Section BDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by som

Section B

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.

Much research has been done to test a hypothesis(假说) proposed by linguists called the Critical Period Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that if humans do not learn a foreign language before a certain age, perhaps around puberty(青春期), then due to changes such as maturation of the brain, it becomes impossible to learn the foreign language like a native speaker. No definite answer to this hypothesis has been found and it is still debated by researchers, but there is some evidence that this hypothesis is true for acquiring native-like pronunciation even though there is less evidence that it is true for acquiring the grammar or the vocabulary of a foreign language. Even though nobody knows for certain what exactly happens to our brains as we mature, almost everyone agrees that almost all people who learn a foreign language after puberty will always have an accent. That is, native speakers will be able to identify that the person is not a native speaker of that language. The amount of exposure to English is another factor that determines if the students can acquire native-like English pronunciation. At the present time, most Chinese learners of English do not have enough exposure to English to acquire native-like pronunciation.

Due to biological and physiological differences, individual students have different phonetic ability. Some students are more sensitive to and better at imitating sounds than other students. Although a few students can acquire native-like pronunciation, it is unrealistic for the majority of students to do so. However, admitting the difficulty in acquiring native-like pronunciation does not mean that teachers should not encourage students to improve their pronunciation as much as possible.

Some students take great pains to be accurate in pronunciation. This is often clone at the expense of consistency. And the speech produced in this way is not only unnatural but also uncomfortable to hear. When trying to achieve consistency in pronunciation, students do not have to and should not sacrifice intelligibility(理解). Unintelligible speech is useless and may cause unpleasant feelings for both the speaker and the audience.

We can infer from the first paragraph that______.

A．the hypothesis is true for acquiring the vocabulary

B．the hypothesis is true for acquiring the grammar

C．researchers hold different views towards the hypothesis

D．researchers agree on the hypothesis