Questões de Vestibular Sobre inglês
Foram encontradas 6.336 questões
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - Vestibular 2013 - Primeiro Semestre - Grupos II e III |
Q1350704
Inglês
Texto associado
The following text refers to question
The sentence that properly fills in blank I in the text is
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - Vestibular 2013 - Primeiro Semestre - Grupos II e III |
Q1350703
Inglês
Texto associado
The following text refers to question:
According to the song review,
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - Vestibular 2013 - Primeiro Semestre - Grupos II e III |
Q1350702
Inglês
Texto associado
The following text refers to question:
The verb that properly fills in blank I in the text is
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - Vestibular 2013 - Primeiro Semestre - Grupos II e III |
Q1350701
Inglês
The sentence “Gates would often ask women at remote clinics what else
they needed” in the direct speech is
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - Vestibular 2013 - Primeiro Semestre - Grupos II e III |
Q1350700
Inglês
Which question below CANNOT be answered with information from the text?
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1343476
Inglês
Texto associado
The following advertisement refers to question.
The pronoun who in “80% of those who are blind don’t have to be” can be
replaced by
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1343475
Inglês
Texto associado
The following advertisement refers to question.
According to the ad,
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1343474
Inglês
Texto associado
Gustavo Dudamel is the Elvis of the orchestra world, and he has the sold-out concerts to prove it. Meet the L.A. Philharmonic conductor who’s bridging the generation gap – and saving classical music.
Dude Is a Rock Star
By Chris Lee
Meet the maestro called the savior of classical music. “The Dude,” as he’s come to be known, is widely hailed as “the rock-star conductor,” the classical world’s answer to Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson. The __( I )__ conductor is a __( II )__ figure in symphonic music, whose cultural influence belies his relatively young 31 years. With his __( III )__ mane of corkscrew curls, ecstatic podium presence, and unabashedly __( IV )__ interpretations of __( V )__ orchestral works, Dudamel has unleashed a flood of new interest in classical music, bridging the generation gap between pension-age high-culture appreciators and younger listeners.
And the show is just beginning. “The Mahler Project is immense,” says Deborah Borda, president and chief executive of the L.A. Phil. “When we planned it, I don’t think the two of us completely took in how big it would turn out to be.” It is the kind of bar-raising command performance that audiences have come to expect from the Venezuelan wunderkind – a musician who, whether taking on a Sibelius violin concerto or a Strauss symphony, makes a policy of raising the roof whenever he performs.
The grueling project also underscores Dudamel’s commitment to El Sistema – “The System” – Venezuela’s tough-love musical-outreach program for youth that made the conductor what he is and still counts him as its most forward face. “An orchestra is a model for an ideal global society – a symbol,” he says in his heavily accented English. “You have to create harmony. Everyone has to listen to each other, this large, complex group of people with different personalities that has to communicate. You have to have discipline. This is where The System works! The point is not to build better musicians. It’s to build better citizens, to see children building their lives from music.”
And the show is just beginning. “The Mahler Project is immense,” says Deborah Borda, president and chief executive of the L.A. Phil. “When we planned it, I don’t think the two of us completely took in how big it would turn out to be.” It is the kind of bar-raising command performance that audiences have come to expect from the Venezuelan wunderkind – a musician who, whether taking on a Sibelius violin concerto or a Strauss symphony, makes a policy of raising the roof whenever he performs.
The grueling project also underscores Dudamel’s commitment to El Sistema – “The System” – Venezuela’s tough-love musical-outreach program for youth that made the conductor what he is and still counts him as its most forward face. “An orchestra is a model for an ideal global society – a symbol,” he says in his heavily accented English. “You have to create harmony. Everyone has to listen to each other, this large, complex group of people with different personalities that has to communicate. You have to have discipline. This is where The System works! The point is not to build better musicians. It’s to build better citizens, to see children building their lives from music.”
Newsweek
The adjectives that properly fill in blanks I, II, III, IV and V, in the text, are:
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1343473
Inglês
Texto associado
Gustavo Dudamel is the Elvis of the orchestra world, and he has the sold-out concerts to prove it. Meet the L.A. Philharmonic conductor who’s bridging the generation gap – and saving classical music.
