C．To explain how persistent and clever homing pigeons are.
　　D．To explain why homing pigeons are loyal to their owners.

　　12. According to the passage, what happens to homing pigeons when they are about a month old?
　　A．They are kept in a trap.
　　B．They enter their first race.
　　C．They begin a training program.
　　D．They start their first distant flight.

　　13. In actual races, homing pigeons must be guided to enter the loft trap very quickly because_______.
　　A．they are sometimes disobedient to their owners
　　B．they have no idea of when to start a race
　　C．time makes a big difference in winning a race
　　D．their intelligence can not always be trusted

　　14. According to the passage, the difference between a homing pigeon and an ordinary one lies in__________.
　　A．the span of the wings
　　B．the shape of the eyes
　　C．the texture of the feathers
　　D．the size of the brain

　　15. Bees, ants, toads and turtles are mentioned in the last paragraph in order to________.
　　A．to compare their home-finding abilities with those of homing pigeons
　　B．to compare the distances traveled by different types of animals
　　C．to provide a description of some other animals with similar features
　　D．to arouse the reader’s interest in some other animals with similar features

　　Passage 4

　　Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage.

　　Pronouncing a language is a skill. Every normal person is expert in the skill of pronouncing his own language; but few people are even moderately proficient at pronouncing foreign languages. Now there are many reasons for this, some obvious, some perhaps not so obvious. But I suggest that the fundamental reason why people in general do not speak foreign languages very much better than they do their own languages is that they fail to grasp the true nature of the problems of learning to pronounce, and consequently never set about tackling it in the right way. Far too many people fail to realize that pronouncing a foreign language is a skill——one that needs careful training of a special kind, and one that cannot be acquired by just leaving it to take care of itself.

　　I think, even teachers of language, while recognizing the importance of a good accent, tend to neglect the branch of study concerned with speaking in their practical teaching. So, the first point I want to make here is that the teacher should be prepared to devote some of the lesson time to the teaching of English pronunciation. There should be occasions when other aspects of English, such as grammar or spelling, are allowed for the moment to take second place.

　　Apart from this question of the time given to pronunciation, there are two other requirements for the teacher: the first, knowledge; the second, technique.

　　It is important that the teacher should be in possession of the necessary information. This can generally be obtained from books. It is possible to get from books some idea of the mechanics of speech, and of what we call general phonetic theory. But the first and most important part of a language teacher’s technique is his own performance, his ability to demonstrate the spoken language, in every detail of articulation(发音) as well as in fluent speaking, so that the student’s talent capacity for imitation is given the fullest scope and encouragement.

　　16. What does the author actually say about pronouncing foreign languages?
　　A．Quite a few people are proficient.
　　B．Few people are reasonably proficient.
　　C．People realize the importance of pronouncing foreign languages.
　　D．People tend to spend more time on pronouncing than spelling.

　　17. According to the author, pronouncing a foreign language is a skill that requires_______.
　　A．leaving it to take care of itself
　　B．careful training of a special kind
　　C．focusing on learners’ own performances
　　D．obtaining much of the theoretical knowledge

　　18. Regarding the teaching of English pronunciation, the author has made all the following suggestions EXCEPT_______. 转贴于：自考_考试大

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