2. 外语
  3. Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent ye

Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent ye

admin2014-05-25  51
问题    Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turned out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia(痴呆)in old age.
   This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
   They were not wrong about the interference: 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, researchers are finding out, 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 — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. 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? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than mono-linguals 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 — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language," says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompea 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 in completing monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were 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.
What is the role of Paragraph Four in relation to Paragraph Three?
选项 A、It provides counter evidence to Paragraph Three.
B、It offers another example of the role of interference.
C、It serves as a transitional paragraph in the passage.
D、It further illustrates the point in Paragraph Three.
答案D
解析 本题询问第4段与第3段之间的关系。第3段最后一句提出一个观点：语言间的相互干扰可让大脑得到锻炼，从而提高认知能力，第4段首句则引用研究结果，提出“使用双语的经验能提高大脑的执行力”，这两种说法是一致的。第4段的improves the brain’s．．．executive function与第3段末的strengthens its cognitivemuscles是顺承照应的关系，因此可将第4段看作是对第3段末观点的进一步详细论述，故D为答案。
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