If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven’t you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?
According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.
The study also found the effect is greater when the younger people learn a second language. A team led by Dr. Andrea Mechelli, from London University, took a group of Britain people who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of “early bilinguals” who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.
Scans showed that grey matter density in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference was.
“Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language,” said the scientists. It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.
Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales has researched the link between bilingualism and math skill. “Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible,” he said. “You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas.”
The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of 2 and 34. Reading, writing and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. “Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world,” explained the scientists.
1. The main subject talked about in this passage is .| A．science on learning a second language |
| B．man’s ability of learning a second language |
| C．language can help brain power |
| D．language learning and math study |
| A．say language is also a kind of physical labor |
| B．prove that one needs more practice when he/she is learning a language |
| C．show the importance of using the language when you learn the language |
| D．make people believe language learning helps grey matter work well |
| A．learning a second language is the same as studying math |
| B．early learning of a second language helps you a great deal in study other subjects |
| C．Italian is the best choice for you as a second language |
| D．we’d better choose the ages between 2 and 34 to learn a second language |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Modern technology has a strong influence on every part of our life, including the education in the universities.
Ashok Goel, a professor of Georgia Institute of Technology, says he uses the Internet in almost all of the classes he teaches. Every term over 300 graduate students take his class on artificial intelligence (人工智能). The students never meet in person. All of the classes take place online — through a website, which lets students ask questions and complete their work from anywhere in the world.
Having hundreds of students in a class means Ashok Goel has to answer thousands of questions. He has eight teaching assistants to help him. But even that is not enough to give all the students the help they need.
So, in January, Goel had an idea. He decided to try an experiment. At the start of the spring 2016 term, he added a new member to his teaching team: Jill Watson. She was able to answer questions faster than most other teaching assistants. And she was available 24 hours a day.
It was only at the end of the term that Goel’s students learned Watson’s true identity: she was not a real person like the other teaching assistants. Jill Watson was an AI computer program.
And it seems Goel’s stories will become more common in the universities.
A website called Campus Technology publishes stories about how colleges and universities use new technology. In August, the site published a survey of over 500 professors and their use of technology. Fifty-five percent of the professors asked students to use study materials online before coming to class. And, more than 70 percent combined (使相结合) online materials and face-to-face teaching in their classrooms.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?| A．Goel seldom uses the Internet in his class. | B．The students take Goel’s class online. |
| C．Goel occasionally meets his colleagues. | D．Goel’s students dislike going to college. |
| A．He is not a clever professor. | B．He wants to have a good sleep. |
| C．He does not want to give answers. | D．He has no time to answer all the questions. |
| A．She was a real person. | B．She helped Goel with his work. |
| C．She was one of Goel’s students. | D．She could ask all the questions. |
| A．Who a person is. | B．The name of a person. |
| C．Where a person is from. | D．A person’s contribution. |
| A．Ashok Goel has eight assistants to help him. |
| B．New technology is changing our way of living. |
| C．Modern technology greatly influences college education. |
| D．Teachers will be completely replaced by the computers. |
【推荐2】One day, I asked some college students to tell me the first word that came to mind when thinking about mathematics. The top words were “calculation” and “equation(等式)”. Instead, the mathematicians offered phrases like “critical thinking” and “problem-solving.” This is unfortunately common. What mathematicians think of is entirely different from what the general population thinks of. No wonder we hear “I hate math” so often.
So I set about solving this problem unconventionally. I decided to offer a class called “The Mathematics of Knitting”. I removed pencil, paper, calculator and textbook from the classroom completely. Instead, we talked, used our hands, drew pictures and played with everything. And of course, we knit.
One essential and difficult part of mathematical content is the equation, and crucial to this is the equal sign, which is very strict. An equation like x = 5 tells us the number 5 and the value of x must be exactly the same. Any small deviation(偏离) from “exactly” means two things are not equal. However, two quantities are always not exactly the same in life. Imagine that you have two square pillows. The first is red on top, yellow on the right, green on bottom and blue on the left. The second is yellow on the top, green on the right, blue on bottom, and red on the left. The pillows aren't exactly the same but certainly similar. In fact, they would be exactly the same if you turned the pillow with the red top once counterclockwise.
