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  3. The greatest devastation of old age is the loss of mental faculties, and with the near doubling of life expectancy in the past c

The greatest devastation of old age is the loss of mental faculties, and with the near doubling of life expectancy in the past c

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问题     The greatest devastation of old age is the loss of mental faculties, and with the near doubling of life expectancy in the past century has come the mixed blessing of living longer and losing more. A few great thinkers and artists remained productive in their later years—Galileo, Monet, Shaw, Stravinsky, Tolstoy—but even they were not what they had been in their primes. In science, the boom falls sooner still: "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so," said Einstein.
    Imagine if we could transplant old brains into younger bodies: would our minds stay young, or would we be senile teenagers, scaling mountains and skateboarding at 120, but forgetting where we put the car keys? Is the brain uniquely vulnerable to the ravages of time? Can anything be done?
    Incontrovertible evidence from many studies shows that a higher level of education and greater mental activity throughout life correlate with lower cognitive losses in old age. These benefits apply to all sorts of cognitive losses, including those associated with Alzheimer’s. Some researchers believe that mental application in early life produces complex neural connections that provide a reserve later on; others argue that education merely gives people the means to cope with and compensate for their losses.
    K. Warner Schaie, a professor of human development and psychology at Pennsylvania State University, has studied age-related change in more than 5,000 people, some for more than 40 years. Comparing earlier with later recruits, Mr. Schaie concludes that the rate of mental decline is slowing, a change he attributes to better education, healthier diet, lessened exposure to serious disease, and more mental activity. "You’ve got to practice," Mr. Schaie says. "If you don’t solve problems, you no longer can solve problems." Retirement can be particularly hard, he adds, because for many people, work is their most challenging activity. "Retirement is good for people who’ve had routine jobs—they may find something more stimulating. But it’s disadvantageous for people in high-level jobs, who are less likely to find something as stimulating as the job they had."
    K. Anders Ericsson, a psychology professor at Florida State University, confirms Mr. Schaie’s emphasis on the virtue of practice. Initially interested in expert performers like musicians, he found that many ostensible geniuses aren’t really so different from everyone else—they just practice harder and longer, benefiting from sheer labor, rather than from some special gift. Professional musicians who continue to practice assiduously as they age continue to play well, while amateurs who just play for pleasure show age-related declines.
    Mr. Ericsson’s studies failed to show significant generalized benefits from mental exercise. "If you play tennis, you improve your general fitness, but the greatest improvement is specific to tennis, not to other sports. It’s the same with cognitive exercise. You have to look at your life and pick what you want to improve."
In this text the author’s main intent is to______.
选项 A、underscore the difficulties related to aging
B、critique different theories of mental decline in old age
C、argue that old age need not be a barrier to great accomplishments
D、understand how people can counter the impacts of aging on mental faculties
答案B
解析 属主旨思想题。题目考查的是作者的主要目的。文章开篇就指出“老龄对人最大的破坏就是脑力的丧失……”，第二段提出相关问题，第三段总体介绍一些研究发现，第四、五段分别介绍了夏伊教授和埃里克森教授的研究，最后一段进行总结。全文中没有一个定论，各种相关的研究各有千秋。这正是选项B的内容(critique意为“批评，评论”)。选项A只是文中细节，不是作者的主要目的(其中underscore意为“强调”)；选项C与第一段内容相反；选项D只是第四段的内容，不能概括全文的目的。
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