a serious threat to the survival of the tiger population. However, since 1992 the Wildlife Conservation Society(WCS)has been carrying out The Siberian Tiger Project. By attaching radio collars to the tigers they can trace their movements and gather a wealth of information about their habits. In this way, the Russian government has been provided with invaluable support and advice. The ’ Tiger Response Team’, a special unit of the Russian government, takes active steps towards resolving the problems between tigers and humans. One aim is to keep tigers away from human settlements. The team uses fireworks or even electrified dead animals to deter the tigers from approaching villages. Sometimes the tigers are captured and simply moved to other areas. If the animal is considered too dangerous, it may be taken to a zoo on the other side of the world. At least in a protected environment like this, scientists are able to study wild tigers in a way that they could not in their natural habitat. Also, captive breeding programmes are a way to increase tiger numbers: they can be used to introduce genetic variability into the wild tiger population. The WCS also considers the management of the tigers’ prey essential to the programme. This requires the establishment of large areas of habitat for both the tigers and their prey to coexist. This can be achieved through properly managed wildlife tourism. Tourism can generate money and jobs for local people, as well as creating opportunities to conserve suitable land for tigers to live on. It is also an excellent way to educate the locals and tourists in conservation issues. There is no clear solution to saving the tiger, but there is still great pressure from conservation societies and environmental groups to ensure its survival. We will only be able to do this if we can find a balance between the need of people to earn a living and the need to preserve the tigers’ habitat. Questions 71 to 75Complete the summary below with information from the passage, using no more than three words for each blank. One of the threats to the survival of the wild tiger is【E1】______, although it is hard to put the blame on the poor who have done this.【E2】______is another threat to their survival. Tigers are trapped in small areas of forest and there is no longer any【E3】______for them to hunt. Various solutions have been suggested. Scientists have been studying the tigers’ habits so that they can help solve the problems between people and the tigers. Sometimes tigers are caught and taken to zoos, where they are used in breeding programmes to introduce【E4】______into the wild tiger population. Wildlife tourism can generate money and jobs for local people and is also useful in helping to【E5】______ and tourists. While there are still a lot of problems between tigers and humans, there are a lot of people who are working hard to save these rare animals.【E4】
Some of the most memorable scenes in films have revolved around money. Think of Michael Douglas【C1】______(declare)" Greed is good" in Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio’s share scams in The Wolf of Wall Street and, most memorably, Jimmy Stewart’s【C2】des______ attempts to save his local bank in It’s A Wonderful Life. That Hollywood’s portrayal of finance tends towards the caricature is hardly surprising: its portrayal of most things tends towards the caricature. A realistic【C3】______(depict)of a day on a bank-trading desk, or the life of the typical fund manager, would not make for gripping viewing. A more pertinent criticism is that Hollywood’s approach towards finance, indeed—towards capitalism in general, is almost relentlessly negative. Stewart’s banker may be the hero of It’s a Wonderful Life but his heroism stems from his opposition to the rapacious Mr. Potter. In Trading Places, we applaud【C4】______ Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd make a killing in the orange-juice futures market, but only because the result is the ruin of the villainous Duke Brothers. Generally, the role of businessmen and financiers in films is as pantomime villains, ruthlessly pursuing profit at the【C5】______of human life. In The Poseidon Adventure, the actor Fred Sad-off, playing the shipowner’s【C6】______(represent), forces the captain to proceed at full speed without taking on extra ballast so the ship can meet its deadline: the result is that the ship capsizes when hit by a tidal wave. In Rollerball, the public’s hero-worship of James Caan’s sports star poses a threat to the power of the corporate elite, who scheme to have him【C7】______(kill). In " The Constant Gardener" , an activist played by Rachel Weisz is killed by the pharmaceutical company whose dangerous drug-testing she is trying to expose. Even where the central character is involved in finance or business, the standard film plot has the protagonist learn that monetary rewards pale when compared with the simple pleasures of life. Richard Gere’s corporate raider is【C8】______(soft)by Julia Roberts(playing a classic "tart-with-a-heart")in Pretty Woman, as Citizen Kane Orson Welles dies alone, in a vast stately home full of the trophies of【C9】su______, still pining for the sled that represented the happiness of his childhood. The new film Steve Jobs, about the late head of Apple, depicts the tech guru as an e-motionally warped man who【C10】______far too much time fixated on the wrong things, such as computers, instead of his daughter. Despite his remarkable success and genius for innovation, the man is redeemed only when he finally recognizes that the most important job of all may be to be a dad.【C2】
