The exact number of English words is not known. The large dictionaries have over half a million entries, but many of these are c

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问题     The exact number of English words is not known. The large dictionaries have over half a million entries, but many of these are compound words (schoolroom, sugar bowl) or different derivatives of the same word (rare—rarely, rarefy), and a good many are obsolete words to help us read older literature. Dictionaries do not attempt to cover completely words that we can draw on the informal vocabulary, especially slang, localism, the terms of various occupations and professions; words used only occasionally by scientists and specialists in many fields; foreign words borrowed for use in English; or many new words or new senses of words that come into use every year and that may or may not be used long enough to warrant being included. It would be conservative to say that there are over a million English words that any of us might meet in our listening and reading and that we may draw on in our speaking and writing.
    Professor Seashore concluded that first-graders enter school with at least 24,000 words and add 5,000 each year so that they leave high school with at least 80,000. These figures are for recognition vocabulary, the words we understand when we read or hear them. Our active vocabulary, the words we use in speaking and writing, is considerably smaller.
    You cannot always produce a word exactly when you want it. But consciously using the words you recognize in reading will help get them into your active vocabulary. Occasionally in your reading pay particular attention to these words, especially when the subject is one that you might well write or talk about. Underline or make a list of words that you feel a need for and look up the less familiar ones in a dictionary. And then before very long find a way to use some of them. Once you know how they are pronounced and what they stand for, you can safely use them.
According to the author’s estimation, there are________words in English.

选项 A、more than half a million
B、at least 24,000
C、at least 80,000
D、more than a million

答案D

解析 第一段最后一句“It would be conservative to say that there are over a million English words that any of us might meet in our listening and reading and that we may draw on in our speaking and writing.”。本题为细节题。根据定位句,保守估计,我们在听说读写各方面可能会遇到的英语单词超过一百万个。从这一句我们可以看出D项“一百万多个”是正确的。而B项是指高中毕业生的词汇量,C项是指一年级学生的词汇量。故选D。
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