Passage 9 （江西省瑞昌一中2010届高三上学期期中考试） 完形填空

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

答案  36-40 CADBA  41-45 BDCAB  46-50 ABDBA   51-55 BBCDC