Dude Is a Rock Star
By Chris Lee
Meet the maestro called the savior of classical music. “The Dude,” as he’s come to be known, is widely hailed as “the rock-star conductor,” the classical world’s answer to Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson. The __( I )__ conductor is a __( II )__ figure in symphonic music, whose cultural influence belies his relatively young 31 years. With his __( III )__ mane of corkscrew curls, ecstatic podium presence, and unabashedly __( IV )__ interpretations of __( V )__ orchestral works, Dudamel has unleashed a flood of new interest in classical music, bridging the generation gap between pension-age high-culture appreciators and younger listeners.
And the show is just beginning. “The Mahler Project is immense,” says Deborah Borda, president and chief executive of the L.A. Phil. “When we planned it, I don’t think the two of us completely took in how big it would turn out to be.” It is the kind of bar-raising command performance that audiences have come to expect from the Venezuelan wunderkind – a musician who, whether taking on a Sibelius violin concerto or a Strauss symphony, makes a policy of raising the roof whenever he performs.
The grueling project also underscores Dudamel’s commitment to El Sistema – “The System” – Venezuela’s tough-love musical-outreach program for youth that made the conductor what he is and still counts him as its most forward face. “An orchestra is a model for an ideal global society – a symbol,” he says in his heavily accented English. “You have to create harmony. Everyone has to listen to each other, this large, complex group of people with different personalities that has to communicate. You have to have discipline. This is where The System works! The point is not to build better musicians. It’s to build better citizens, to see children building their lives from music.”
And the show is just beginning. “The Mahler Project is immense,” says Deborah Borda, president and chief executive of the L.A. Phil. “When we planned it, I don’t think the two of us completely took in how big it would turn out to be.” It is the kind of bar-raising command performance that audiences have come to expect from the Venezuelan wunderkind – a musician who, whether taking on a Sibelius violin concerto or a Strauss symphony, makes a policy of raising the roof whenever he performs.
The grueling project also underscores Dudamel’s commitment to El Sistema – “The System” – Venezuela’s tough-love musical-outreach program for youth that made the conductor what he is and still counts him as its most forward face. “An orchestra is a model for an ideal global society – a symbol,” he says in his heavily accented English. “You have to create harmony. Everyone has to listen to each other, this large, complex group of people with different personalities that has to communicate. You have to have discipline. This is where The System works! The point is not to build better musicians. It’s to build better citizens, to see children building their lives from music.”
Newsweek
According to the text, Gustavo Dudamel
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1343472
Inglês
Texto associado
www.linguee.com is a website where you can search for the translation of words and expressions from Portuguese into English or English into Portuguese. However, it is not a translation machine – every entry in its database bas been translated by people and all the translations are lifted from bilingual written texts available in the web. _____( I )_____. Since all the words and expressions are viewed in context (short paragraphs) you can check if the translation fits your personal context. It does not translate sentences; you might therefore have to simplify your search and key in words instead.
It is a very interesting tool to help both students and teachers expand their own range of the expression searched while enabling the simultaneous visualization of how the same expression translates differently in the varied contexts available.Braz-Tesol
The sentence that properly fills in blank I in the text is:
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1343471
Inglês
Texto associado
The following text refers to question.
The truth about videogames, please!
By Cheryl K. Olson
On June 27 the Supreme Court invalidated
California’s law prohibiting the sale or rental of
violent videogames to people under 18. On a
practical level, it was never clear which games
might be classified under the law, or who would
decide.
But more important, the state’s case was built on assumptions – that violent games cause children psychological or neurological harm and make them more aggressive and likely to harm other people – that are not supported by evidence. In the end, the case serves only to highlight __________ ( I ) __________ .
Many people assume that video game violence is awful, but these people haven’t played many video games. The state based its examples of depravity almost exclusively on a little-known game called Postal 2, which is rarely played by children or young teens. The game is outrageous as you can kill animals. A trailer for Postal 3 encourages players to “shoot moms in the face!”
This may sound disturbing, but it’s also ridiculous. And young people know it: as one 13-year-old said during a study I conducted at Harvard, “With video games, you know it’s fake.”
