（江西省瑞昌一中2010届高三上学期期中考试）

Advancing age means losing your hair, your waistline and your memory，right ? Dana Denis is just 40 years old, but  36   she's worried about what she calls “my rolling mental blackouts” . “I try to remember something and I just blank out.” she says. You may  37   about these lapses, calling them “senior moments ”or blaming “early Alzheimer's (老年痴呆症)”. Is it an inescapable fact that the older you get, the  38   you remember? Well, sort of. But as time goes by, we tend to blame age   39   problems that are not necessarily age-related.
　“When a teenager can't find her keys, she thinks it's because she's distracted or disorganized”, says Paul Gold. “A 70-year-old blames her  40   ”. In fact，the 70-year-old may have been   41  things for decades.
　In healthy people, memory doesn't worsen as  42    as many of us think. “As we  43   , the memory mechanism isn't  44   ”, says psychologist Fergus Craik. “It's just inefficient”.
　The brain's processing speed  45  over the years，though no one knows exactly   46  . Recent research suggests that nerve cells lose efficiency    47   there's less activity in the brain. But, cautions Barry Gordon, “It's not clear that less activity is  48   . A beginning athlete is winded（气喘吁吁）more__49__than a senior athlete. In the same way,   50  the brain gets more skilled at a task, it expends less energy on it.”
　There are  51  you can take to compensate for normal slippage in your memory, though it  52   effort. Margaret Sewell says “We're a quick-fix culture, but you have to  53   to keep your brain  54   . It's like having a good body. You can't go to the gym once a year  55  expect to stay in top form”.

    36. A. almost              B. seldom                  C. already                 D. never

    37. A. joke                B. laugh                    C. blame                 D. criticize

    38. A. much               B. little                     C. more             D. less

    39. A. since              B. for                     C. by               D. because

    40. A. memory                   B. mind                     C. trouble            D. health

    41. A. organizing           B. misplacing                C. putting             D. finding

    42. A. rapidly              B. frequently                C. timely              D. quickly

    43. A. mature              B. progress                C. age                D. grow

    44. A. broken              B. poor                    C. perfect                 D. working

    45. A. falls down          B. slows down            C. sets down            D. turns down

    46. A. why                B. how                    C. what                   D. when

    47. A. although           B. so                     C. since                   D. that

    48. A. irregular             B. better                    C. normal                 D. worse

    49. A. difficultly            B. easily                    C. common                D. fast

    50. A. as                  B. till                      C. though                 D. yet

    51. A. stages             B. steps                    C. advantages              D. purposes

    52. A. tries                B. takes                    C. does                    D. spends

    53. A. rest               B. come                   C. work                   D. study

    54. A. in peace            B. in detail               C. in fashion             D. in shape

    55. A. so                B. or                      C. and                     D. if