单选题 The relentless march of technology into everyday life has always given rise to debate about whether it is a good or a bad thing. Some believe that the Internet and computer software are making humans more stupid or shallow. But others argue that computer programs in the form of video games can make people smarter or improve specific skills, such as spatial awareness.
Shawn Green and Alexandre Pouget, from the University of Rochester, in New York state, set out to find an answer. Their study, reported in Current Biology, involved a number of experiments. In one, the participants had to watch 12 dots moving randomly on a screen and quickly assess their aggregate direction of movement. Another test asked participants to work out the direction of specific sounds embedded within stereo white noise. In both tests the video-garners did better. However, the scientists were aware that gamers could have been born with improved abilities to perform such tasks, which were possibly what attracted them to gaming in the first place. Consequently, a third test was necessary to see if these abilities could have been learnt.
The non-gaming volunteers were put through 50 hours of video-game training. For some this involved playing fast-action shoot-em-up games such as "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament", but others were given a slow-moving life-strategy game, " The Sims 2". The researchers found that those trained with action games raised their performance to the level of the experienced garners. Moreover, they were more efficient in their use of visual or auditory evidence than those playing with the Sims.
The researchers conclude that fast action video-games players develop an enhanced sensitivity to what is going on around them and that this may help with activities such as multitasking, driving, reading small print, navigation and keeping track of friends or children in a crowd. The precise neural mechanism for this effect, however, is still unknown.
What is known is that people make decisions based on probabilities that are constantly being calculated and refined in their heads—something called "probabilistic inference". The brain collects small pieces of information, eventually gathering enough to make an accurate decision. When driving a car, for example, many probabilities will be collated to make decisions such as whether or not to brake. The more efficient someone is at collecting visual and auditory information, the faster he can reach the threshold needed to make a decision.
Shawn Green, Alexandre Pouget suggest that reaction times in the population will probably improve with the rise of fast-action video-games. There are a lot of players : last year a report estimated that 67% of American households contained at least one video-gamer. And if video-gamers are really better equipped to make quick decisions, they might also turn out to be better drivers and end up in fewer accidents. However, the notion that gamers acquire some minor physical skills may not pacify concerned parents. What, after all, of the skills they are not acquiring when shooting virtual cops instead of reading or talking?

单选题 The problem of first two experiments lies in that ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】具体细节题
[解析] 科学家一共做了三个实验，想要证明玩游戏对于人的感知能力的提升有没有帮助。因为前两个实验存在一定的问题，才展开了第三项实验。第二段具体介绍了前两个实验。首先介绍了实验的经过，通过实验安排考察了受试者对方向和声音信息的敏感度。实验结果表明，游戏玩家在这两方面都更胜一筹。但是转折词However后面这句话却指出，游戏玩家虽然表现出色，但是无法判断他们这种能力到底是天生的还是后天通过游戏锻炼的，因此这两个实验并没有得出能够验证科学家设想的结论，实验失败。[B]正确。[A]纯属臆断。[C]错误，这两个实验考察的是受试者的方向和听觉敏感度，是相关技能，并非无关技能。[D]错误，因为实验本身设计逻辑存在漏洞，即使将游戏玩家和非游戏玩家分开进行实验，实验结果仍然是无法确定的。

单选题 The conclusion drawn by researchers is that ______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】具体细节题
[解析] 这里研究人员的结论毫无疑问指的是第三次实验的结论。文章第四段明确提到，实验的结论是玩快速动作游戏能够提升人们对周围环境的感知能力，而这种感知能力的增强有可能会提升他们某方面的技能。因此[C]是正确的，这里的sensory information是对visual and auditory information的概括。[A]本身的说法并没有错误，“玩游戏的技巧可以通过练习提高”，但是这并不是研究人员最终得到的结论，属无关信息。[B]错误。全文必须要明确的一点是，虽然玩快速动作游戏能够提升人们某些动作感知方面的技能，但是并不意味着使人变得更聪明。本文的实验并不足以反驳第一段提出的“计算机程序使人变笨”的论调。[B]属过度引申。[C]迷惑性很强，注意第三次实验中特别区分了快速动作游戏和慢速战略性游戏的区别，只有前者才能使人们的感知能力明显增强。因此[C]偷梁换柱，把“快速动作游戏玩家”换成“游戏玩家”。

单选题 According to Paragraph 5, people make decisions based on ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】具体细节题
[解析] 第五段就为什么感知能力增强能提升某些技能作出了科学的解释。人们的决定是基于脑海中一种被称作“概率演算”的过程作出的。所谓的概率演算，实际上包含两个过程，第一是大脑从周围环境中搜集各种各样的信息片段，第二是根据这些信息对事件演变概率作出计算推断，从而作出准确的决定。因此光有感知信息还不够，更重要的是对这些信息的加工处理。[A]不全面，[B]准确。[C]偷换概念，原文使用的probability指的是概率，某一个行为可能引发的各种结果的概率，而这里的possibility of an event，指的是某一种事情发生的可能性，概念不同。[D]是根据原文捏造的选项，与题干无关。