Thenumber of speakers of English in Shakespeare′s time is estima

Thenumber of speakers of English in Shakespeare′s time is estimated to have beenabout five million.Today it is estimated that some 260 million people speak itas a(an)21?language,mainlyin the United States,Canada,Great Britain,Ireland,South Africa,Australiaand New Zealand.In addition to the standard varieties of English found inthese areas,22?are a greatmany regional and social varieties of the language as well as?23?levels of usage that are employedboth in its spoken and written forms. In fact,it is?24?to estimate the numberof people in the world who have acquired an adequate working knowledge ofEnglish in addition to their own languages.The?25?for English learningand the situations in which such learning takes place are so varied that itis 26 to explain and still moredifficult to judge?27?forms an adequateworking knowledge for each situation. The main reason forthe widespread?28?for English is its present dayimportance as a world language.Besides 29 the indefinite needs of its nativespeakers,English is a language in which some of important works inscience,technology,and other?30 are beingproduced,and not always by native speakers.It is widely used for 31 purposes as meteorological(气象的)and airport communications,international conferences,and the?32?of information over the radio andtelevision networks of many?33.It is a language of widercommunication for a number of developing countries,specially former Britishcolonies.Many of these countries have multilingual?34.and need a language for internalcommunication in such matters as government,commerce,industry,,law and 35 as well as for internationalcommunication and for entrance to the scientific and techno-logicaldevelopments in the West. 第24题答案是（ ）
A、possible
B、necessary
C、unnecessary
D、impossible
【正确答案】：D
【题目解析】：在给出的段落中，第24题所在的句子是“In fact, it is ____ to estimate the number of people in the world who have acquired an adequate working knowledge of English in addition to their own languages.”（事实上，要估计世界上除了自己的语言外还掌握了足够工作知识的英语人数是____的。） 分析这个句子，我们可以发现它是在讨论估算掌握英语人数的难度。考虑到英语作为世界语言的普及程度，以及人们可能通过不同途径和方式学习英语，使得准确估计掌握英语的人数变得复杂和困难。 现在我们来分析选项： A. possible - 可能的。这个选项意味着估算人数是可行的，但考虑到英语使用的广泛性和多样性，这个选项可能并不准确。 B. necessary - 必要的。这个选项与句子要表达的意思不符，因为句子是在讨论是否可能进行某种估算，而不是这种估算是否必要。 C. unnecessary - 不必要的。同样，这个选项也不符合句子的语境，因为句子并没有讨论这种估算是否多余或不必要。 D. impossible - 不可能的。这个选项符合句子的语境，因为考虑到英语使用的广泛性和多样性，以及掌握英语程度的不同，要准确估计掌握英语的人数确实是困难的，甚至可能是不可能的。 因此，根据上下文和句子要表达的意思，最合适的答案是D，即“不可能的”。所以答案是D。