2. 外语
  3. Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits. In recent years, scientists have begun to show that

Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits. In recent years, scientists have begun to show that

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问题     Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits. In recent years, scientists have begun to show that being bilingual makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
    Researchers, educators and policy makers in 20 century considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development. There is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles. The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind—like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
    Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
    The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. "Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often, " says Albert Costa, a searcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. "It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving. "In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
    The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age, and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life.
The underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 means_________.
选项 A、this interference may help develop our brain
B、our brain will face more challenges from bilingual learning
C、bilingual experience could improve speaker’s comprehension
D、speaking two languages obstructs people’s memory of driving
答案A
解析 含义题。由题干关键词定位到文章第二段。前文表示第二语言会造成认知上的干扰，该句后的内容则指出这种干扰作用反而会带来益处，它迫使大脑解决内在矛盾，让大脑进行锻炼，增强认知技能。由此可知，双语能力表面上是一种干扰，实则大有裨益。故A项“这种干扰可能会有助于我们开发大脑”正确。B项“我们的大脑将面临双语学习带来的更多挑战”、C项“双语体验能提高说话者的理解能力”和D项“说两种语言会干扰人们开车时的记忆”均不符合题意。
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