Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.

Long before they can actually speak, babies pay special attention to the speech they hear around them. Within the first month of their lives, babies' responses to the sound of the human voice will be different from their responses to other sorts of auditory stimuli. They will stop crying when they hear a person talking, but not if they hear a bell or the sound of a rattle. At first, the sounds that an infant notices might be only those words that receive the heaviest emphasis and that often occur at the ends of utterances. By the time they are six or seven weeks old, babies can detect the difference between syllables pronounced with rising and falling inflections. Very soon, these differences in adult stress and intonation can influence babies' emotional states and behavior. Long before they develop actual language comprehension, babies can sense when an adult is playful or angry, attempting to initiate or terminate new behavior, and so on, merely on the basis of cues such as the rate, volume, and melody of adult speech.

Adults make it as easy as they can for babies to pick up a language by exaggerating such cues. One researcher observed babies and their mothers in six diverse cultures and found that, in all six languages, the mothers used simplified syntax, short utterances and nonsense sounds, and transformed certain sounds into baby talk. Other investigators have noted that when mothers talk to babies who are only a few months old, they exaggerate the pitch, loudness, and intensity of their words. They also exaggerate their facial expressions, hold vowels longer, and emphasize certain words. 

More significant for language development than their response to general intonation is observation that tiny babies can make relatively fine distinctions between speech sounds. In other words, babies enter the world with the ability to make precisely those perceptual discriminations that are necessary if they are to acquire aural language.

Babies obviously derive pleasure from sound input, too: even as young as nine months they will listen to songs or stories, although the words themselves are beyond their understanding. For babies, language is a sensory-motor delight rather than the route to prosaic meaning that it often is for adults.

Which of the following can be inferred about the findings described in paragraph 2?

• A. Babies ignore facial expressions in comprehending aural language.
• B. Mothers from different cultures speak to their babies in similar ways.
• C. Babies who are exposed to more than one language can speak earlier than babies exposed to a single language.
• D. The mothers observed by the researchers were consciously teaching their babies to speak.

• Câu 2: Mã câu hỏi: 17378

  According to the author, why do babies listen to songs and stories, even though they cannot understand them?

  • A. They can remember them easily.
  • B. They focus on the meaning of their parents' word.
  • C. They enjoy the sound.
  • D. They understand the rhythm.

• Câu 3: Mã câu hỏi: 17379

  The passage mentions all of the followings as the ways adults modify their speech when talking to babies EXCEPT ____________.

  • A. speaking with shorter sentences
  • B. giving all words equal emphasis
  • C. using meaningless sounds
  • D. speaking more loudly than normal

• Câu 4: Mã câu hỏi: 17380

  The word "diverse" is closest in meaning to ____________.

  • A. different 
  • B. surrounding
  • C. stimulating
  • D. divided

• Câu 5: Mã câu hỏi: 17381

  The word "They" refers to ____________.

  • A. words
  • B. mothers
  • C. investigators
  • D. babies

• Câu 6: Mã câu hỏi: 17382

  Why does the author mention "a bell and a rattle"?

  • A. To contrast the reactions of babies to human and non-human sounds.
  • B. To give examples of typical toys that babies do not like.
  • C. To explain how babies distinguish between different non-human sounds.
  • D. To give examples of sounds that will cause a baby to cry.

• Câu 7: Mã câu hỏi: 17383

  What does the passage mainly discuss?

  • A. The differences between a baby's and an adult's ability to comprehend language
  • B. How babies perceive and respond to the human voice in their earliest stages of language development
  • C. The response of babies to sounds other than the human voice
  • D. How babies differentiate between the sound of the human voice and other sounds

• Câu 8: Mã câu hỏi: 17384

  The word "emphasize" is closest in meaning to ____________.

  • A. stress
  • B. leave out
  • C. explain
  • D. repeat

• Câu 9: Mã câu hỏi: 17386

  What point does the author make to illustrate that babies are born with the ability to acquire language?

  • A. Babies exaggerate their own sounds and expressions.
  • B. Babies begin to understand words in songs.
  • C. Babies notice even minor differences between speech sounds.
  • D. Babies are more sensitive to sounds than are adults.

• Câu 10: Mã câu hỏi: 17387

  The word "noted" is closest in meaning to ____________.

  • A. requested
  • B. observed
  • C. theorized
  • D. disagreed