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  3. Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent ye

Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent ye

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问题    Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingual-ism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
   This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
   They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’ s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
   A collective evidence from a number of studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’ s so-called executive function—a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one tiling to another and holding information in mind, like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
   And the key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. "Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often, you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language," says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. "It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving." In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
Of the following points, which is NOT the characteristic of the brain’s so-called executive function?
选项 A、Executive function is a system that makes orders.
B、Executive function helps people concentrate on things.
C、Executive function deals with people’ s mental problems.
D、Executive function makes people store information in mind.
答案C
解析 细节题。根据题干关键词定位到文章第四段。A项意为“指令性功能是一个能下命令的系统”，makes orders是对该段第一句关键词command的同义替换，故正确。B项意为“指令性功能帮助人们集中注意力”，concentrate on是对该段最后一句stay focused的同义替换，故正确。D项意为“指令性功能使人们在头脑中储存信息”，其可在该段最后一句找到相关信息，即holding information in mind，故D项正确。C项意为“指令性功能解决人们的心理问题”，其在文中并未提到，因此错误，故本题选C。
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