Another two-year-old child, Jay Greenberg, likewise surprised his parents by drawing pictures of musical instruments that he had never seen. They soon discovered that Jay " heard music in his head. " He began to compose music at age 3. By age 10, he was attending the prestigious Julliard Conservatory in New York, composing full symphonies. Jay was noted not only for the quality of his musical work, but also the speed at which he was able to produce it. That is, while talented professional composers normally write five or six symphonies in a lifetime, Jay wrote five by the age of 12. Child prodigies such as these are a mystery to experts and non-experts alike. On the one hand, they attract praise and attention from everyone they meet: on the other hand, they attract criticism and they find it difficult to fit in with the rest of the world. Child prodigies are highly intelligent, but this is not the only factor that sets them apart. They are considered prodigies because of their exceptional ability in one domain, or area. Experts define prodigy as "a young child who displays mastery of field that is usually undertaken by adults. " Child prodigies usually appear in structured areas such as language, math, drawing, chess, and music. They are not as likely to appear in less structured domains such as medicine, law, or creative writing, areas that require experience. Child prodigies can focus their attention for long periods of time, concentrating on tasks that would bore other children of the same age. Two-year-old Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son had the concentration to play chess for hours at a time. The distinction of "prodigy" thus goes beyond mere intelligence. For explanations, experts look in two directions: nature, the child’s unique biology, and nurture, the child’s environment. When researchers look to nature to explain child prodigies, they study innate or inborn qualities. For example, they look at whether the brain structure of a prodigy is different from that of a child with average intelligence. Technology is a great help on answering this question. For instance, scientists utilize imaging technology to see the amount of activity in different parts of the brain. These brain scans reveal that the frontal lobe of a prodigy’s brain is very active, unlike children with average intelligence doing the same tasks. Their frontal lobes are virtually inactive. Scientists have proven that the frontal lobe of the brain controls many aspects of thought and concentration. This may explain how prodigies can focus on a task, solve complex problems, and learn quickly. When researchers look to nurture to explain child prodigies, they focus on the child’s environment instead of the child’s biology. The most important factor on the nurture side is the parents. Raising a child prodigy is extremely challenging. It requires considerable patience, creativity, and resourcefulness. Some parents are delighted by the extraordinary abilities of their children. They make use of all the resources they have or can find to support them. For example, Jay Greenberg’s parents bought their 2-year-old son a cello when he requested it and arranged for music lessons. Other parents are not so supportive of their child prodigy. On the contrary, some parents even see their offspring’s gifts as a way to draw attention to themselves and their own interests. Boris Si-dis, for example, was a well-known scientist with strong opinions about making the most of one’s intelligence and about raising children. When his son Billy was born, Boris saw the child as an opportunity to test his theories. When people are unusual, they attract attention. In the case of child prodigies, the attention they receive is both positive and negative. It is positive because most people admire intelligence. It is negative because prodigies are very different from other people. They are a challenge for teachers, who expect 7-year-olds to prefer Batman to Beethoven. They are a challenge to parents, who want to help them but often lack the resources or find their needs and desires difficult to understand and meet. They present a challenge to scientists, who want to study them without further isolating them from normal society. And they challenge the world because they reveal the tendency that people have to reject those who are different from the norm. Questions 56 to 60Mark each statement as either true(T)or false(F)according to the passage.All of the parents mentioned in the passage provided their children with both educational and physical resources.
