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  3. The city has always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 10-century

The city has always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 10-century

游客2025-03-02  39
问题     The city has always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 10-century cafes of London, where citizens gathered to discuss chemistry and politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Picasso talked about modern art. Without the metropolis, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare.
    And yet, city life isn’t easy. Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are depressing. Just being in the urban environment, they have found, impairs(损害)our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory and suffers from reduced self-control. While it’s long been recognized that city life is exhausting, this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.
    One of the main forces at work is a complete lake of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartments overlook a lawn. Even these glimpses of nature improve brain performance, it seems, because they provided a mental break from the urban life.
    This research arrives just as humans cross an important milestone(里程碑). For the first time in history, the majority of people live in cities. Instead of inhabiting wide-open spaces, we’re crowded into concrete jungles, surrounded by traffic and millions of strangers. In recent years, it’s become clear that such unnatural surroundings have important implications for our mental and physical health, and can powerfully alter how we think. [br] People have just come to realize that ______.
选项 A、human attention is a scarce resource
B、city life can make people very tired
C、the city is an engine of intellectual life
D、an urban environment is damaging to the brain
答案 D
解析 本题为细节推理题，提问的是人们刚刚开始意识到什么。根据文章第二段最后一句“Whileit’s long been recognized that city life is exhausting，this new research suggests that citiesactually dull our thinking，sometimes dramatically so．”可知，虽然人们很早就意识到城市生活是令人疲惫的，但是新的研究表明城市生活使我们的思维变得非常迟钝。显然，城市生活对人们大脑和思维的破坏是人们刚刚才意识到的，因此答案为D)。
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