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  3. The number of speakers of English in Shakespeare’s time is estimated to have been about five million. Today it is estimated that

The number of speakers of English in Shakespeare’s time is estimated to have been about five million. Today it is estimated that

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问题     The number of speakers of English in Shakespeare’s time is estimated to have been about five million. Today it is estimated that some 260 million people speak it as a native language, mainly in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In addition to the standard varieties of English found in these areas, there are a great many regional and social varieties of the language, as well as various levels of usage that are employed both in its spoken and written forms.
    It is virtually impossible to estimate the number of people in the world who have acquired an adequate working knowledge of English in addition to their own language. The purposes for which English is learned and the situations in which such learning takes place are so varied that it is difficult to define and still more difficult to assess what constitutes an adequate working knowledge for each situation.
    The main reason for the widespread demand for English is its present-day importance as a world language. Besides serving the infinite needs of its native speakers, English is a language in which some of the most important works in science, technology, and other fields are being produced, and not always by native speakers. It is widely used for such purposes as meteorological and airport communications, international conferences, and the dissemination (传播) of information over the radio and television networks of many nations. It is a language of wider communication for a number of developing countries, especially former British colonies. Many of these countries have multilingual populations and need a language for internal communication in such matters as government, commerce industry, law and education as well as for international communication and for access to the scientific and technological development in the West.
According to this passage, the English language might be used _____.
选项 A、for only one reason that English is becoming an international language
B、mainly by people from the American continent and the European continent
C、as an official language in an international conference on the American culture
D、in science and technology as well as in cultural and historical studies of all countries
答案C
解析 C可以通过文章第1段和第3段的内容得出推论。第3段第1句话表明A是不全面的，第1段第2句表明B是错误的，D中关于cultural and historical studies of all countries的信息在文中没有出现。
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