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  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

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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 bilingual-ism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns 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 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 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.
    A collective evidence from a number of 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.
    And 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 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 passage mainly talks about________.
选项 A、the difference between bilinguals and monolinguals
B、a different view on bilingualism
C、the explanation why bilinguals are smarter
D、the advantage of being a bilingual
答案C
解析 主旨题。A项意为“拥有双语和单语的区别”，文章有所提及，但只是一方面。B项意为“对双语现象的不同看法”，文章第一段有所提及，认为“有双语能力可让你更聪明”，其属于不同看法，但文章全篇是在用科学的方法解释说明双语为什么让人更聪明，显然B项太片面。D项意为“关于拥有双语的优势”，其只是文章的一方面。C项意为“解释拥有双语能力的人为什么聪明”，符合题意。故本题选C。
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