Question

If you want to stay young, sit down and have a good think. This is the research finding of a team of Japanese doctors, who say that most of our brains are not getting enough exercise and, as a result, we are growing old unnecessarily soon.

       Professor Taiju Matsuzawa wanted to find out why quite healthy farmers in northern Japan appeared to be losing their ability to think and reason at a rather early age, and how the speed of getting old could be slowed down.

       With a team of researchers at Tokyo National University, he set about measuring brain volumes of a thousand people of different ages with different jobs.

       Computer technology helped the researchers to get most exact measurements of the volume of the front and side part of the brain, which have something to do with intellect and feelings, and decide the human character. As we all know, the back part of the brain, which controls tasks like eating and breathing, does not contract with age.

       Contraction of front and side parts—as cells die off—was seen in some people in their thirties but it was still not found in some sixty and seventy-year-old.

       Matsuzawa concluded from his test that there is a simple way to prevent the contraction using the head.

       The findings show that contraction of the brain begins sooner in people in the country than in the towns. Those with least possibility, says Matsuzawa, are lawyers, followed by university professors and doctors. White-collar workers doing the same work day after day in government offices are, however, as possible to have contraction brains as the farm workers, bus drivers and shop assistants.

1．What did the team of doctors want to find out?

A．How to make people live longer.

B．How to slow down the speed of getting old.

       C．The size of certain people’s brain.      

D．Which people are the most clever.

2．What are their research findings based on?

       A．An examination of farmers in northern Japan.

       B．Tests given on a thousand old people.

       C．Using computer technology.

       D．Examining the brain volumes of different people.

3．Which of the following are growing old earlier than people who live in the cities according to the passage.

       A．Farmers.            B．Office clerks.      C．Shop assistants. D．Bus drivers.

4．What’s the most possible conclusion of the passage?

       A．Most of us should take more exercise. 

       B．It’s better to live in the town.

       C．The brain contracts if it is not used.     

D．The more one uses his brain, the sooner he becomes older.

Answer 1

BDAC