People appear to be born to compute. The numerical skills of children develop so early and
Of course, the truth is not so simple. In this century, the work of cognitive psychologists has illuminated the subtle forms of daily learning on which intellectual progress depends. Children were observed as they slowly grasped or, as the case might be, bumped into—concepts that adults take for granted, as they refused, for instance, to concede that quantity is unchanged as water pours from a short stout glass into a tall thin one. Psychologists have since demonstrated that young children, when asked to count the pencils in a pile, readily report the number of blue or red pencils, but must be coaxed(说服)into finding the total. Such studies have suggested that the rudiments(基本原理)of mathematics are mastered gradually, and with effort. They have also suggested that the very concept of abstract numbers the idea of a oneness, a twoness, a threeness that applies to any class of objects and is prerequisite(先决条件)for doing anything more mathematically demanding than setting a table is itself far from innate.
After children have helped to set the table with impressive accuracy, they ______.
A.are able to help parents serve dishes
B.tend to do more complicated housework
C.are able to figure out the total pieces
D.can enter a second-grade mathematics class