劍橋雅思閱讀4 14原文+譯文+解析

劍橋雅思14Test1閱讀Passage1文章題目爲兒童遊戲的重要性，這篇文章考試題型比較經典，是按照順序出題的。這有利於我們從閱讀原文中找到答案。接下來一起來看看劍橋雅思14Test1閱讀Passage1真題內容。

劍橋雅思14Test1閱讀Passage1真題文本

READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHILDREN’ S PLAY

Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom. Imagining fairy-tale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world. Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life.

Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence. Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner.

‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.’

Recognising the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning have been developing since the 19th century.

But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’ he says. Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime, and by the emphasis on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools.

International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play, and to consider implications for leisure facilities and educational programmes. But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on.

‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated, spontaneous and unpredictable - but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old “to play”, then you as the researcher have intervened,’ explains Dr Sara Baker. ‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is. It’s a real challenge.’

Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life.

Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker, Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role played by play in how a child develops.

‘A strong possibility is that play supports the early development of children’s self-control,’ explains Baker. ‘This is our ability to develop awareness of our own thinking processes — it influences how effectively we go about undertaking challenging activities.’

In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers and young pre-schoolers, she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific reasoning. ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problem-solvers in the long run.’

If playful experiences do facilitate this aspect of development, say the researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational practices, because the ability to self-regulate has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance.

Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator of healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I investigated how observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’

Whitebread’s recent research has involved developing a play-based approach to supporting children’s writing. ‘Many primary school children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a playful stimulus was far more effective than an instructional one.’ Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls representing characters in the story. In the latest study, children first created their story with Lego_ with similar results. ‘Many teachers commented that they had always previously had children saying they didn’t know what to write about. With the Lego building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year of the project.’

Whitebread, who directs PEDAL, trained as a primary school teacher in the early 1970s, when, as he describes, ‘the teaching of young children was largely a quiet backwater, untroubled by any serious intellectual debate or controversy.’ Now, the landscape is very different, with hotly debated topics such as school starting age.

‘Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades. It’s regarded as something trivial, or even as something negative that contrasts with “work”. Let’s not lose sight of its benefits, and the fundamental contributions it makes to human achievements in the arts, sciences and technology. Let’s make sure children have a rich diet of play experiences.’

_Lego: coloured plastic building blocks and other pieces that can be joined together

Questions 1-8

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

Questions 9-13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9 Children with good self-control are known to be likely to do well at school later on.

10 The way a child plays may provide information about possible medical problems.

11 Playing with dolls was found to benefit girls’ writing more than boys’ writing.

12 Children had problems thinking up ideas when they first created the story with Lego.

13 People nowadays regard children’s play as less significant than they did in the past.

劍橋雅思14test1閱讀passage1原文譯文

passage 1

兒童嬉戲玩耍的重要性

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHILDREN’S PLAY

Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom. Imagining fairy-tale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world. Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life.

一塊又一塊積木，六歲的Alice正在搭建一個魔法王國。通過想象那些童話故事裏的塔樓和噴火的巨龍、邪惡的巫師和勇敢的英雄，她在創造一個充滿神祕魅力的世界。儘管她自己並沒有意識到這一點，但這種天馬行空的幻想正在幫助她邁出創造力的最初幾步，從而將會對她今後的成年生活產生重要的影響。

Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence. Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner.

幾分鐘之後，Alice拋下了這個王國，開始和她的小弟弟玩起了假裝上學的遊戲。當她扮演他的“老師”指揮他幹這幹那的時候，她是在通過這種假扮行爲練習如何控制自己的情緒。再後來，等他們玩膩了這個遊戲，坐下來開始進行一局棋盤遊戲的時候，她是在學習瞭解：需要遵守規則並與搭檔交替出手。

‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.’

“玩耍嬉戲，以其各種各樣的豐富形式，是人類這個物種最偉大的成就之一，”英國劍橋大學教育系的David Whitebread博士這樣說。“它爲我們如何成長爲有智慧、能解決問題的成年人奠定了基礎，也對我們成功地成爲一個有着高度適應能力的物種起着至關重要的作用。

Recognising the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning have been developing since the 19th century.