In the mid 16th century, the Muscovy Company had a monopoly on trade routes from England to Russia—the only way to ship things between England and Russia was to pay Muscovy. In 1555, it became the first joint-stock company. A joint-stock company is one in which investors give money to help a company expand operations. They then receive a portion of the profit that the company makes. The investors own stock in the company. Muscovy’s success inspired many imitators. Joint-stock companies soon started to multiply.【R2】______ In the 1670s, the English East India Co. became the first company to offer many different types of products and services, and to have parallel operations in many countries at the same time— the first multinational corporation. It reached the height of its power in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The East India Co. even became a military force. It occupied nations and created its own currency. It monopolized trade between East and West in tea, opium, and gunpowder. 【R3】______It dominated the U. S. oil industry. People said that Standard Oil was a monopoly and that this was wrong. Rockefeller defended his company: " We were all in a sinking ship if competition continued. " For Rockefeller, monopolies were good. Competition prevented companies from growing large enough to provide certain services society needed. Some public utilities(electricity, water, trash removal)still operate as monopolies. This allows local government to control and monitor the quality of these services on behalf of the people using them. 【R4】______In the early part of the 20th century, companies needed to compete with each other to attract customers. This meant that people had more choices about what they bought. Price went down and quality went up. General Motors(GM)executive Alfred Sloan adopted a policy that corresponded to these changes in the marketable and people’s expectations. He declared in 1924 that his company would have "a car for every purse and purpose. " GM would put the customer first, not the company. This "customer-first" principle changed the automotive industry, and made GM one of the most successful businesses in the United States. 【R5】______In the 1970s, trader Michael Milken started working with "junk bonds". These were high-risk investments that had the potential to increase many times in value. The possibility of high returns in a small investment induced thousands and thousands of people to buy junk bonds. Milken became rich and famous. Soon, however, most of these high risk investments failed. Investors lost millions of dollars. In 1989, Milken went to jail for fraud, for tricking people into buying something that was actually worthless. Questions 61 to 65A. Most of them wanted to control trade routes from Europe to the New World.B. For most business, however, Rockefeller’s ideas about competition proved to be wrong.C. Business in the new millennium is changing yet again.D. Finding workers with the right educational background, work experience, and language skills can also be very difficult.E. As time went on and societies formed, people began to specialize, to devote their time and energy to one type of work.F. As more and more companies expanded into corporations in the 1950s and 60s, people found new ways to make money from successful, and unsuccessful, businesses.G. By the 1870s, many corporations had become strong and powerful. John D. Rockefeller, for example, built the Standard Oil Company into a huge, super-efficient corporation.【R4】
Where do tigers live North-eastern China, the Indian subcontinent , and the Russian Far East are all home to different species of this beautiful big cat, but maybe not for much longer. According to a recent study by leading conservationists, the wild tiger is now closer to extinction than previously realized. In fact, it is thought that there are fewer than 5000 tigers existing in the wild around the world. Illegal hunting is a huge factor. Most countries have laws that prohibit the hunting and trade of these animals , but the temptation for local poachers is great. A poor villager can earn up to 60 times his daily earnings by trapping and killing one tiger. This money may guarantee the survival of his family. The dead tiger is handed over to a middle man, who then often smuggles it abroad. Its fur may end up hanging on a wall and its bones may be used for medicinal purposes. The other factor affecting the survival of the wild tiger is the reduction of their natural habitat. When man moves into an area that was previously tiger territory, the tiger loses its natural prey since the villagers often hunt such animals for their own food. Then the tiger goes after the villagers’ cows and goats, and so it becomes the hunted. Another problem with reduced habitat is that the tigers will not cross open land, so they cannot get to isolated areas of forest to breed with other tigers. One country that has taken action over the competition for habitat is Russia. The ancient forests of Southern Siberia are being logged for their increasingly expensive timber. These loggers, a-long with the poaching of tigers and their prey, have