单选题 All types of stress study, whether under laboratory or real-life situations, study mechanisms for increasing the arousal level of the brain.
The brain blood flow studies show that reciting the days of the week and months of the year increases blood flow in appropriate areas, whereas problem solving which demands intense concentration of a reasoning type produces much larger changes in the distribution of blood in the brain.
Between these basic studies of brain function and real-life situations there is still a considerable gap, but reasonable deduction seems possible to try and understand what happens to the brain. Life consists of a series of events which may be related to work or to our so-called leisure time. Work may be relatively automatic--as with typing, for instance. It requires intense concentration and repetition during the learning phase to establish a pattern in the brain. Then the typist"s fingers automatically move to hit the appropriate keys as she reads the words on the copy.
However, when she gets tired she makes mistakes much more frequently. To overcome this she has to raise her level of arousal and concentration but beyond a certain point the automatic is lost and thinking about hitting the keys leads to more mistakes.
Other jobs involve intense concentration such as holding bottles of wine up to a strong light and turning them upside down to look for particles of dirt falling down. This sounds quite easy but experience teaches that workers can do this for only about thirty minutes before they start making a mistake. This is partly because the number of occasions with dirt in the bottle is low and the arousal level, therefore, fails. Scientists have shown that devices to raise arousal level will increase the accuracy of looking for relatively rare events. A recent study of the effect of loss of sheep in young doctors showed that in tests involving a challenge to their medical judgment when short of sleep they raised their arousal level and became better at tests of grammatical reasoning as well.
单选题 According to the brain flow studies, problem solving ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】根据大脑血液流动研究,解决问题引起大脑血液分布的变化。选项B (problem solving causes changes in the distribution of blood in the brain)的意思与第二段中的句子“problem solving which demands intense concentration of a reasoning type produces much larger changes in the distribution of blood in the brain”意思相吻合。
单选题 The author believes that ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】作者认为:实验室的研究和现实生活中的情形之间的差距可以通过适当的推理来缩小。第三段的第一句表达的正是这个意思。
单选题 When a typist gets tired, ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】打字员疲劳时,她应当尽量增强自动性。第四段指出:打字员疲倦时,就会出更多的错,为了克服这一点,必须提高大脑的清醒程度和注意力,但是超过了某一个极限,这种自动性就会丧失,因此,考虑该击哪些键会造成更多的错误。
单选题 Examining bottles of wine is hard work because ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】检查酒瓶很费劲,因为大多数瓶子都没问题。第五段开头几句指出:其他的工作牵涉到注意力的高度集中,如把酒瓶子拿起来,放到光线很强的灯下,把瓶身颠倒过来,看酒液中是否有杂质沉淀下来,这件工作听起来容易,但经验表明,这件事工人们仅做半个小时就会出错,部分原因在于酒液中有杂质的几率很低,因此,清醒程度大打折扣。
单选题 According to the author, a key factor in the ability to reason is ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】根据作者的观点,推理能力的重要因素是受试者的清醒程度。第五段的后半段说:科学家们已经证明,提高清醒程度的手段将能够使人更准确地寻找比较罕见的事物。最近对年轻医生失眠的影响的研究表明:在对年轻医生失眠时的诊断力的挑战性测验中,他们提高了清醒程度,也更善于做语法推理测试题。