Final exams are around the comer — but that won’t stop some teenagers putting in the least effort. This may be because their brains aren’t developed enough to properly assess how high the stakes (利害关系) are, and adapt their behaviour accordingly.
Catherine Insel, at Harvard University, and her team asked adolescents between the ages of 13 and 20 to play a game while monitoring their brains. In some rounds of the game,participants could earn 20 cents fora correct response, while an incorrect one would cost them 10 cents. But in rounds with higher stakes,correct responses were worth a dollar, and wrong answers lost the participants 50 cents.
The team found that while the older volunteers performed better in the high stakes rounds, the younger ones didn’t — their performance didn’t change in line with whether the stakes were low or high. And the older the volunteers were, the more improved their performance was.
When the team looked at the brain activity of the volunteers,they found that their ability to improve their performance was linked to how developed their brains were. A region in the brain, which continues to develop until we are at least 25 years old, seemed to be particularly important. The findings explain why some teenagers are so unconcerned when it comes to hazardous behaviors, such as driving too fast, for instance, especially when one of their friends is nearby.
Insel thinks schools should reconsider the way they test performance in teenagers. “This study suggests it’s not a good idea to evaluate school performance in a single final exam”, she says. A better idea would be to use a variety of smaller tests, conducted throughout the year.
It’s not all bad news for teens, though. Teenagers put the same amount of effort into tasks that aren’t “important”, and start to prefer hobbies to school. It could be a good thing, allowing teenagers to learn complex social skills, for example.
1. Why did the researchers set different bets in the game?| A．To teach how to make money. |
| B．To better monitor participants’ brains. |
| C．To show the varied risk levels of the game. |
| D．To meet the needs of different participants. |
| A．Dangerous. | B．Abusive. |
| C．Specific. | D．Addictive. |
| A．It should not be judged by only one exam. |
| B．The items in exams should not be too difficult. |
| C．Exam-focused education should not be adopted. |
| D．Examination is not a good means of evaluating students. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Favorable. | C．Doubtful. | D．Negative. |
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【推荐1】Going to school means learning new skills and facts in different subjects. Teachers teach and students learn, and many scientists are interested in finding ways to improve both teaching and learning processes.
Sian Beilock and Susan Leving, two psychologists at the University of Chicago, are trying to learn about learning. In a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, Beilock and Levine found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and what female students learn: If a female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills, then her female students are more likely to believe that boys are better than girls at math. “If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers in later grade, it may create a snowball effect on their math achievement.” Levine told Science News. The study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are, then these girls may not do as well as they would have if they were more confident.
Just as students find certain subjects to be difficult, teachers can find certain subjects to be difficult to learn—and teach. The subject of math can be particularly difficult for everyone.
The new study involved 65 girls, 52 boys and 17 first-and second-grade teachers in elementary schools in the Midwest. The students took math achievement tests at the beginning and end of the school year, and the researchers compared the scores.
The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers: To find out which teachers were anxious about math, the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt. A teacher who got nervous looking at the numbers on a sales receipt, for example, was probably anxious about math.
Boys, on average, were unaffected by a teacher’s anxiety. On average, girls with math-anxious teachers scored lower on the end-of-the-year math tests than other girls in the study did. Plus, on the test showing whether someone thought a math superstar had to be a boy, 20 girls showed feeling that boys would be better at math—and all of these girls had been taught by female teachers with math anxiety.
According to surveys done before this one, college students who want to become elementary school teachers have the highest levels of anxiety about math. Plus, nine of every 10 elementary teachers are women, Levine said.