In my research on middle school students, the most popular game series among boys was Grand Theft Auto, which allows players to commit cartoon violence with chain saws as well as do perfectly benign things like deliver pizza on a scooter.
Teenage boys may be more interested in violence, but there’s no evidence that this leads to violent behavior in real life. F.B.I. data shows that youth violence continues to decline; it is now at its lowest rate in years, while bullying appears to be stable or decreasing.
This certainly does not prove that video games are harmless. The violent games most often played by young teens, like most of the Grand Theft Auto series, are rated M, for a reason and need parental supervision.
But violence in video games may be less harmful than violence in movies or on the evening news. It seems reasonable but virtually acting out a murder is worse than watching one. But there is no research supporting this, and one could say that interactivity makes games less harmful: the player controls the action, and can stop playing if she or he feels overwhelmed or upset. And there is much better evidence to support psychological harm from exposure to violence on TV news. In fact, such games (in moderation) may actually have some positive effects on developing minds.
But more important, the state’s case was built on assumptions – that violent games cause children psychological or neurological harm and make them more aggressive and likely to harm other people – that are not supported by evidence. In the end, the case serves only to highlight __________ ( I ) __________ .
Many people assume that video game violence is awful, but these people haven’t played many video games. The state based its examples of depravity almost exclusively on a little-known game called Postal 2, which is rarely played by children or young teens. The game is outrageous as you can kill animals. A trailer for Postal 3 encourages players to “shoot moms in the face!”
This may sound disturbing, but it’s also ridiculous. And young people know it: as one 13-year-old said during a study I conducted at Harvard, “With video games, you know it’s fake.”
In my research on middle school students, the most popular game series among boys was Grand Theft Auto, which allows players to commit cartoon violence with chain saws as well as do perfectly benign things like deliver pizza on a scooter.
Teenage boys may be more interested in violence, but there’s no evidence that this leads to violent behavior in real life. F.B.I. data shows that youth violence continues to decline; it is now at its lowest rate in years, while bullying appears to be stable or decreasing.
This certainly does not prove that video games are harmless. The violent games most often played by young teens, like most of the Grand Theft Auto series, are rated M, for a reason and need parental supervision.
But violence in video games may be less harmful than violence in movies or on the evening news. It seems reasonable but virtually acting out a murder is worse than watching one. But there is no research supporting this, and one could say that interactivity makes games less harmful: the player controls the action, and can stop playing if she or he feels overwhelmed or upset. And there is much better evidence to support psychological harm from exposure to violence on TV news. In fact, such games (in moderation) may actually have some positive effects on developing minds.
Speak Up
The best way to complete the blank I in the text is
Ano: 2012
Banca:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Órgão:
MACKENZIE
Prova:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2012 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1343470
Inglês
Texto associado
The following text refers to question.
The truth about videogames, please!
By Cheryl K. Olson
On June 27 the Supreme Court invalidated
California’s law prohibiting the sale or rental of
violent videogames to people under 18. On a
practical level, it was never clear which games
might be classified under the law, or who would
decide.
But more important, the state’s case was built on assumptions – that violent games cause children psychological or neurological harm and make them more aggressive and likely to harm other people – that are not supported by evidence. In the end, the case serves only to highlight __________ ( I ) __________ .
Many people assume that video game violence is awful, but these people haven’t played many video games. The state based its examples of depravity almost exclusively on a little-known game called Postal 2, which is rarely played by children or young teens. The game is outrageous as you can kill animals. A trailer for Postal 3 encourages players to “shoot moms in the face!”
This may sound disturbing, but it’s also ridiculous. And young people know it: as one 13-year-old said during a study I conducted at Harvard, “With video games, you know it’s fake.”
In my research on middle school students, the most popular game series among boys was Grand Theft Auto, which allows players to commit cartoon violence with chain saws as well as do perfectly benign things like deliver pizza on a scooter.
Teenage boys may be more interested in violence, but there’s no evidence that this leads to violent behavior in real life. F.B.I. data shows that youth violence continues to decline; it is now at its lowest rate in years, while bullying appears to be stable or decreasing.
This certainly does not prove that video games are harmless. The violent games most often played by young teens, like most of the Grand Theft Auto series, are rated M, for a reason and need parental supervision.