Another topic is referred to as “rubber sheet geometry”. The idea is to imagine the whole world is made of rubber, then reimagine the shapes. Let’s try to understand it with knitting. For example, while being made, a hat is shaped by three needles, making it look triangular. Then, once it comes off the needles, it relaxes into a circle. In fact, all polygons(多边形) become circles in this field of study.
The subjects above are typically reserved for math majors in college. If more mathematicians were able to set aside classical techniques, more people out there could embrace mathematical thought.
1. Why did the author start “The Mathematics of Knitting”?| A．To promote traditional handicraft. |
| B．To cultivate the students’ capacity to solve problems. |
| C．To remove the common misunderstanding about math. |
| D．To enhance the students’ skills in the application of math. |
| A．Same and exact. | B．Same but different. |
| C．Equal and precise. | D．Different but inseparable. |
| A．By clarifying reasons. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By analyzing results. | D．By describing procedures. |
| A．Math: a novel skill of knitting |
| B．Knitting: an unconventional course |
| C．Different Flavors of Math Revealed by Knitting |
| D．The Calculation and Equation in Mathematical Content |
【推荐3】Children’s Acquiring the Principles of Mathematics and Science
It has been pointed out that learning mathematics and science is not so much learning facts as learning ways of thinking. It has also been emphasized that in order to learn science, people often have to change the way they think in ordinary situations. These changes in ways of thinking are often referred to as “conceptual changes”. But how do “conceptual changes” happen? How do children change their ways of thinking as they learn in school?
The psychologist Piaget suggested an interesting hypothesis (假说) relating to the process of cognitive (认知的) change in children. Cognitive change was expected to result from the pupils’ own intellectual activity. When met with a result that challenges their thinking, that is when faced with conflict, pupils realize that they need to think again about their own ways of solving problems, regardless of whether the problem is one in mathematics or in science. He hypothesised that conflict brings about unbalance, and then triggers processes that ultimately produce cognitive changes. For this reason, pupils need to be actively engaged in solving problems that will challenge their current mode of reasoning. However, Piaget also pointed out that young children do not always abandon their ideas in the face of conflicting evidence. They may actually abandon the evidence and keep their theory.
Piaget’s hypothesis about how cognitive change occurs was later translated into an educational approach which is now termed “discovery learning”. Discovery learning initially took what is now considered the “lone learners” route. The role of the teacher was to select situations that challenged the pupils’ reasoning; and the pupils’ peers had no real role in this process. However, it was subsequently proposed that interpersonal conflict, especially with peers, might play an important role in promoting cognitive change. This hypothesis has been investigated in many recent studies of science teaching and learning.
Christine Howe and her colleagues, for example, have compared children’s progress in understanding several types of science concepts when they are given the opportunity to observe relevant events. In one study, Howe compared the progress of 8 to 12-year-old children in understanding what influences motion down a slope. In order to figure out the role of conflict in group work, they created two kinds of groups according to a pre-test: one in which the children had dissimilar views, and a second in which the children had similar views. They found support for the idea that children in the groups with dissimilar views progressed more after their training sessions than those who had been placed in groups with similar views. However, they found no evidence to support the idea that the children worked out their new conceptions during their group discussions, because progress was not actually observed in a post-test immediately after the sessions of group work, but rather in a second test given around four weeks after the group work.