1. Sian Beilock and Susan Levine carried out the new research in order to ___________.| A．know the effects of teaching on learning | B．study students’ ways of learning math |
| C．prove women teachers are unfit to teach math | D．find better teaching methods for teachers |
| A．end up learning math anxiety from their teachers |
| B．study the ways their female teachers behave |
| C．have an influence on their math-anxious female teachers |
| D．gain unexpected achievement in such subjects as math |
| A．Prepare two math achievement tests for the students |
| B．Tell their feelings about math problems |
| C．Answer whether a math superstar had to be a boy |
| D．Compare the students’ scores after the math tests |
| A．No male students were affected by their teachers’ anxiety |
| B．Almost all the girls got lower scores in the tests than the boys |
| C．About 30% of the girls thought boys are better at math than girls |
| D．Girls with math-anxious teachers all failed in the math tests |
| A．117 students and teachers took part in the new study |
| B．The researchers felt surprised at the findings of their study |
| C．Beilock and Levine are interested in teaching math |
| D．Men teachers are better at teaching math than women teachers |
【推荐2】Proper arrangement of classroom space is important to encouraging interaction. Most of us have noticed how important physical setting is to efficiency and comfort in our work.
We are in the twenty-first century now, but step into almost any college classroom and you step back in time at least a hundred years. Desks are normally in straight rows, so students can clearly see the teacher but not all their classmates.
With a little imagination and effort, unless desks are fixed to the floor, the teacher can correct this situation and create space that encourages interchange among students. In small or standard-sized classes, chairs, desks, and tables can be arranged in a variety of ways: circles, U-shapes or semicircles.
| A．It’s impossible for students to make up small groups in large lecture halls. |
| B．In courses that regularly use a small group format, students might be asked to stay in the same small groups throughout the course. |
| C．The assumption behind such an arrangement is obvious: Everything of importance comes from the teacher. |
| D．College classroom space should be designed to encourage the activity of critical thinking. |
| E．Large classes, particularly those held in lecture halls, unfortunately, allow much less flexibility. |
| F．The primary, goal should be: for everyone to be able to see everyone else. |
【推荐3】Many studies have shown the learning-by-teaching effect. Students who spend time teaching what they’ve learned show better understanding and ability to remember knowledge than students who simply spend the same time re-studying. But why does teaching help?
Researchers did a study to test their idea that teaching improves the teacher’s learning because it forces the teacher to find back what they’ve learned. They asked 124 students to spend ten minutes studying a text with numbers on a topic which is completely new to them. They told the students they could take notes while studying, but would teach the material afterwards without notes. After studying the text, the students were divided into four groups. In one group the students spent five minutes giving a lesson on the study material without notes. The other groups either spent the same time completing arithmetic (算术) problems, teaching with a script (讲稿) or writing down all they could remember from the text—a form of recalling practice. A week later, all the students took a surprise test of their knowledge and understanding of the text.
The important finding is that the teaching-without-notes group and the recalling-practice group performed better than the group that completed arithmetic problems and the group that taught with a script.
The researchers said the result shows that the benefits of the learning-by-teaching method are caused by recalling practice; that is, the learning-by-teaching method works only when the teaching includes recalling the taught materials.
The new findings have a practical suggestion for how the learning-by-teaching method is used in education. In order to make sure that students learn and remember an educational material, they should internalize (内化) the material before presenting it to others, rather than depend on notes during the presentation process.
1. Why does the author give a question in Paragraph 1?| A．To look for readers’ answer. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To keep a sense of mystery. | D．To show off his knowledge. |
| A．Why the study started. | B．How the study was done. |
| C．How many people joined in the study. | D．What conclusion the researchers made. |
| A．Previewing-by-teaching. | B．Note-taking. |
| C．Learning-by-teaching. | D．Mind-mapping. |
| A．A history textbook. | B．A newspaper. |
| C．A guideline. | D．A detective novel. |
【推荐1】Over 7,000 species around the world are considered endangered. That number doesn’t even include the plants, animals, and other lifeforms that are listed by some scientists as vulnerable, critically endangered, or extinct in the wild.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) maintains the most-comprehensive list of endangered species around the world. The Red List of Threatened Species, as it’s called, judges each species on five different standards for an in-depth scientific approach. According to the IUCN, an endangered species is one that meets any one of the following criteria (标准): a 50%-70% population decrease over 10 years, a total geographic area less than 5,000 square kilometers, a population size less than 2,500 adults, a restricted population of 250 adults, or a statistical prediction that it will go extinct within the next 20 years.
