单选题 Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, decided to find out whether, as many smokers say, smoking helps them to "think and concentrate." Spilich put young non-smokers, active smokers and smokers deprived (被剥夺) of cigarettes through a series of tests.
In the first test, each subject (试验对象)sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, smokers, deprived smokers and nonsmokers performed equally well
The next test was more complex, requiring all to scan sequences of 20 identical letters and respond the instant one of the letters transformed into a different one. Non-smokers were faster, but under the stimulation of nicotine (居古丁), active smokers were faster than deprived smokers.
In the third test of short-term memory, non-smokers made the fewest errors, but deprived smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers.
The fourth test required people to read a passage, then answer questions about it. Non-smokers remembered 19 percent more of the most important information than active smokers, and deprived smokers bested those who had smoked a cigarette just before testing. Active smokers tended not only to have poorer memories but also had trouble separating important information from insignificant details.
"As our tests became more complex," sums up Spilich, "non-smokers performed better than smokers by wider and wider margins." He predicts, "Smokers might perform adequately at many jobs until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly adequately if no problems arose, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity./

单选题 The purpose of George Spilich's experiments is ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 参见文章第一段第二行。
单选题 George Spilich's experiment was conducted in such a way as to ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 依据文章第二段开头、第三段开头、第四段、第五段中的“The fourth test requires people to...”以及第六段中的“As our tests became more complex....”,可知测试项目越来越复杂。
单选题 The word "bested"(Line 3, Par
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 四个选项的意思分别为:A.“击败,战胜”;B. “妒忌”;C. “赶上”;D.“充分利用(机会和时间)”。该词出现的语境在第五段第二行。从该句的上下文可看出: non-smokers(不吸烟者)比active smokers表现好,deprived smokers要比测试前抽了一支烟的人表现好。
单选题 Which of the following statements is true?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 依据文章第二段第二行,在这个简单测试中,烟民、被剥夺抽烟权利的人和非吸烟者表现得一样好。说明:在从事简单任务时,非吸烟者并不比其他测试对象表现得更好。
单选题 We can infer from the Last paragraph that ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 依据文章第六段第四行可推论出:吸烟者在处理紧急事件时将被证明是不能胜任的。