But violence in video games may be less harmful than violence in movies or on the evening news. It seems reasonable but virtually acting out a murder is worse than watching one. But there is no research supporting this, and one could say that interactivity makes games less harmful: the player controls the action, and can stop playing if she or he feels overwhelmed or upset. And there is much better evidence to support psychological harm from exposure to violence on TV news. In fact, such games (in moderation) may actually have some positive effects on developing minds.
But more important, the state’s case was built on assumptions – that violent games cause children psychological or neurological harm and make them more aggressive and likely to harm other people – that are not supported by evidence. In the end, the case serves only to highlight __________ ( I ) __________ .
Many people assume that video game violence is awful, but these people haven’t played many video games. The state based its examples of depravity almost exclusively on a little-known game called Postal 2, which is rarely played by children or young teens. The game is outrageous as you can kill animals. A trailer for Postal 3 encourages players to “shoot moms in the face!”
This may sound disturbing, but it’s also ridiculous. And young people know it: as one 13-year-old said during a study I conducted at Harvard, “With video games, you know it’s fake.”
In my research on middle school students, the most popular game series among boys was Grand Theft Auto, which allows players to commit cartoon violence with chain saws as well as do perfectly benign things like deliver pizza on a scooter.
Teenage boys may be more interested in violence, but there’s no evidence that this leads to violent behavior in real life. F.B.I. data shows that youth violence continues to decline; it is now at its lowest rate in years, while bullying appears to be stable or decreasing.
This certainly does not prove that video games are harmless. The violent games most often played by young teens, like most of the Grand Theft Auto series, are rated M, for a reason and need parental supervision.
But violence in video games may be less harmful than violence in movies or on the evening news. It seems reasonable but virtually acting out a murder is worse than watching one. But there is no research supporting this, and one could say that interactivity makes games less harmful: the player controls the action, and can stop playing if she or he feels overwhelmed or upset. And there is much better evidence to support psychological harm from exposure to violence on TV news. In fact, such games (in moderation) may actually have some positive effects on developing minds.
Speak Up
The article clearly states that
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278821
Inglês
Texto associado
T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
Choose the alternative that correctly fills the
blanks in the following question.
The bilingual children not only had a better
performance, but____________ less resources from
the brain in order to do the task.
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278820
Inglês
Texto associado
T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
Choose the alternative that correctly fills the
blanks in the following question.
If the scientists had not carried out the
research, the discoveries ________________.
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278819
Inglês
Texto associado
T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
Choose the alternative that correctly fills the
blanks in the following question.
In the sentence John said, “I broke my foot
during a tennis match.”, the reported/indirect
speech of the sentence is: John said that
he______________ his foot during a tennis match.
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278818
Inglês
Texto associado
T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
In the following question, some sentences
from the text have been modified to fit certain
grammatical structures.
In terms of verb tense, the sentences “In a
study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with
Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, bilingual
subjects performed better than monolinguals.” and
“The families had brought up the children in a
bilingual environment.” are in the
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278817
Inglês
Texto associado
T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
In the following question, some sentences
from the text have been modified to fit certain
grammatical structures.
The sentences “This view of bilingualism is
remarkably different from the understanding of
bilingualism through much of the 20th century.” and
“In the laboratory the children placed the blue
circles in the bin marked with the blue square.”
contain, respectively, at least one
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278816
Inglês
Texto associado
T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
In the following question, some sentences
from the text have been modified to fit certain
grammatical structures.
The verbs of the sentences “In the first
task, the children sorted the shapes by color.”,
“…since studies have shown that bilinguals…” and
“Why does the tussle between two simultaneously
active language systems improve these aspects of
cognition?” are respectively in the
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278815
Inglês
Texto associado
T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
In the following question, some sentences
from the text have been modified to fit certain
grammatical structures.
The functions of the words improving,
understanding, blessing, conflicting and performing
in the text are respectively
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278814
Inglês
Texto associado
T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
In the following question, some sentences
from the text have been modified to fit certain
grammatical structures.
In the sentence “In an initial set of trials,
the infants were presented with an audio cue and
then shown a puppet on one side of a screen.”, the
two verb forms are
Conheça nossos planos