1. Which of the following statements is in line with Piaget’s hypothesis?| A．Teachers play a big role in learning by explaining difficult concepts. |
| B．Teaching should be consistent in order to easily acquire knowledge. |
| C．Children can help each other make cognitive progress. |
| D．Cognitive progress mainly relies on children’s own intellectual activity. |
| A．was adopted during discovery learning early on |
| B．requires help from the pupils’ peers |
| C．relies on how the teacher guides the students heavily |
| D．played an important role in cognitive change |
| A．The most active children made the least progress according to a pre-test. |
| B．The children were evaluated on their abilities to understand a physics phenomenon. |
| C．The teacher aided the children to understand a scientific problem in group work. |
| D．All the children were working in mixed-ability groups to work out new conceptions. |
| A．that children acquire more when learning in groups |
| B．that children opposing each other would learn slower |
| C．that the children were given a total of three tests, at different times |
| D．that there can be a satisfying result thanks to the duration of test |
【推荐1】Of all the components of a good night’s sleep, dreams seem to be least within our control. In dreams, a window opens into a world where logic is suspended and dead people speak. A century ago, Freud stated his revolutionary theory that dreams were the disguised (伪装的)shadows of our unconscious desires and fears: by the late 1970se neurologists had switched to thinking of them as just "mental noise"—the random byproducts of the neural-repair work that goes on during sleep. Now researchers suspect that dreams are part of the minds emotional thermostat, regulating moods while the brain is "off-line". And one leading authority says that these intensely powerful mental events can be not only influenced but actually brought under conscious control, to help us sleep and feel better. "It's your dream," says Rosalind Cartwright, chair of psychology at Chicago's Medical Center. "If you don't like it change it."
The link between dreams and emotions shows up among the patients in Cartwright's clinic. Most people seem to have more bad dreams early in the night, progressing toward happier ones before awakening, suggesting that they are working through negative feelings generated(产生)during the day. Because our conscious mind is occupied with daily life. we don't always think about the emotional significance of the day' s events—until, it appears, we begin to dreams.
And this process need not be left to the unconscious. Cartwright believes one can exercise conscious control over repeated bad dreams. As soon as you awaken, identify what is upsetting about the dream. Visualize how you would like it to end instead; the next time it occurs, try to wake up just enough to control its course. With much practice people can learn to, literally, do it in their sleep.
At the end of the day, there's probably little reason to pay attention to our dreams at all unless they keep us from sleeping or "we wake up in a panic," Cartwright says. Terrorism, economic uncertainties and general feelings of insecurity have increased people's anxiety. Those suffering from persistent nightmares should seek help from a therapist. For the rest of us, the brain has its ways of working through bad feeling Sleep—or rather dream—on it and you'll feel better in the morning.
1. By saying that "dreams are part of the mind's emotional thermostat" in paragraph 1, the researchers mean that______.| A．dreams can help us keep our mood comparatively stable |
| B．dreams can be brought under conscious control |
| C．dreams represent our unconscious desires and fears |
| D．we can think logically in the dreams too |
| A．become worse in our unconscious mind |
| B．develop into happy dreams |
| C．persist till the time we fall asleep |
| D．show up in dreams early at night |
| A．control what dreams to dream |
| B．sleep well without any dreams |
| C．wake up in time to stop the bad dreams |
| D．identify what is upsetting about the dreams |
| A．lead their life as usual |
| B．seek professional help |
| C．exercise conscious control |
| D．avoid anxiety in the daytime |
【推荐2】In 1992,Teen Talk Barbie was put on the market with the controversial voice fragment(碎片），＂Math class is hard."While the toy's sale met with strong public reaction,this hidden assumption continues,spreading the belief that women do not boom in science,technology,engineering and mathematic(STEM)fields due to biological inadequacies in math talent.
However,in 2019 Jessica Cantlon at Carnegie Mellon University led a research team that thoroughly examined the brain development of young boys and girls and found no sex difference in brain function or math ability.
Cantlon and her team studied the biological sex differences in math ability of young children.Her team used functional MRI(核磁共振）to measure the brain activity in 104 young children（3-to-10-year-old;55 girls)while watching an educational video covering early math topics,like counting and addition.The researchers compared scans from the boys and girls to evaluate brain similarity.In addition,the team examined brain maturity by comparing the children's scans to those taken from a group of adults(63 adults;25 women)who watched the same math videos.
After many statistical comparisons,Cantlon and her team found no difference in the brain development of girls and boys.In addition,the researchers found no difference in how boys and girls processed math skills while watching the educational videos.Finally,boys' and girls' brain maturity were statistically alike when compared to either men or women in the adult group.
Cantlon said she thinks society and culture are likely directing girls and young women away from math and STEM fields."Typical socialization can make worse small differences between boys and girls that can snowball into how we treat them in science and math,"Cantlon said."We need to be aware of these origins to ensure we aren't the ones causing the sex unfairness."
