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  3. When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a

When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a

admin2011-10-20  48
问题     When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit. The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, "Progress in Brain Research. "
    Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer’s disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans 65 and older. But for most aging adults, the authors say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful. "It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing," said Shelley H.  Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. "It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind. "
    For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it. When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students.
    "For the young people, it’s as if the distraction never happened," said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. "But for older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’ re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another. "
    Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real world, where it is not always clear what information is important, or will become important. A seemingly irrelevant point or suggestion in a memo can take on new meaning if the original plan changes.  Or extra details that stole your attention, like others’yawning and fidgeting, may help you assess the speaker’s real impact.
What can we infer form the last paragraph?
选项 A、Old people’s forgetfulness turns to be their advantages.
B、The meaning of a point in a memo is changing anytime.
C、Wide attention is actually valuable in daily life.
D、Extra details have impacts on one’s focus of attention
答案C
解析 此题考查基于原文多处细节的推理及理解句子之间关系的能力。本题看似考查最后一段，其实应该结合上一段内容，澄清such tendencies所指的内容——老年人更宽的注意广度，即对更多细节信息(包括干扰信息)的加工；如此一来，就解释清楚了本段主题句Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real world的含义：更宽的注意广度(甚至包括对干扰信息的加工)在现实生活中是一个很大的优势。抽象地说，是对老年人的注意广度给予了积极的评价，而C选项恰好对这个命题做了相应的总结。
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