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题型:阅读理解-阅读单选 难度:0.85 引用次数:750 题号:349851
If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven’t you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?
According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter. This is the area of the brain which processes(处理) information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles(肌肉).
The study also found the effect is greater when the younger people learn a second language. A team led by Dr. Andrea Mechelli, from University College London, took a group of Britons who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of “early bilinguals” who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners. Scans showed that grey matter density (密度) in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference.“Our findings suggest that the structure(结构)of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language,” said the scientists.
It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn. Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales, has researched the link between bilingualism and maths skills. “Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible (灵活的),” he said. “You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas.”
The findings had the same result in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and thirty-four. Reading, writing, and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. “Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world,” explained the scientists.
1. The main idea of this passage is ________.
A.science on learning a second language
B.man’s ability of learning a second language
C.that language can help brain power
D.language learning and maths study
2. The underlined word “bilingual” probably means _______.
A.a researcher on language learning
B.a second language learner
C.a person who can speak two languages
D.an active language learner
3. We may know from the scientific findings that ________.
A.the earlier you start to learn a second language, the higher the grey matter density is
B.there is no difference between a later second language learner and one who doesn’t know a second language
C.the experience of learning a second language has bad effect on people’s brain
D.the ability of learning a second language is changing all the time
4. In the last two paragraphs, the author wants to tell us that _________.
A.learning a second language is the same as studying maths
B.early learning of a second language helps you a great deal in studying other subjects
C.Italian is the best choice for you as a second language
D.you’d better choose the ages between 2 and 34 to learn a second language
10-11高一上·四川乐山·阶段练习 查看更多[6]

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People usually don't engage in confirmation bias on purpose.    2     For example, if you heard that a politician you support was caught in a scandal(丑闻), you might be more likely to believe explanations that make them look less guilty. Meanwhile, people who dislike that politician would probably be more likely to believe stories that make them look worse.

So what can we do to avoid confirmation bias?     3     This can help us check if we only believe certain things because we never seriously considered other possibilities. It's also easy to surround ourselves with an “echo chamber” of people who think the same way we do—especially on social media.    4     It can help us understand that there may be other ways to see the same issue.

And perhaps most importantly: we have to be careful not to jump to conclusions.    5     We should try to learn more before deciding how we feel about something, even if it's very important to us. But that's often easier said than done.

A.The thing we most want to believe might not actually be true.
B.But research has found that it is real and affects our judgment.
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D.Research has shown that confirmation bias occurs in several contexts.
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名校
文章大意:本文是一篇说明文。主要介绍了相关人士对于Stephen Jay认为“人类在4万年或5万年内没有任何生物变化。我们用同样的身体和大脑构建了一切,即所谓的文化和文明”这一言论持不同的看法。

【推荐2】In 2000, famed evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould said, “There’s been no biological change in humans in 40,000 or 50,000 years. We’ve built everything we call culture and civilization with the same body and brain. Now, 22 years later, most evolutionary biologists beg to differ. Natural selection is still operating on humans, they say and they have evidence to back up the claim.

Sarah Tishkoff, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, cites an example of natural selection still going on today. Some people have a genetic variant that protects them from malaria, which infects and kills millions of people every day. These people will be more likely to live and pass on that variant to their children.

Scientists have been able to discover many examples of ongoing natural selection thanks to a technology: the ability to sequence the human genome quickly and inexpensively. But not all the tools that uncover such evidence are so high tech. Church records that list births, marriages, and deaths offer a unique window into evolution on a population.

Scott Solomon, an evolutionary biologist at Rice University, dug into this type of data and found that natural selection favors an earlier start to reproduction — in other words, more time to have children. The more children, the more chances are for evolution.

There’s another important actor in this evolutionary play: culture. When people move from one population to another, they take their genes with them, and that changes the genes in both the populations they leave and the ones they join. “That is actually one of the most important systems for modern human evolution,” Scott says. “In the last couple of hundred years, and certainly in the last century, human populations have been mixing like never before.”

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【推荐3】Reading is a complex and crucial skill that impacts the youth’s ability to perform as students. Therefore, it’s important to develop reading skills during childhood. A team of researchers focused on the effect of whole-body learning in instruction, known as embodied learning.

The research included 149 children, aged 5 to 6, who had just started school. They were divided into three groups: one that stood up and used their whole bodies to shape letter sounds; a seated group that shaped letter sounds with their hands and arms; and a control group that received traditional, seated instruction during which they wrote letters by hand.

“Our research showed that children who used their whole bodies to shape the sounds of letters became twice as proficient (熟练的) at letter sounds that are more difficult to learn as those who received traditional instruction,” says PhD student Linn Damsgaard of UCPH’s Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports.

With regard to difficult letter sounds, she adds, “There are many difficult letter sounds in Danish. These sounds are particularly important because once children become proficient at them, they will be better readers.”

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