2024年12月四级第2套选词填空原文翻译及答案解析

When Toni Morrison died in 2019, the world lost one of its most influential authors. But Morrison was not an early success. Her first novel was not published until she was 39, and her last appeared when she was 84. And Morrison was not __26__ in this regard. Numerous writers produce masterpieces well into their 70s and beyond. Such __27__ accomplishments highlight an important point. Our capacity to speak, write and learn new vocabulary does not seem to __28__ with age. Our eyesight may dim and our recall may weaken, but, by comparison, our ability to produce and to __29__ language is well preserved into older adulthood.

2019年托妮·莫里森去世时，世界失去了最有影响力的作家之一。但莫里森并非早早成名。她的第一部小说直到39岁才出版，最后一部出版时她已84岁。在这方面莫里森并非独一无二。众多作家在70多岁乃至更高龄仍在创作杰作。这类文学成就凸显了一个重要观点：我们说话、写作和学习新词汇的能力似乎并不随年龄而衰退。我们的视力可能减弱、记忆力可能下降，但相比之下，我们产出和理解语言的能力在年长之后仍保持良好。

Indeed, the latest research that has emerged on language and aging shows that language mastery is a __30__ that we begin as infants and continue on for the rest of our lives. Some aspects of our language abilities, such as our knowledge of word meanings, __31__ improve during middle and late adulthood. One study, for example, found that adults over sixty had an average vocabulary size of over 21,000 words. The researchers also studied a __32__ of college students and found that their average vocabulary contained __33__ 16,000 words. In another study, older adults, with an average age of 75, __34__ better than participants in their youth or middle years on tasks that required them to determine the meaning of words. Thus, language seems to be a skill that, contrary to what many might __35__, does not weaken with age.

事实上，有关语言与衰老的最新研究表明，掌握语言是一段我们从婴儿期开始、并贯穿余生的旅程。我们语言能力的某些方面，比如对词义的了解，在中年和晚年实际上还会提升。例如，一项研究发现60岁以上成年人的平均词汇量超过21,000词。研究者还研究了一组大学生样本，发现他们的平均词汇量约为16,000词。另一项研究中，平均年龄75岁的老年人在需要判断词义的任务上，表现优于青年或中年参与者。因此，语言似乎是一项与许多人所设想的相反、并不随年龄而衰退的技能。