However,this project is focused on early childhood development using a limited set of math tasks.Cantlon wants to continue this work using a broader scope(范围）of math skills,such as spatial processing and memory,and follow the children over many years.
1. What can we infer after Teen Talk Barbie was on sale?| A．Girls are born with poor math abilities. |
| B．Math is difficult for both boys and girls. |
| C．Boys perform no better than girls in math. |
| D．Math is harder than science and technology. |
| A．The result of Cantlon's study. |
| B．The purpose of Cantlon's job. |
| C．The method of Cantion's research. |
| D．The difficulty of Cantlon's work. |
| A．By using a larger variety of subjects. |
| B．By employing a wider range of math skills. |
| C．By raising the difficulty of the math tasks. |
| D．By expanding the number of the children. |
| A．Business. | B．Sports&Health. |
| C．Entertainment. | D．Popular science. |
【推荐3】Self-driving vehicles will rely on cameras, sensors(传感器) and artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize and respond to road and traffic conditions, but sensing is the most effective for objects and movement in the neighborhood of the vehicle. Not everything important in a car’s environment will be caught by the vehicle’s camera. Another vehicle approaching at high speed on a collision (碰撞) track might not be visible until it’s too late. This is why vehicle-to-vehicle communication is undergoing rapid development. Our research shows that cars will need to be able to chat and cooperate on the road, although the technical challenges are considerable.
Applications for vehicle-to-vehicle communication range from vehicles driving together in a row, to safety messages about nearby emergency vehicles. Vehicles could alert each other to avoid collisions or share notices about passers-by and bicycles.
From as far as several hundred metres away, vehicles could exchange messages with one another or receive information from roadside units（RSUs）about nearby incidents or dangerous road conditions through 4G network. A high level of AI seems required for such vehicles, not only to self-drive from A to B, but also to react intelligently to messages received. Vehicles will need to plan, reason, strategize(制定策略) and adapt in the light of information received in real time and to carry out cooperative behaviours. For example, a group of autonomous vehicles might avoid a route together because of potential risks, or a vehicle could decide to drop someone off earlier due to messages received, a foreseen crowding ahead.
Further applications of vehicle-to-vehicle communication are still being researched, including how to perform cooperative behaviour.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．The reasons for the accidents by self-driving vehicles. |
| B．The importance of artificial intelligence of self-driving vehicles. |
| C．The reasons for developing communication between self-driving vehicles. |
| D．The research about applications for self-driving vehicles. |
| A．Alarm. | B．Blame. |
| C．Ignore. | D．Govern. |
| A．They recognize the vehicles on the road. |
| B．They can improve bad road conditions. |
| C．They take control of the passing vehicles. |
| D．They serve as efficient information stations. |
| A．Different kinds of vehicle communication. |
| B．Importance of high level AI. |
| C．Vehicle-to-vehicle communication. |
| D．Ways to improve our communication with vehicles. |
【推荐1】Commercial planes could soon mimic migrating birds by traveling together, with one airliner following close behind the other to gain some free lift. European manufacturing giant Airbus says this project, called fello’ fly, could reduce the follower aircraft’s fuel requirements by up to 10 percent per trip.
Fello’ fly was inspired by the way some birds, typically geese, often fly in formation (编队) to save energy. Like a bird, a moving airplane leaves a wake of disturbed air behind as its wings produce swirling vortices (气旋). These vortices move in a circular motion and expand outward until they disappear, creating an updraft (上升气流) around the wake. If a second aircraft follows the leader at a specific distance and slightly away from the center of the wake, this updraft provides extra lift.
Such a boost allows the follower to cut down on engine thrust, fuel use and emissions. But to reap these benefits, airliners have to position themselves carefully: if the follower gets too close to the center of the leader’s path, the vortices will actually push it downward instead of up.
Aircraft flying so close would need to coordinate (协调) carefully to prevent accidents, and this coordination would need to start on the ground. Airline pilot David Mrak, who is not involved in the fello’fly project, says challenges would likely include setting rules of engagement between the two planes, deciding on the role of air traffic controllers, maintaining communication between all parties involved, creating plans to deal with emergency situations or bad weather, and splitting the economic benefits.
