2. 外语
  3. Antonio Sanz might as well have won the lottery. In 1965, when the small, curly-haired Spaniard was 10, an American professor as

Antonio Sanz might as well have won the lottery. In 1965, when the small, curly-haired Spaniard was 10, an American professor as

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问题     Antonio Sanz might as well have won the lottery. In 1965, when the small, curly-haired Spaniard was 10, an American professor asked his parents if she might take the boy to the U.S. and enroll him in public school. They agreed. America seemed to offer a brighter future than the dairy farms where his father worked in the foothills north of Madrid. Sanz left, but came back to Spain every summer with stories from Philadelphia and boxes of New World artifacts: Super Balls, baseball cards, and Bob Dylan records.
    His real prize, though, was English. Sanz learned fast, and by senior year he outscored most of his classmates in the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. In those days, back in his hometown of Colmenar Viejo, English seemed so exotic that kids would stop him on the street and ask him to say a few sentences. By the time he graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., and moved back to Spain, American companies there were nearly as excited. He landed in Procter & Gamble Co.
    Sanz, now 46 and a father of three, employs his Philadelphia English as an executive at Vo-dafone PLC in Madrid. But something funny has happened to his second language. These days, English is no longer special, or odd, or even foreign. In Paris, Dusseldorf, Madrid, and even in the streets of Colmenar Viejo, English has put down roots. "What else can we all speak?" Sanz asks.
    English is firmly entrenched nearly everywhere as the international language of business, finance, and technology. But in Europe, it’s spreading far beyond the elites. Indeed, English is becoming the binding agent of a continent, linking Finns to French and Portuguese as they move toward political and economic unification. "A common language is crucial," says Tito Boeri, a business professor at Bocconi University in Milan, "to take advantage of Europe’s integrated labor market."
    English, in short, is Europe’s language. And while some adults are slow to embrace this, it’s clear as day for European children. "If I want to speak to a Fre-nch person, I have to speak in English," says Ivo Rowekamp, an 11-year-old in Heidelberg, Germany.
    The implications for business are enormous. It’s no longer just top executives who need to speak English. Everyone in the corporate food chain is feeling the pressure to learn a common tongue as companies globalize and democratize. These days in formerly national companies such as Renault and BMW, managers, engineers, even leading blue-collar workers are constantly calling and e-mailing colleagues and customers in Europe, the U.S., and Japan. The language usually is English, an industrial tool now as basic as the screwdriver.
    While English is fast becoming a Prereq for landing a good job in Europe, only 41% of the people on the Continent speak it — and only 29% speak it well enough to carry on a conversation, according to a European Commission report. The result is an English gap, one that divides Europe’s haves from its have-nots. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Europeans brought peasants into the workforce by teaching them to read and write the national language. These days, the equivalent challenge is to master Europe’s international language. Those that fail — countries, companies, and individuals alike — risk falling far behind.
Which of the following is NOT true?
选项 A、Adults are better learners of English than children are.
B、Some blue-collar workers are also using English in their daily communications.
C、Top executives are expected to have English proficiency.
D、Globalization encourages more people to learn English.
答案A
解析 细节题。注意是要选择否定选项。选项A与第五段第一句不相符， “some adult sale slow to embrace this[refers to English]”大人比小孩子学习英语更慢些。选项B、C和D都可以在第六段中找到。
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