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32题答案是（ ）
A、use
B、spread
C、cover
D、connection
【正确答案】：B
【题目解析】：第32题考查的是对上下文语境的理解和词汇的准确运用。 首先，我们来看这个句子的整体语境：“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 and television networks of many 33.” 句子中列举了几个英语被广泛使用的场合，包括气象和机场通讯、国际会议以及通过广播和电视网络的信息传播。 接着，我们逐项考察选项： A. use，意为“使用”，虽然与句子主题相关，但在这里重复使用会使句子显得冗余，因为前文已经提到了“used for”这个词组。 B. spread，意为“传播”，与“information”搭配得当，表示信息的传播，符合句子中描述的通过广播和电视网络传播信息的语境。 C. cover，意为“覆盖”，通常用于表示范围或领域的覆盖，不太适用于描述信息的传播。 D. connection，意为“连接”，与句子中的语境不符，因为这里讨论的是信息的传播，而不是连接。 综上所述，选项B“spread”最符合句子语境和词汇搭配的要求，因此是正确答案。