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25题答案是（ ）
A、purpose
B、cause
C、effect
D、method
【正确答案】：A
【题目解析】：在文章第二段中，提到“The?25?for English learning and the situations in which such learning takes place are so varied that it is 26 to explain and still more difficult to judge?27?forms an adequate working knowledge for each situation.” 这句话明确提到了“English learning”的“purpose”（目的），并指出这种学习的目的和发生的情境是如此多样，以至于解释和判断何种形式构成了每种情境下的足够工作能力知识是非常困难的。 根据这个上下文，第25题询问的是英语学习的“purpose”，即目的。选项A“purpose”与文中的描述相符，因此是正确答案。选项B“cause”表示原因，选项C“effect”表示效果，选项D“method”表示方法，这三个选项都不符合文中的描述。 所以，正确答案是A. purpose。