Advancing age means losing your hair,
your waistline and your memory, right? Dana Denis is just 40 years old, but
{{U}}(21) {{/U}} she's worried about what she calls "my rolling mental
blackouts." "I try to remember something and I just blank out," she
says. You may{{U}} (22) {{/U}} about these lapses,
calling them "senior moments" or blaming "early Alzheimer's(老年痴呆症)." Is it an
inescapable fact that the older you get, the {{U}}(23) {{/U}} you
remember? Well, sort of. But as time goes by, we tend to blame age {{U}}(24)
{{/U}} problems that are not necessarily age-related. "When
a teenager can't find her keys, she thinks it's because she's distracted or
disorganized," says Paul Gold "A 70-year-old blames her {{U}}(25)
{{/U}}." In fact, the 70-year-old may have been {{U}}(26) {{/U}}
things for decades. In healthy people, memory doesn't worsen as
{{U}}(27) {{/U}} as many of us think. "As we {{U}}(28) {{/U}} ,
the memory mechanism isn't {{U}}(29) {{/U}}," says psychologist Fergus
Craik. "It's just inefficient." The brain's processing
{{U}}(30) {{/U}} slows down over the years, though no one knows exactly
{{U}}(31) {{/U}} Recent research suggests that nerve cells lose
efficiency and {{U}}(32) {{/U}} there's less activity in the brain. But,
cautions Barry Gordon, "It's not clear that less activity is {{U}}(33)
{{/U}} . A beginning athlete is winded(气喘吁吁) more easily than a
{{U}}(34) {{/U}} athlete. In the same way, {{U}}(35) {{/U}} the
brain gets more skilled at a task, it expends less energy on it.
There are {{U}}(36) {{/U}} you can take to compensate for normal
slippage in your memory gears, though it {{U}}(37) {{/U}} effort.
Margaret Sewell says: "We're a quick-fix culture, but you have to {{U}}(38)
{{/U}} to keep your brain {{U}}(39) {{/U}} shape. It's like having a
good body. You can't go to the gym once a year {{U}}(40) {{/U}} expect
to stay in top form."
【答案解析】此处的考点是对句式结构的正确理解。Recent research suggests that nerve cells lose efficiency and that there's less activity in the brain．这句话中suggests后面是一个并列宾语：suggest that…and that，其他选项连接均搭配不当，不合题意。
【答案解析】此处的考点是take steps to do sth．(采取措施做某事)。这句话的意思是：对记忆齿轮功能的正常下降你可采取一些补偿步骤。其他选项：A．stages舞台，阶段；C．advantages优势，有利条件；D．purposes目的，均不能与take形成恰当的搭配，因此选项B为正确答案。
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】此处的考点是动宾搭配take effort(费力)。这句话的意思是：尽管这样做很费力。容易相混淆的是选项A．make effort的意思是“尽力”，如：Make an effort to arrive promptly．尽力早些赶到。因此正确B。