【考试宝典】2014年职称英语备考资料：阅读理解例题精讲两篇.doc

【考试宝典】2014年职称英语备考资料：阅读理解例题精讲两篇 Declining Interest in Developing Foreign Language Skills 1. Australia抯 foreign language skills are declining, voice of America has reported. New figures show that only 13 percent of high school graduates can speak a foreign language. But four decades ago, 40 percent had foreign language skills. 2. Professor Elise Tipton, from the University of Sydney, says increasingly students do not feel the need to learn another language to boost their career. She believes that Australia抯 economic boom, which is driven by red-hot demand for its minerals, is helping mask serious deficiencies in its language skills. 3. Australia does business very successfully in English with most of its trading partners. But as the world抯 economic power shifts to emerging regions such as Asia, its language gap could soon be exposed. According to the new figures, less than 6.5 percent of high school graduates iare proficient in an Asian language. Academics worry that this means Australia will increasingly be isolated from its economically important Asian neighbors. Dilip Dutta, from the economics and business faculty at Sydney University, says language skills can enhance trading opportunities. If Australians want to trade with Asian countries, it is very important for them to learn the language that will help them to get closer to the culture. 4. But students have different opinions about Asian language learning Pippa McCowage, a 22-year-old Australian student, says many young Australians have a half-hearted approach to foreign languages, and the language curriculum is often weak. 揥hile we抮e encouraged in high school to learn another language, it抯 not really apparent to me as a realistic expectation that you will have to speak it,?said McCowage. 揊or example, I learned Japanese in high school, when I went on an exchange in Year 10, I found that the Japanese students of my age had a much greater proficiency in English than I did in Japanese. So in that sense, it