Question

    Sudoku (数独) puzzles give your brain a hard time: Every number from 1 to 9 must appear in each of the nine horizontal (横向的) rows, in each of the nine vertical columns and in each of the nine boxes.

For many of us, this can be a reason for a headache, but in the very rare case of a German man, a Sudoku puzzle even caused seizures (痉挛).

In a new case study from the University of Munich, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Berend Feddersen introduces a student who was 25 years old when he was buried by a snow slide during a ski tour. For 15 minutes, he didn’t get enough oxygen, which severely damaged certain parts of his brain. “He had to receive treatment on the scene. Luckily he survived,” says Feddersen, the author of the study.

Weeks after the accident, when the young man was ready for recovery treatment, something bizarre happened: When the patient solved Sudoku puzzles, he suddenly had seizures of his left arm — something the medical world hadn’t seen before.

Feddersen explains: “In order to solve a Sudoku, the patient used parts of his brain which are responsible for vision-space tasks. But exactly those brain parts had been damaged in the accident and then caused the seizures once they were used.”

This particular case is an example of what doctors call reflex epilepsy (反射性癫痫), according to Dr. Jacqueline French, professor from NYU Langone School of Medicine.

“You have to have an injury of your brain first, and then seizures like that can happen,” she says.

In the meantime, the patient from the case study stopped solving Sudoku puzzles forever and has been seizure-free for more than five years. “Fortunately, he can do crossword puzzles. He never had problems with those,” Feddersen says.

1.In the accident, the student ______.

A. began to experience seizures in his left arm

B. got the vision-space part of his brain damaged

C. had to be sent to hospital as soon as possible

D. found his Sudoku ability seriously weakened

2.It can be learned from the text that ______.

A. the man cannot complete crossword puzzles now

B. it is Sudoku playing that brings about his seizures

C. the man’s symptoms are common and widely observed

D. the seizures cause much trouble to the man’s daily life

3.This text can be best described as______.

A. a medical test B. a warning to skiers

C. a news report D. a research paper

Answer

1.B

2.B

3.C

【解析】

这是一篇新闻报道。文章主要讲了研究表明，九宫格游戏可能会导致癫痫发作。

1.细节理解题。答案定位在第五段Feddersen explains: “In order to solve a Sudoku, the patient used parts of his brain which are responsible for vision-space tasks. But exactly those brain parts had been damaged in the accident and then caused the seizures once they were used.”（ Feddersen解释说:“为了解决九宫格游戏问题，患者使用了大脑中负责视觉空间任务的部分。但正是这些大脑部位在事故中受损，一旦使用，就会导致癫痫发作。”）由此可知在事故中，这名学生的大脑视觉空间部分受损，故选B。

2.推理判断题。答案定位在第五段Feddersen explains: “In order to solve a Sudoku, the patient used parts of his brain which are responsible for vision-space tasks. But exactly those brain parts had been damaged in the accident and then caused the seizures once they were used.”（ Feddersen解释说:“为了解决九宫格游戏问题，患者使用了大脑中负责视觉空间任务的部分。但正是这些大脑部位在事故中受损，一旦使用，就会导致癫痫发作。”）由此推断出，从课文中可以得知，正是九宫格游戏导致了他的癫痫发作，故选B。

3.推理判断题。答案定位在第三段In a new case study from the University of Munich, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association（在发表在《美国医学会杂志》上的慕尼黑大学的一项新案例研究中）由此推断出，这篇文章是一篇新闻报道，故选C。