2. 外语
  3. Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits. In recent years, scientists have begun to show that

Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits. In recent years, scientists have begun to show that

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问题    Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits. In recent years, scientists have begun to show that being bilingual 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.
   Researchers, educators and policy makers in 20 century considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’ s academic and intellectual development.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 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. The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’ s so-called executive function. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind—like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
   Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolin-guals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
   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, " says Albert Costa, a searcher 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.
   The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age, and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals is that______.
选项 A、the basic ability restrains two languages
B、they pay attention to the changes of their own conditions
C、bilinguals are more efficient and cautious
D、bilinguals are more sensitive to surroundings
答案D
解析 细节题。根据题干关键词定位到文章第四段，根据首句“而双语者和单语者的关键差别可能表现在更基本的层面上：监测环境的能力。”可知，双语者更能迅速敏锐感知周围环境的变化。故D项“双语者对环境更敏感”与原文相符。A项“约束两种语言的基本能力”并不是关键差别。B项“注意他们自身条件的变化”与文中“注重的是周围环境的变化”表述相悖。C项“双语者更有效率、更谨慎”，其中“更谨慎”并未在原文提及。故选D。
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