Ejercicio Option B - I · Inglés PAU País Vasco Extraordinaria 2024

Super-agers

Ageing is often associated with intellectual decline. However, in the last few years, medical science has identified a new group everybody would like to join: the super-agers. The term refers to people in their 70s and 80s who have the mental or physical abilities of those who are decades younger.

Dr Dickerson, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and his team have been studying super-agers for several years, and their findings are crucial because understanding which factors protect against memory decline could lead to important advances in treating memory loss and, possibly, even various forms of brain disorders.

In the study, 81 healthy adults were read a list of 16 nouns six times. Twenty minutes later, they were asked to remember as many of the words as they could. While 23 of the older participants recalled 9 or fewer words, which could be considered average for their age group, 17 seniors could remember 14 words or more, like the younger participants.

The participants also underwent magnetic resonance imaging, which provides images of the brain at work. The researchers found that some areas of the brain appeared thinner — a sign of cell loss — in the older people, but not in those who scored as well as the younger participants. These areas of the brain are involved in many functions, including emotion, language, and stress. The thicker these regions of the brain are, the better a person's performance is on memory and attention. Although super-agers' brains show less cell loss than those of their peers, their intelligence quotients and educational levels are similar.

So, what makes super-agers different to others? Neurologist Dr Barrett guesses that super-agers may share the enthusiasm for acquiring a new skill, such as playing a musical instrument or speaking a new language. Therefore, super-agers keep moving out of their comfort zones to gain new areas of knowledge.

Physical super-agers, like intellectual super-agers, have scores comparable to those of people decades younger, especially when we look at their aerobic capacity. In general, people lose 10% of their aerobic capacity every decade after the age of 30. Some studies have indicated that people in their 80s who are used to exercising at high intensity for 20 to 45 minutes a day have the aerobic capacity of individuals 30 years younger.

OPTION B

I.- Answer 4 out of the following 6 questions according to the information given in the text. WRITE COMPLETE SENTENCES USING YOUR OWN WORDS WHENEVER POSSIBLE. DO NOT COPY FROM THE TEXT. (Choose 4 out of the 6 questions) (4 marks)

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