The study of a foreign language affects academic areas as well.

Research has shown that children who have studied a foreign language in

elementary school achieve lower scores on standardized tests in reading, 【M1】________

language arts, and mathematics than those who have not. The results of

the Louisiana Report on foreign language and basic skills show that

regardless their race, sex, or academic level, students in foreign 【M2】_________

language classes outperformed those who were not learning a foreign

language. Foreign language study has also been shown to enhance

listening skills and memory, and the development of second language

skills can attribute a significant additional dimension to the concept of 【M3】_________

communication. Furthermore, students who have studied a foreign

language develop greater cognitive skills in such areas as in mental 【M4】_________

flexibility, creativity, and higher order thinking skills.

Data from the Admissions Testing Program of the College Board

show a negative correlation between SAT scores and the study of a 【M5】_________

foreign language. Verbal scores of students increased with each

additional year of language study.Interesting,the verbal scores of 【M6】_________

students who had completed four or five years of foreign language study

were higher than the verbal scores of students who had taken four or

five years of any other subjects.

As noted earlier, the knowledge of other languages will be a

valuable asset in the workplace of tomorrow. Workers will be called

upon to cooperate with colleagues in other countries, crossed time zones, 【M7】_________

languages, and cultures. One must not assume that language learning is

quick and painlessly. To truly learn a language,one must have the 【M8】_________

opportunity to learn earlier. Neurobiologist Carla Shatz believes that 【M9】_________

there are windows of opportunity for learning that open and

close throughout a person’s life. The implication is that if you miss

the window of opportunity for learning a particular skill or concept,

you are playing with handicap. 【M10】________

A customized, constantly-updating newspaper used to be the stuff of

science fiction. Now, thanks to tablet devices, there are several, such

as Livestand, a news app launched by Yahoo!, Editions, created by

AOL, and Flipboard, which Google tried to buy last year. These

corporate giants aim to cash with on the desperation of traditional news 【M1】________

publishers. A study last month by the Pew Research Center found that,

less than two years after the iPad went on sale, 11% of American adults

now own a tablet and more than half of this group read news on them 【M2】________

each day. They are more avidly news consumers than those without 【M3】________

tablets, and for long articles they prefer their tablets both to

ordinary computers and to print.

For news outlets facing dwindling print circulations and meagre

online advertising rates, this is glimmer of hope. Yet turning this 【M4】________

readership into avenue is tricky. Not all publishers can afford to build 【M5】________

their own tablet apps. For those that can, readers are somewhat ready 【M6】_________

to pay for subscriptions than on the web; advertising rates are six to ten

times higher than online. But it is not yet clear how many readers will

make the switch. And for publishers without an app, tablet users are just

like other web users: worth very little money.

Flipboard and its rivals let users create a personalized digital

magazine from a mix of sources, which can include magazines,

newspapers, blogs and articles posting by their contacts on Facebook or 【M7】_________

Twitter. On the web, similar “aggregator” sites have a bad name as

freeloaders where create no content of their own. And the app versions 【M8】_________

have been of dubious benefit thus far to publishers, which must provide

their stories free in turn for the vague hope of getting more readers. But 【M9】_________

compared with a website cluttered in with links and ads of low tastes, 【M10】________

the apps are clean, stylish and nice to use. And some have started

carrying glossy, high-end ads and sharing the revenue with publishers.

That large animals require a luxuriant vegetation, has been a

general assumption which has passed from one work to another; but I do

not hesitate to say that it is completely true, and that it has vitiated the 【M1】_________

reasoning of geologists on some points of great interest in the ancient

history of the world. The prejudice has been probably derived in India, 【M2】_________

and the Indian islands, which troops of elephants, noble forests, and 【M3】_________

impenetrable jungles, are associated together in every one’s mind. If,

therefore, we refer to any work of travels through the southern parts of 【M4】_________

Africa, we shall find illusions in almost every page either to the desert 【M5】_________

character of the country, nor to the numbers of large animals inhabiting 【M6】_________

it. The same thing is rendered evident by the many engravings which

have been published of various parts of the interior.

Dr. Andrew Smith, who has lately succeeded in passing the Tropic

of Capricorn, informs me that, taken into consideration the whole of 【M7】_________

the southern part of Africa, there can be no doubt of its being a sterile

country. On the southern coasts there are some fine forests, but without 【M8】_________

these exceptions, the traveler may pass for days together through open

plains, covered by a poor and scanty vegetation. Now, if we look to the

animals inhabiting this wide plains, we shall find their numbers 【M9】_________

extraordinarily great, and their bulk immense. We must enumerate the

elephant, three species of rhinoceros, the giraffe, two zebras, two

gnus, and several antelopes even larger than these latter animals. It may

be supposed that although the species are numerous, but the individuals 【M10】________

of each kind are few.