Questões de Vestibular UECE 2012 para Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase
Foram encontradas 20 questões
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278802
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
According to the text, being bilingual, among
other advantages, helps trigger some processes in
the brain that make the person
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278803
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
As to the power of bilingualism in terms of
affecting the brain, the text states that it
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278804
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
The study recently carried out with elderly
Spanish-English bilinguals reached the conclusion
that
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278805
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
As to the issue of research with infants, the
text mentions a study involving babies who were
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278806
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 relation to the difference between
bilinguals and monolinguals, Alberto Costa
mentions the fact that bilinguals
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278807
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
The task of threading a line through an
ascending series of numbers scattered randomly
on a page is mentioned in the text as an instance
of an activity that
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278808
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
An example of a pair of words/terms that
appear in the text with similar meaning is
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278809
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
As to the meaning of the words “stemmed”,
“tussle”, “gaze”, and “onset” in the text, it is
expressed respectively in
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278810
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 sentence “Until recently, researchers
thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily
from an ability for inhibition [...]” contains
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278811
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 “The collective evidence from
a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual
experience improves the brain’s so-called executive
function…” and “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 easily switched their gaze in the new
direction[...] ” contain respectively a/an
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278812
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 sentences “…in a bilingual’s brain both
language systems are active even when he is using
only one language[...]” and “The interference of one
language on the other in the bilingual brain gives the
mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive
muscles.”, one finds respectively a/an
Ano: 2012
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2012 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 1º Dia - 2ª fase |
Q1278813
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 “Being bilingual makes you
smarter.” and “Why does the tussle between two
simultaneously active language systems improve
these aspects of cognition?” should be classified
respectively as
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
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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.
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