posed a serious threat to the survival of the tiger population. However, since 1992 the Wildlife Conservation Society(WCS)has been carrying out The Siberian Tiger Project. By attaching radio collars to the tigers they can trace their movements and gather a wealth of information about their habits. In this way, the Russian government has been provided with invaluable support and advice. The ’ Tiger Response Team’, a special unit of the Russian government, takes active steps towards resolving the problems between tigers and humans. One aim is to keep tigers away from human settlements. The team uses fireworks or even electrified dead animals to deter the tigers from approaching villages. Sometimes the tigers are captured and simply moved to other areas. If the animal is considered too dangerous, it may be taken to a zoo on the other side of the world. At least in a protected environment like this, scientists are able to study wild tigers in a way that they could not in their natural habitat. Also, captive breeding programmes are a way to increase tiger numbers: they can be used to introduce genetic variability into the wild tiger population. The WCS also considers the management of the tigers’ prey essential to the programme. This requires the establishment of large areas of habitat for both the tigers and their prey to coexist. This can be achieved through properly managed wildlife tourism. Tourism can generate money and jobs for local people, as well as creating opportunities to conserve suitable land for tigers to live on. It is also an excellent way to educate the locals and tourists in conservation issues. There is no clear solution to saving the tiger, but there is still great pressure from conservation societies and environmental groups to ensure its survival. We will only be able to do this if we can find a balance between the need of people to earn a living and the need to preserve the tigers’ habitat. Questions 71 to 75Complete the summary below with information from the passage, using no more than three words for each blank. One of the threats to the survival of the wild tiger is【E1】______, although it is hard to put the blame on the poor who have done this.【E2】______is another threat to their survival. Tigers are trapped in small areas of forest and there is no longer any【E3】______for them to hunt. Various solutions have been suggested. Scientists have been studying the tigers’ habits so that they can help solve the problems between people and the tigers. Sometimes tigers are caught and taken to zoos, where they are used in breeding programmes to introduce【E4】______into the wild tiger population. Wildlife tourism can generate money and jobs for local people and is also useful in helping to【E5】______ and tourists. While there are still a lot of problems between tigers and humans, there are a lot of people who are working hard to save these rare animals.【E3】
Some of the most memorable scenes in films have revolved around money. Think of Michael Douglas【C1】______(declare)" Greed is good" in Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio’s share scams in The Wolf of Wall Street and, most memorably, Jimmy Stewart’s【C2】des______ attempts to save his local bank in It’s A Wonderful Life. That Hollywood’s portrayal of finance tends towards the caricature is hardly surprising: its portrayal of most things tends towards the caricature. A realistic【C3】______(depict)of a day on a bank-trading desk, or the life of the typical fund manager, would not make for gripping viewing. A more pertinent criticism is that Hollywood’s approach towards finance, indeed—towards capitalism in general, is almost relentlessly negative. Stewart’s banker may be the hero of It’s a Wonderful Life but his heroism stems from his opposition to the rapacious Mr. Potter. In Trading Places, we applaud【C4】______ Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd make a killing in the orange-juice futures market, but only because the result is the ruin of the villainous Duke Brothers. Generally, the role of businessmen and financiers in films is as pantomime villains, ruthlessly pursuing profit at the【C5】______of human life. In The Poseidon Adventure, the actor Fred Sad-off, playing the shipowner’s【C6】______(represent), forces the captain to proceed at full speed without taking on extra ballast so the ship can meet its deadline: the result is that the ship capsizes when hit by a tidal wave. In Rollerball, the public’s hero-worship of James Caan’s sports star poses a threat to the power of the corporate elite, who scheme to have him【C7】______(kill). In " The Constant Gardener" , an activist played by Rachel Weisz is killed by the pharmaceutical company whose dangerous drug-testing she is trying to expose. Even where the central character is involved in finance or business, the standard film plot has the protagonist learn that monetary rewards pale when compared with the simple pleasures of life. Richard Gere’s corporate raider is【C8】______(soft)by Julia Roberts(playing a classic "tart-with-a-heart")in Pretty Woman, as Citizen Kane Orson Welles dies alone, in a vast stately home full of the trophies of【C9】su______, still pining for the sled that represented the happiness of his childhood. The new film Steve Jobs, about the late head of Apple, depicts the tech guru as an e-motionally warped man who【C10】______far too much time fixated on the wrong things, such as computers, instead of his daughter. Despite his remarkable success and genius for innovation, the man is redeemed only when he finally recognizes that the most important job of all may be to be a dad.【C1】