對遊戲之重要性的認可並非什麼新鮮事：兩千多年以前，希臘哲學家柏拉圖(Plato)就熱烈讚美了它的好處，認爲它是爲成年生活開發各項技能的手段，而自從19世紀以來就不斷在發展出各種寓學習於遊戲的理念。

But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’he says. Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime, and by the emphasis on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools.

但我們生活在變化中的時代裏，而Whitebread注意到了玩耍這件事在全球範圍內的縮減，他指出：全世界有一半以上的人口現在居住在城市裏。“自由玩耍，我在童年裏幾乎每天都有機會體驗，現在卻正變得越來越稀缺，”他說道。戶外玩耍活動之所以被削減，是出於對交通事故風險的擔憂，以及家長們逐漸攀升的、保護自己孩子不受犯罪行爲侵害的願望，同時還由於當前對“更早就是更好”的強調，這導致了在學科學習和學校中更激烈的競爭。

International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play, and to consider implications for leisure facilities and educational programmes. But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on.

諸如聯合國和歐盟這樣的國際組織己經開始着手製定一些關注兒童遊戲權利的政策，並開始考慮這對休閒設施和教育項目所產生的連帶影響。但他們通常所缺少的是賴以制定各項政策的證據。

‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated, spontaneous and unpredictable - but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old “to play”, then you as the researcher have intervened,’ explains Dr Sara Baker. ‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is. It’s a real challenge.’

“我們所感興趣的那類遊戲是兒童自己開啓的、自發進行的和不可預測的——但是，一且你讓一個五歲大的孩子‘去玩兒吧’，那你作爲研究者就已經是進行了干預，”Sara Baker博士這樣解釋。“而我們想要了解遊戲的長線影響是什麼。這是個真正的挑戰。”

Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life.

Jenny Gibson博士表示同意並指出：雖然在遊戲究竟何等重要、以及爲什麼如此重要這個謎題中，有一些階段已經得到了審視研究，然而在它對兒童之後的人生究竟產生何種影響這個方面，還是數據寥寥。

Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker, Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role played by play in how a child develops.

現在，多虧了這所大學新成立的“教育發展學習型遊戲研究中心”(簡稱PEDAL)Whitebread、Baker、Gibson這些人和一支研究團隊希望能提供出證據，展示遊戲在一個兒童成長的過程中到底扮演何種角色。

‘A strong possibility is that play supports the early development of children’s self-control,’ explains Baker. ‘This is our ability to develop awareness of our own thinking processes — it influences how effectively we go about undertaking challenging activities.’

“存在這樣一種極大的可能性：遊戲助力了兒童自我控制的早期發展階段，”Baker解釋說。“這種能力使我們有意識地關注自我的思考過程一一它影響到了我們能多有效率地去從事各種富於挑戰的活動。

In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers and young pre-schoolers, she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific reasoning. ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problem-solvers in the long run.’

Baker博士在一項對幼兒和學齡前兒童展開的研究中發現：在探索一個需要引入科學分析的陌生領域時，有着更強自控力的兒童能更快地解決問題。“這類證據令我們確信，給予兒童嬉戲玩耍的機會從更長遠來看將會讓他們成長爲更成功的問題解決者。”

If playful experiences do facilitate this aspect of development, say the researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational practices, because the ability to self-regulate has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance.

研究者們認爲，如果遊戲體驗確實能促進這個方面的發展，這對於教育領域該如何舉動來說就是極度重要的，因爲已經有證據證明：自我管控能力是學業成就高低的一個關鍵性預示因素。

Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator of healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I investigated how observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’

Gibson補充說：“遊戲行爲還是健康的社交和情感發展的一個重要指標。在先前的研究中，我曾瞭解過觀察遊戲中的兒童如何可以爲我們提供重要線索，從而看出他們是否處在良好的成長狀態，甚至還能爲診斷出例如自閉症這樣的神經發展失調問題提供幫助。”

劍橋雅思14test1閱讀passage1答案解析

Question 1

答案：creativity

關鍵詞：magical kingdom, help

定位原文：原文第1段，Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom. … Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life.