Although the minimal separation might sound potentially dangerous, Mrak suggests that operating planes so near each other may not be out of the question. “As pilots, we undergo extensive training,” he says. “Flying aircraft in formation is a matter of proper training procedures.”
Mrak estimates that if the system works, “it could potentially save the airlines thousands of pounds of fuel per transatlantic trip.” And according to Airbus, every metric ton of fuel saved means roughly three metric tons less carbon dioxide emitted.
1. Which one of the following is closest in meaning to the underlined word “mimic”?| A．support | B．imitate | C．approach | D．discover |
| A．Because it can help save fuel for the two aircraft. |
| B．Because it can eliminate accidents caused by birds. |
| C．Because it can improve air safety for passengers. |
| D．Because it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. |
| A．maintaining an appropriate distance between the two flights |
| B．figuring out how to handle emergency situations |
| C．deciding on the proper height of the follower flight |
| D．coordinating communication between all sides |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Skeptical. | C．Optimistic. | D．Uninterested. |
【推荐2】Plenty of harvests of corn and other major crops rely on a mysterious phenomenon known as hybrid vigor (杂交活力). When highly naturally-born varieties are crossed, their next generations are taller, hardier, and bear more grain, Researchers report that this vigor is somehow influenced by microbes (微生物) in the soil, perhaps through a plant's immune system .
Charles Darwin was one of the first researchers to describe hybrid vigor. In the early 20th century, biologists began to apply this effect to agriculture by creating naturally-born parent plants that produced hybrid seeds. By the 1940s, almost every farmer in the United States was planting hybrid corn, and the harvests multiplied.
Biologists have proposed several theories about the cause of hybrid vigor, but no definitive explanation has emerged.
Maggie Wagner, plant biologist at the University of Kansas, and her colleagues wondered whether microbes might be it involved. Last year, Wagner and her colleagues found an interesting clue in a field study. They discovered that the leaves and roots of hybrid corn had microbial communities that are different from those living on naturally-born varieties of corn. “Something about being a hybrid makes a plant interact differently with microbes,” Wagner says. It could be that the naturally-born corn's immune systems react more actively to beneficial microbes, compromising their growth. Alternatively, hybrid plants may be better able to defend against weak pathogens (病原体) in the soil.
Wagner says the finding highlights the need for plant growers to match the hybrid crops to the microbial communities with which they live. The findings help scientists realize the importance of understanding the role of soil microbes in making agriculture more productive and sustainable, “This holds great promise.”
1. How did people use the effect of hybrid vigor in agriculture?| A．By producing naturally-born parent plants that bore hybrid seeds. |
| B．By creating naturally-born parent lines that produced hybrid vigor. |
| C．By providing more microbes communities that could produce more seeds. |
| D．By looking for hybrid parent plants in the field that produced hybrid seeds. |
| A．Hybrid plants react worse to weak pathogens in the soil. |
| B．Wagner connected hybrid vigor with microbial communities. |
| C．Being naturally-born makes a plant interact differently with microbes. |
| D．Hybrid corn and naturally-born corn have similar microbial communities. |
| A．Making farmers know what to grow to resist certain diseases |
| B．Helping scientist realize the importance of spreading soil microbes. |
| C．Showing the significance of associating soil microbes with specific crops. |
| D．Highlighting the need for plant growers to find more microbial communities. |
| A．Hybrid corn: a double-edged sword |
| B．How can farmers grow hybrid crops? |
| C．Hybrid vigor: a mysterious phenomenon |
| D．What role do soil microbes play in the harvests of corn? |
【推荐3】Elizabeth wouldn’t walk or talk as an infant. Angela’s left leg was so enlarged that it hurt to stand. Emma needed a breathing machine just to sleep. Their suffering may take different forms, but their stories share a common thread: Neither they nor their families knew what was actually causing these issues.
Those cases are precisely where the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) steps in. Established in 2008, the UDN’s mission is to provide answers for patients with diseases that doctors are unable to diagnose. Anyone can apply to the program and the UDN works hard to screen every application it receives.
