山西省2017高考英语二轮复习专题训练：阅读理解（61）_高考复习指南

山西省2017高考英语二轮复习专题训练：阅读理解（61）

　　Dr．J．Langdon Down first described this condition in 1887．He called these people idiot savants．An idiot savant is a person who has significant mental impairment （） , such as in autism or retardation．At the same time, the person also exhibits some extraordinary skills, which are unusual for most people．The skills of the savant may vary from being exceptionally gifted in music or in mathematics, or having a photographic memory．

　　One of the first descriptions of a human who could calculate quickly was written in 1789 by Dr．Benjamin Rush, an American doctor．His patient, Thomas Fuller, was brought to Virginia as a slave in1724．It took Thomas only 90 seconds to work out that a man who has lived 70 years, 17 days, and 12 hours has lived 2,210,500,800 seconds．Despite this ability, he died in 1790 without ever learning to read or write．

　　Another idiot savant slave became famous as a pianist in the 1860s．Blind Tom had a vocabulary of only 100 words, but he played 5 ,000 musical pieces beautifully．

　　In the excellent movie Rain Man, made in 1988 and available on video cassette, Dustin Hoffman plays an idiot savant who amazes his brother played by Tom Cruise, with his ability to perform complex calculations very rapidly．

　　Today we more clearly recognize that the idiot savant is special because of brain impairment．Yet not all brain impairment leads to savant skills．Some studies have shown that people who have purposeful interruption of the left side of the brain can develop idiot savant skills．However few people wish to participate in such experiments．There are many excellent reasons for not undergoing unnecessary experimentation on one's brain．The term idiot savant is outdated and inappropriate．Virtually all savants have a high degree of intelligence and are thus not idiots．