解題思路：選擇magical kingdom和help作爲關鍵詞，空格做develop的賓語，所以可知是名詞，句意問的是“幫助發展…”。回到原位定位第1段。第一段後半部分說到，由helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity可知，幫助她發展的是capacity for creativity，填一個名詞，選擇creativity，創造力。

Question 2

答案：rules

關鍵詞：board games, turn-taking

定位原文：原文第2段，Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner.

解題思路：利用board games及turn-taking可以直接定位到原文第2段最後一句。由題幹可知，空格做involve的賓語，並且和turn-taking構成並列關係。在定位句中，turn-taking換成了take turns，與take turns構成並列關係的是follow rules，由於我們的答案只能寫一個詞，所以involve和follow構成替換關係，答案爲rules。

Question 3

答案：cities

關鍵詞：changes, populations

定位原文：原文第5段，But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities.

解題思路：利用changes定位到原文第5段的changing times。題幹中問的是“…的人口增長了”，所以進一步利用populations定位，空格做of的賓語，是名詞或動名詞。在定位句中，populations換成了people，句中說的是“世界上超過半數的人口現在生活在城市中”，由此可知，是“城市的人口增長了”。

Question 4

答案：traffic

關鍵詞：opportunities, fear

定位原文：原文第5段，‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’ he says. Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, …

解題思路：根據填空題的順序性，利用opportunities可以確定大致定位。題幹中的limited替換原文的curtailed(縮減)，fear替換原文的risk，所以fear(害怕)的是traffic。

Question 5

答案：crime

關鍵詞：fear, 並列關係

定位原文：原文第5段，Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime, …

解題思路：承接第四題，第五題問的也是fear(害怕)什麼，答案位於of後面，同樣是一個名詞或動名詞，且和上一題的traffic構成並列關係。原文定位句中，as well as表示並列關係，後面的句子中，說到“家長越來越希望保護孩子免受犯罪行爲侵害”，所以，fear(害怕)的應該是犯罪行爲，即原文中的crime。

Question 6

答案：competition

關鍵詞：increased, schools

定位原文：原文第5段，… and by the emphasis on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools.

解題思路：題幹問到“學校裏增加的…”，需要一個名詞。承接第四題和第五題，第六題信息與traffic及crime構成並列關係。在原文中，and的後面爲答案所在的部分，其中，題幹中的increased換成了greater，所以答案爲competition。

Question 7

答案：evidence

關鍵詞：international policies, difficult

定位原文：原文第6段，International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play, … But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on.

解題思路：利用international policies定位文章文章第6段，原文中替換成了international bodies，題幹中空格做find的賓語，所以是名詞。句意爲，“很難找到…來支持新政策”，回到文章中，對應but 轉折之後，lack(缺乏)替換了“difficult to find”，所以缺少的是evidence。

Question 8

答案：life

關鍵詞：impact, rest

定位原文：原文第7-8段，‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is. … Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life.

解題思路：題幹問的是，“調查需要研究玩耍對於孩子們餘下的…的影響”空格處需要一個名詞。impact在第7段和第8段各出現了一次，第7段的impact大致說明了research的內容，第8段的impact具體說到“the impact it has on the child’s later life”，所以題幹中的rest相當於原文中的later，空格答案爲life。

Question 9

答案：TRUE

關鍵詞：children, self-control

定位原文：原文第11段，…she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific reasoning. ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problem-solvers in the long run.’

解題思路：利用children和self-control定位到原文第11段，題幹中的good self-control替換成了greater self-control。從定位句中可以看出，自控力更強的孩子處理問題會更快，引號中的句子進一步說明，in the long run(長期來看)，這會使得孩子們更成功地解決問題。這層意思與題幹中說到的，“自控力很強的孩子可能在之後的校園生活中表現更好”，是基本吻合的，所以答案選擇TRUE。