Today, the UDN covers 12 clinical sites around the country, and has evaluated over 1,400 patients. More than 400 of those patients have received a diagnosis thanks to the UDN. In some of these cases, the network is able to match a patient with an already known condition. In others, UDN researchers must work to describe an entirely new disease and enter it into the medical dictionary. The program has added at least 25 entirely new diseases in this way. Additionally, the UDN covers the cost of the tests, meaning patients aren’t burdened with crushing medical debt.
“I think they’ve really advanced and changed the whole model for how we approach many of these illnesses, ” says Anne Pariser, director of the Office of Rare Diseases Research. She says the UDN’s multidisciplinary (多门学科的) approach—bringing different specialists together to talk about challenging cases—has helped advance the field of rare disease research, especially when it comes to genetic diseases.
Living with a disease without a name can be its own kind of suffering. “You grow up feeling like, I’m in this, crazy, all by myself, and no one really understands me, ” says Angela Moon, a UDN participant. For patients like her, the UDN offers hope for treatment, but also for finally being seen.
1. The purpose of the first paragraph is to ______.| A．introduce the background for the UDN’s founding | B．describe the symptoms of rare diseases |
| C．arouse the readers’ interest in the UDN | D．inform us of the sufferings of some patients |
| A．the model the UDN is run nationwide | B．the challenges and risks the UDN is facing |
| C．the reasons why the UDN gains popularity | D．the achievements the UDN has made so far |
| A．It helps spread the knowledge of rare diseases. |
| B．It stresses cooperation between different specialists. |
| C．It is specifically designed to deal with genetic diseases. |
| D．It attaches importance to participants’ privacy. |
| A．She has received treatment now. | B．She failed to identify with others. |
| C．She used to live in despair. | D．There must be a cure for her condition. |
【推荐1】It has been four years since the Flashfood App was set to hit Canadian grocery stores and make it easier for shoppers to buy soon-to-expiry (保质期) food at a discount. Much to my delight, I heard it advertised recently on a radio station and figured it’s time for an update, especially since people became more aware of food waste’s role in the climate crisis.
The first thing I did was download the App. I hadn’t done it before because it was limited to a few locations, but now it’s all over Canada. I could see immediately that many brands of yogurt are all marked down 50 percent. Users pay for the food using the App, and then pick it up at a marked location in the store. There is no need for you to worry about them actually being bad.
It makes sense for retailers to get behind this App because it offers a win-win situation for everyone involved. Flashfood sells 75% of the products made available through its App while saving consumers an average of 50% on those grocery items, and it has 300 000 active users right now. That number is expected to grow naturally as Flashfood partners with more grocers.
“As a food retailer, we are in the business of providing food, not wasting it. The Flashfood program allows us to provide our customers with a convenient and environmentally sustainable (可持续的) way to purchase food. Loblaw sells 77% of the items it puts on Flashfood, moving an average of ＄800 to ＄1000 worth of goods weekly at each of its largest stores,” said Gord Chem, senior VP with Loblaw’s Real Canadian Superstores.
I love looking for discount deals at the grocery store and always keep an eye out for the hot pink clearance stickers. But it’s always random, and I never know what I’m going to get from week to week. The appeal of Flashfood is that I can see what’s available, pre-purchase it, and leave it off my shopping list.
1. What can we know about the food on the Flashfood?| A．It’s delivered directly to the customers. | B．Users can pay for it in the marked store. |
| C．Much of it is charged at half the price. | D．It’ll be a month away before it goes bad. |
| A．reliable | B．doubtful | C．creative | D．beneficial |
| A．By making a comparison. | B．By listing some examples. |
| C．By explaining the cause. | D．By introducing the result. |
| A．Customers can buy much cheaper food on a recent app. |
| B．Canadians have a smart approach to reducing food waste. |
| C．A win-win situation has been set for Canadians involved. |
| D．Canadians adopt a new way of protecting the environment. |
【推荐2】You can relax if remembering everything isn't your strong suit. Recent research makes the case that being forgetful can be a strength—in fact, selective memory can even be a sign of stronger intelligence.
Traditional research on memory has focused on the advantages of remembering everything. But looking through years of recent memory data, researchers found that the neurobiology of forgetting can be just as important to our decision-making as what our minds choose to remember.
