PsychologistGeorgeSpilichandworkmatesatWashingtonColl...

问题详情：

   Psychologist George Spilich and workmates 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 many tests.

   In the first test, each subject sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or she recognized a target letter among a group of 96 letters. In this simple test, active smokers, deprived smokers and non-smokers performed equally well.

   The next test was more complex, requiring all to look quickly at orders of 20 same letters and respond to the immediate one of the letters transformed into a different one. Non-smokers were faster, but under the encouragement of nicotine, 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, and 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 were not only likely to have poorer memories but also had trouble picking important information from unimportant details (细节).

   "As our tests became more complex," Spilich concludes, "non-smokers performed greatly better than smokers." He predicts, "Smokers might perform well enough at many jobs until they got complex. A smoking airline pilot could fly well enough if no problems appeared, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity (心智,智力)."

29. What's the purpose of George Spilich's experiment?

A. To show how smoking damages people's mental capacity.

B. To prove that smoking affects people's regular performance.

C. To find out whether smoking helps people's short-term memory.

D. To test whether smoking has a positive effect on the mental capacity of smokers.

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

A. check the effectiveness of nicotine on smokers

B. register the immediate responses of the subjects

C. put the subjects through increasingly complex tests

D. force the subjects to pick major information from details

31. The underlined word "bested" in Paragraph 5 most probably means"

A. lost             B. beat            C. hated               D. caught

32. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that_________.

A. no airline pilots smoke during flights

B. smoking in urgent cases causes mental illness

C. smokers should not expect to become airline pilots

D. smokers may prove unable to deal with urgent(紧急的) cases

【回答】

DCBD

知识点：*经济文化类阅读

题型：阅读理解