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1、2013海天教育英语四级深度阅读（主讲：赵南望）第一部分 外刊精读Text 1The greatest devastation of old age is the loss of mental faculties, and with the near doubling of life expectancy in the past century has come the mixed blessing of living longer and losing more. A few great thinkers and artists remained productive in their la
2、ter yearsGalileo, Monet, Shaw, Stravinsky, Tolstoybut even they were not what they had been in their primes. In science, the boom falls sooner still: “A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so,” said Einstein.Imagine if we could transplant old
3、brains into younger bodies: would our minds stay young, or would we be senile teenagers, scaling mountains and skateboarding at 120, but forgetting where we put the car keys? Is the brain uniquely vulnerable to the ravages of time? Can anything be done?Incontrovertible evidence from many studies sho
4、ws that a higher level of education and greater mental activity throughout life correlate with lower cognitive losses in old age. These benefits apply to all sorts of cognitive losses, including those associated with Alzheimers. Some researchers believe that mental application in early life produces
5、 complex neural connections that provide a reserve later on; others argue that education merely gives people the means to cope with and compensate for their losses.K. Warner Schaie, a professor of human development and psychology at Pennsylvania State University, has studied age-related change in mo
6、re than 5,000 people, some for more than 40 years. Comparing earlier with later recruits, Mr. Schaie concludes that the rate of mental decline is slowing, a change he attributes to better education, healthier diet, lessened exposure to serious disease, and more mental activity. “Youve got to practic
7、e,” Mr. Schaie says, “If you dont solve problems, you no longer can solve problems.” Retirement can be particularly hard, he adds, because for many people, work is their most challenging activity. “Retirement is good for people whove had routine jobsthey may find something more stimulating. But its
8、disadvantageous for people in high-level jobs, who are less likely to find something as stimulating as the job they had.”K. Anders Ericsson, a psychology professor at Florida State University, confirms Mr. Schaies emphasis on the virtue of practice. Initially interested in expert performers like mus
9、icians, he found that many ostensible geniuses arent really so different from everyone elsethey just practice harder and longer, benefiting from sheer labor, rather than from some special gift. Professional musicians who continue to practice assiduously as they age continue to play well, while amate
10、urs who just play for pleasure show age-related declines.Mr. Ericssons studies failed to show significant generalized benefits from mental exercise. “If you play tennis, you improve your general fitness, but the greatest improvement is specific to tennis, not to other sports. Its the same with cogni
11、tive exercise. You have to look at your life and pick what you want to improve.”Text 2Americans are proud of their economic system, believing it provides opportunities for all citizens to have good lives. Their faith is clouded, however, by the fact that poverty persists in many parts of the country
12、. Government anti-poverty efforts have made some progress but have not eradicated the problem. Similarly, periods of strong economic growth, which bring more jobs and higher wages, have helped reduce poverty but have not eliminated it entirely.The federal government defines a minimum amount of incom
13、e necessary for basic maintenance of a family of four. This amount may fluctuate depending on the cost of living and the location of the family. In 1998, a family of four with an annual income below $ 16,530 was classified as living in poverty.The percentage of people living below the poverty level
14、dropped from 22.4 percent in 1959 to 11.4 percent in 1978. But since then, it has fluctuated in a fairly narrow range. In 1998, it stood at 12.7 percent.What is more, the overall figures mask much more severe pockets of poverty. In 1998, more than one-quarter of all African-Americans (26.1 percent)
15、lived in poverty; though distressingly high, that figure did represent an improvement from 1979, when 31 percent of blacks were officially classified as poor, and it was the lowest poverty rate for this group since 1959. Families headed by single mothers are particularly susceptible to poverty. Part
16、ly as a result of this phenomenon, almost one in five children (18.9percent) was poor in 1997. The poverty rate was 36.7 percent among African-American children and 34.4 percent among Hispanic children.Some analysts have suggested that the official poverty figures overstate the real extent of poverty because they measure only cash income and exclude certain government assistance programs such as Food Stamps, health care, and public housin