Making intelligent decisions doesn't mean you need to have all the information at hand. It just means you need to hold onto the most valuable information. And that means clearing up space in your memory palace for the most up-to-date information on clients and situations. Our brains do this by creating new neurons(神经元）in our hippocampus, which have the power to overwrite(重写)existing memories that are influencing our decision-making.
If you want to increase the number of new neurons in our brain ’ s learning region，try exercising. Some aerobic exercise like jogging, power walking and swimming has been found to increase the number of neurons making important connections in our brains.
When we forget the names of certain clients or details about old jobs，the brain is making a choice that these details don't matter. Although too much forgetfulness can be a cause for concern，the occasional lost detail can be a sign of a perfectly healthy memory system. The researchers found that our brains facilitate decision-making by stopping us from focusing too much on unimportant past details. Instead，the brain helps us remember the most important part of a conversation.
We can get blamed for being absent-minded when we forget past events in perfect detail. These findings show us that total recall(记忆）can be overvalued. Our brains are working smarter when they aim to remember the right stories, not every story.
1. How can we help our brains produce more neurons? '| A．By having deep sleep frequently. |
| B．By practicing swimming regularly. |
| C．By doing mental labor repeatedly. |
| D．By learning new skills constantly. |
| A．postpone | B．repeat |
| C．promote | D．abuse |
| A．Memory loss is well worth noticing. |
| B．Decisions can’t be made without memories. |
| C．We shouldn't stress total recall too much. |
| D．Forgetting is even more important than remembering. |
| A．Caution：do remember to forget |
| B．Why and how people choose to forget |
| C．Want to become smarter? Learn to forget |
| D．Being forgetful might mean you are smarter |
【推荐3】Have you ever dreamed of meeting top scientists in person? If so, what would you want to ask them? For Tan Fanglin, a 15-year-old girl from No.2 High School of East China Normal University in Shanghai, her dream of meeting top scientists has already come true.
In October, she attended the World Laureates Forum(论坛)for a second time. Tan was by far the youngest participant among the scientists invited to be at the meeting of the world's sharpest minds. Her discovery about the relationship between the Fibonacci sequence(菲波那契数列)and Bézout numbers has won her many prizes in youth innovation competitions. This finding has been praised by the famous Canadian mathematician, Professor Rankin. According to Guangming Daily, Rankin has been studying the same theme for five years but with no conclusions.
From a very young age, Tan has always been fascinated by mathematics. This is largely because of the influence of her father, who teaches mathematics in University. But she had not participated in any Mathematics Olympiad exams before. According to Xu Jun, Tan's head teacher from her middle and high school, she doesn't take after-school classes or too many extra exercises either. Her mastering of Further Mathematics and her good grades in school are thanks to the right study method.
Attending this forum enabled Tan to get more inspiration from top scientists. She asked Professor Miesenbock, the 2019 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize winner, what he considered were the best personal qualities for conducting scientific research. Miesenbock encouraged her not to lose her passion and love for what she does. He stressed that people all knew that even Thomas Edison went through hundreds of unsuccessful attempts before finally inventing the light bulb. Tan has met many barriers in her research and often feels upset. The words made Tan feel inspired. "I will keep my curiosity and interests in mathematics and overcome any obstacles(障碍)in my research," she told Chinese Business View.
1. What does the underlined word "fascinated" in the third paragraph mean?| A．threatened | B．refused |
| C．discovered | D．attracted |
| A．Tan has realized her dream of meeting top scientists. |
| B．Tan is one of the youngest participants in the World Laureates Forum. |
| C．When she was young，she took part in many Mathematics Olympiad exams. |
| D．Tan's discovery has achieved a breakthrough after studying the theme for 5 years. |
| A．Tan has seldom met obstacles in her research. |
| B．Tan often feels undefeated when meeting barriers. |
| C．Inspired by Miesenbock, Tan is determined to overcome difficulties in research. |
| D．Tan has the best personal qualities for conducting scientific research in Miesenbock's eyes. |
| A．Top Minds Inspire Student. |
| B．Failure is the Mother of Success. |
| C．Loving What You Do, a Way to Success. |
| D．The Elder One Grows, the More He Gets. |
