阅读理解
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 non-smokers 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 (尼古丁), 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 ff 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】辨认事实题。本题询问乔治.斯皮里奇的实验的目的是什么。A项意为“测试吸烟是否对吸烟者的思维能力有正面的影响”；B项“表明吸烟怎样损害人们的思维能力”;C项证明吸烟影响人们正常的行为”：D项“查明吸烟是否能帮助人们的短时记忆”。由文章第一句话“…decided to find out whether，as many smokers say， smoking helps them to think and concentrate”，我们可以得知A项为正确答案。
单选题
George Spilich''s experiment was conducted in such a way as to ________.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】归纳推理题。本题询问乔治.斯皮里奇的实验是以哪种方式进行的。A项意为“强迫被试者将主要信息从次要细节中分离出来”B项“对被试者进行由易到难的测试”C项检测尼古丁对吸烟者的影响”；D项“记录被试者迅速的反应”。文中提到test，第一次为in this simple test，第二次为the next test was more complex，可见测试是由简单到复杂的，因此B项为正确答案。
单选题
The word "bested" ( Line 3, Para. 5) most probably means ________.
【答案解析】辨认事实题。本题询问下面的哪一个说法是正确的。A项意为“经常吸烟的人比不准吸烟的人大体表现得好一些”D项“经常吸烟的人比其他被试者的反应要快一些”；C项在完成简单的任务时，不吸烟者与其他被试者的表现差不多”；D项“不准抽烟的人对各种任务反应、最慢”。第2段最后1句提到，“In this simple test， smokers，deprived smokers and non-smokers performed equally well”，因此C项为正确答案。
单选题
We can infer from the last paragraph that ________.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】事实推理题。本题询问我们可以从最后一段推断出________。A项意为“吸烟者不能成为飞行员”；B项“在紧急情况下吸烟可导致心理疾病”C项飞行员在飞行过程中不吸烟”；D项吸烟者在处理紧急问题时是与其他人不同的”。文章最后一段提到，Smokers might perform adequately at many，jobs—until they got complicated． (吸烟者在做许多工作时可以表现得很好——直到它们变得复杂起来。)因此，D项为正确答案。