Another two-year-old child, Jay Greenberg, likewise surprised his parents by drawing pictures of musical instruments that he had never seen. They soon discovered that Jay " heard music in his head. " He began to compose music at age 3. By age 10, he was attending the prestigious Julliard Conservatory in New York, composing full symphonies. Jay was noted not only for the quality of his musical work, but also the speed at which he was able to produce it. That is, while talented professional composers normally write five or six symphonies in a lifetime, Jay wrote five by the age of 12. Child prodigies such as these are a mystery to experts and non-experts alike. On the one hand, they attract praise and attention from everyone they meet: on the other hand, they attract criticism and they find it difficult to fit in with the rest of the world. Child prodigies are highly intelligent, but this is not the only factor that sets them apart. They are considered prodigies because of their exceptional ability in one domain, or area. Experts define prodigy as "a young child who displays mastery of field that is usually undertaken by adults. " Child prodigies usually appear in structured areas such as language, math, drawing, chess, and music. They are not as likely to appear in less structured domains such as medicine, law, or creative writing, areas that require experience. Child prodigies can focus their attention for long periods of time, concentrating on tasks that would bore other children of the same age. Two-year-old Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son had the concentration to play chess for hours at a time. The distinction of "prodigy" thus goes beyond mere intelligence. For explanations, experts look in two directions: nature, the child’s unique biology, and nurture, the child’s environment. When researchers look to nature to explain child prodigies, they study innate or inborn qualities. For example, they look at whether the brain structure of a prodigy is different from that of a child with average intelligence. Technology is a great help on answering this question. For instance, scientists utilize imaging technology to see the amount of activity in different parts of the brain. These brain scans reveal that the frontal lobe of a prodigy’s brain is very active, unlike children with average intelligence doing the same tasks. Their frontal lobes are virtually inactive. Scientists have proven that the frontal lobe of the brain controls many aspects of thought and concentration. This may explain how prodigies can focus on a task, solve complex problems, and learn quickly. When researchers look to nurture to explain child prodigies, they focus on the child’s environment instead of the child’s biology. The most important factor on the nurture side is the parents. Raising a child prodigy is extremely challenging. It requires considerable patience, creativity, and resourcefulness. Some parents are delighted by the extraordinary abilities of their children. They make use of all the resources they have or can find to support them. For example, Jay Greenberg’s parents bought their 2-year-old son a cello when he requested it and arranged for music lessons. Other parents are not so supportive of their child prodigy. On the contrary, some parents even see their offspring’s gifts as a way to draw attention to themselves and their own interests. Boris Si-dis, for example, was a well-known scientist with strong opinions about making the most of one’s intelligence and about raising children. When his son Billy was born, Boris saw the child as an opportunity to test his theories. When people are unusual, they attract attention. In the case of child prodigies, the attention they receive is both positive and negative. It is positive because most people admire intelligence. It is negative because prodigies are very different from other people. They are a challenge for teachers, who expect 7-year-olds to prefer Batman to Beethoven. They are a challenge to parents, who want to help them but often lack the resources or find their needs and desires difficult to understand and meet. They present a challenge to scientists, who want to study them without further isolating them from normal society. And they challenge the world because they reveal the tendency that people have to reject those who are different from the norm. Questions 56 to 60Mark each statement as either true(T)or false(F)according to the passage.Child prodigies sometimes select areas of interest that they did not learn from their parents or acquire from their environment. This supports the explanation of nurture.热门相关试卷
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