ManyEnglishstudentsdidnotrealizethatphrasessuchas“getoffof”and“shewasstood”weregrammaticallyincorrect.It’sfearedthattheuseofsocialnetworkingwebsitesandmobilephonetextmessagingisdamagingchildren’slit

Question

Many English students did not realize that phrases such as “get off of” and “she was stood” were grammatically incorrect. It’s feared that the use of social networking websites and mobile phone text messaging is damaging children’s literacy(读写) skills.

       Ministers have also complained that many young people spend too much time playing video games and watching TV instead of reading books. In the latest study Cambridge Assessment one of the country’s biggest examination organizations surveyed more than 2 000teenagers in 26 English secondary schools.

They were presented with various phrases and asked to mark out those with non-standard English. Only 41 percent realized that an adjective had been used in place of an adverb in the phrase “come quick”.

       Fewer than six-in-ten pupils correctly identified “get off of” and “she was stood” as ungrammatical. Around a quarter of students failed to spot errors in the phrases “it wasn’t me who done it” “couldn’t hardly move” “Tom had gotten cold” and “three mile”. At least a fifth failed to recognize that “more easier” was incorrect. And most one-in-ten students failed to spot the use of a double negative in the phrase “I didn’t break no vase”

Ian McNeilly from the National Association for the Teaching of English told the Times Educational Supplement “For a lot of people—not just young people—their daily use of English is in new media where non-standard grammatical constructions are more acceptable. That’s unavoidably going to lead to an increased lack of awareness of more standard constructions.”

       Dr Beth Black author of the latest report said “It is possible that these less well-recognized nonstandard English forms will find their way into standard English especially given the view that teenagers are linguistic innovators(语言创新者) who bring about change in standard dialect.”

56. According to the first paragraph what do people worry about?

       A. Text message cost students too much money

       B. students can’t use standard English grammar

       C. Students are annoyed through social networking websites.

       D. Students become violent by playing video games

57. From the result of the survey about 10 percent of the students failed to___.

       A. understand the correct use of the tense

       B. know the proper place of an adjective

       C. know the use of the adverb

       D. find the misuse of a double negative

58. According to Ian McNeilly which of the following caused the spread of non-standard grammar?

       A. People use English in new media

       B. People spend little time reading books

       C. People didn’t learning grammar well at school

       D. People are too careless in their writing

Answer 1

BDA