Passage 2
William Shakespeare described old age as “second childishness” —no teeth, no eyes, no taste. In the case of taste, he may, musically speaking, have been more perceptive than he realized. A paper in Neurology by Giovanni Frisoni and his colleagues at the National Centre for Research and Care of Alzheimer Disease in Italy, shows that frontotemporal dementia can affect musical desires in ways that suggest a regression, if not to infancy, then at least to a patient’s teens. Frontotemporal dementia, a disease usually found with old people, is caused, as its name suggests, by damage to the front and sides of the brain. These regions are concerned with speech, and with such “higher” functions as abstract thinking and judgment.
Two of such patients intrigued Dr. Frisoni. One was a 68-year-old lawyer, the other a 73-year-old housewife. Both had undamaged memories, but displayed the sorts of defect associated with frontotemporal dementia—a diagnosis that was confirmed by brain scanning.
About two years after he was first diagnosed, the lawyer, once a classical music lover who referred to pop music as “mere noise”, started listening to the Italian pop band “883”. As his command of language and his emotional attachments to friends and family deteriorated, he continued to listen to the band at full volume for many hours a day.The housewife had not even had the lawyer’s love of classical music, having never enjoyed music of any sort in the past. But about a year after her diagnosis she became very interested in the songs that her 11-year-old granddaughter was listening to.
This kind of change in musical taste was not seen in any of the Alzheimer’s patients, and thus appears to be specific to those with frontotemporal dementia. And other studies have remarked on how frontotemporal dementia patients sometimes gain new talents. Five sufferers who developed artistic abilities are known. And in another case, one woman with the disease suddenly started composing and singing country and western songs.
Dr. Frisoni speculates that the illness is causing people to develop a new attitude towards novel experiences. Previous studies of novelty-seeking behavior suggest that it is managed by the brain’s right frontal lobe(大脑右侧额叶). A predominance of the right over the left frontal lobe, caused by damage to the latter, might thus lead to a quest for new experience. Alternatively, the damage may have affected some specific nervous system that is needed to appreciate certain kinds of music. Whether that is a gain or a loss is a different matter. As Dr. Frisoni puts it in his article, there is no accounting for taste.
The writer quotes Shakespeare mainly to ________.
第一段第一句话莎士比亚把老年阶段比做“第二次孩子气”——没有牙， 视力差， 失去味觉。 接着整篇文章谈论了一种跟音乐品味有关的大脑疾病——额颞痴呆症。 由此可知， 作者引用莎士比亚的一句话只是为了引出后文， 即start discussion on a brain disease， 故选C。
The word “regression” in the 1st paragraph is best replaced by ________.
根据第一段最后一句“…if not to infancy, then at least to a patient’s teens.”可知额颞痴呆症可以在某种程度上引起音乐品味的退化， 即便不是退到婴儿期， 也至少会退到病人十几岁时， 故选A。
After contracting frontotemporal dementia, the 68-year-old lawyer ________.
根据第四段第一、 二句可知， 在这位68岁的律师患有额颞痴呆症后， 本来只热爱古典音乐而把流行音乐比作“纯粹噪音”的他开始听意大利流行乐队“883”的歌， 而且把音量放到最大， 每天持续听数小时， 可知他享受意大利流行音乐， 故选D。
Frontotemporal dementia is a disease ________.
根据第二段第三句“Both had undamaged memories, but displayed the sorts of defect ...”可知额颞痴呆症患者的记忆都没有受损， 选项A不符合文意。 根据第二段第一句可知， 额颞痴呆症是由大脑前部和侧面的损坏引起的， 而选项B表达的意思是额颞痴呆症会引起大脑某些部分的损毁， 与文章原意因果颠倒， 故错误。 根据第五段第一句可知， 阿尔茨海默氏病患并没有出现这种音乐品味的变化， 只是那些患有额颞痴呆的病患有这样的症状， 选项D所述额颞痴呆的症状与阿尔茨海默氏病症状相似的说法是错误的。 而根据第五段第二句可知， 有研究表明额颞痴呆症有可能使患者获得新的才能， 故选C。
Dr. Frisoni attributed the patients’ changing music taste to ________.
对应信息位于最后一段第四句： Alternatively， the damage ... to appreciate certain kinds of music（这一损伤可能选择性地影响了某些特定的、 用于欣赏某些音乐种类的神经系统） 。 D项为正确答案， 其他各项均与原文不符： A指“人类的猎奇渴望”， 只是抓住了原文中novel experiences一处进行发挥， 这显然不是病人改变音乐品味的原因。 B指“左侧大脑损伤”， 它具有一定的迷惑性， 但原文说的是(damage) to the latter,而latter指的则是前面所说的the left frontal lobe（左大脑前叶） ， 因此属于概念扩大； C指“由右大脑前页占主导转向左大脑前叶占主导”， 则正好与最后一段第三句前半部分的意思相反。