2018年英語四級閱讀理解題庫：測試吸煙

　　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 (被剝奪) of cigarettes through a series of tests. In the first test, each subject (試驗對象) 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 nonsmokers 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 al so 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 per form adequately at many jobs-until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly adequately if no problems arose, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity.”

　　這是一篇說明文，講的是關于測試吸煙是否有助于思考和集中精力的實驗。

　　1. The purpose of George Spilich's experiments is _______.

　　A) to test whether smoking has a positive effect on the mental capacity of smokers

　　B) to show how smoking damages people's mental capacity

　　C) to prove that smoking affects people's regular performance

　　D) to find out whether smoking helps people's short-term memory

　　2. George Spilich's experiment was conducted in such a way as to _______.

　　A) compel the subjects to separate major information from minor details

　　B) put the subjects through increasingly complex tests

　　C) check the effectiveness of nicotine on smokers

　　D) register the prompt responses of the subjects

　　3. The word“bested”(Line 3, Para. 5) most probably means _______.

　　A) beat B) envied C) caught up with D) made the best of

　　4. Which of the following statements is true?

　　A) Active smokers in general performed better than deprived smokers.

　　B) Active smokers responded more quickly than the other subjects.

　　C) Non-smokers were not better than other subjects in performing simple tasks.

　　D) Deprived smokers gave the slowest responses to the various tasks.

　　5. We can infer from the last paragraph that _______.

　　A) smokers should not expect to become airline pilots

　　B) smoking in emergency cases causes mental illness

　　C) no airline pilots smoke during flights

　　D) smokers may prove unequal to handing emergency cases

　　參考答案及解析

　　1、[答案及分析]：[A]事實辨認題，依據是第1段的兩句話。

　　2、[答案及分析]：[B]本題問G有S的實驗是以下列哪 種方式進行的。文章第2段說the first test是simple test,第3段開頭說第2個實驗more complex，最后一段開頭說“隨著測試逐漸變得復雜，不吸煙的人越來越比吸煙者做得好”，由此可見,George Spilich進行這種測試時以由易到難的順序進行的。因而B項正確。

　　3、[答案及分析]：[A]詞義推斷題。我們可以看出該被要求推斷詞 義的詞所在的上下文意為：沒有被允許吸煙的人憂于那些在測試前片刻吸過煙的人。best在此句中是動詞，意思應該是“優(yōu)于、超過”。而四個選項的意思分別是：beat(擊敗，戰(zhàn)勝)catch up with(趕上)make the best of(充分利用)。可以看出,best和beat意思最為接近。

　　4、[答案及分析]：[C]根據第2段第2句可知C項正確：另外，根據倒數第2段的后兩句、第3段第2句可知A、B、D均不正確。

　　5、[答案及分析]：[D]與本題有關的信息在最后一段兩句：Spilich認為，吸煙者能勝任并不復雜的工作，但不能勝行復雜的任務。一個吸煙的飛行員不出現(xiàn)任何問題時能稱職也駕駛飛機飛行。但是一旦出現(xiàn)問題，吸煙就會損害他的大腦工作能力。