Though the IUCN’s Red List covers a wide range of what qualifies as an endangered species, it doesn’t quite say how a species reaches those low points. Prepare to feel guilty: the most common factor when it comes to species decline is human intervention. Loss of habitat, the introduction of a foreign species into the environment, hunting, pollution, disease, and loss of genetic variation (基因变异) are all causes of species decline and most often are a result of human activities. Take the bald eagle for example: the rise in human population and urban development of North America limited the animal’s habitat; an increase in hunting the eagles for sport lowered their population size; and the use of the pesticide DDT on farms harmed the animal’s reproductive capabilities.
But even though humans are the number one cause of species decline, classifying species as endangered encourages action to reverse the effects of human intervention. Conservation efforts by the US Fish and Wildlife Service criminalized (使非法) the hunting of bald eagles and the use of the pesticide DDT in the mid- to late 20th century. The effect was positive, as bald eagles have been on the rise and were taken off the endangered species list in 1995.
1. Which of the following species can be considered endangered?| A．One that will go extinct within the next 50 years. |
| B．One whose population size is less than 5,000 adults. |
| C．One whose habitat is less than 2,500 square kilometers. |
| D．One whose population decreases 20% over twenty years. |
| A．The causes of species decline. |
| B．The disadvantages of the pesticide. |
| C．A list of worldwide endangered species. |
| D．Common features of endangered species. |
| A．To show its rareness. |
| B．To blame humans for its decline. |
| C．To stress its importance in nature. |
| D．To show the meaning of ranking it endangered. |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Health. | C．Science. | D．Education. |
【推荐2】Can we vibrate (振动) ourselves healthy? That’s the basis behind a form of treatment called Whole Body Vibration (WBV). The idea is simple: Standing on a vibrating plate forces our muscles to do work, which could lead to countless health benefits. But, despite years of research and hundreds of studies, the true benefits of WBV are still unclear.
In a 2003 study, researchers saw an increase in vertical (垂直的) jump height after participants simply stood on a vibrating plate several times a week for eight months. But shaking is not a fitness panacea. A study found that subjects who did leg exercises on a vibrating platform for 11 weeks had no increase in their jumping ability. Other early studies found no effects of WBV.
More recent work suggests whole body vibration could offer important benefits to people unable to perform normal workouts. A 2016 Scientific Reports study of 40 people with cerebral palsy (脑瘫) found that the participants could both walk and stand up better after 20 weeks of WBV. A 2017 study in the Journal of Biomechanics found that whole body vibration had a greater effect on older people’s muscles than it did on those who were younger, an indication that it might offer benefits to seniors. A number of research groups have found some indications that WBV could help with cardiovascular health, and a group from Rio de Janeiro State University has shown it could help fight osteoporosis.
These results are encouraging, says Silmara Gusso, a senior lecturer in exercise sciences at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, but more research is needed. And, she warns, not every kind of vibration is helpful to our bodies, so the commercially available vibration plates may not work as advertised.
“We cannot imply that the results obtained with certain equipment can be applied to other equipment,” Gusso says. “Some types of vibration might even cause harm.”
1. What does the underlined word “panacea” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Matter. | B．Cure-all. |
| C．Loss. | D．Discovery. |
| A．A weak man unable to run normally. |
| B．A fit woman hungry for slimmer body. |
| C．An older citizen suffering from depression. |
| D．A busy younger eager to improve jumping ability. |
| A．She wants to do more researches. |
| B．Vibration is not beneficial to all. |
| C．Vibration has made our body in bad condition. |
| D．Advertised vibration equipments are not effective. |
| A．Critical. | B．Objective. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Supportive. |
【推荐3】Are you sick of going to bed late and waking up tired? Then grab your hiking boots and a tent. A new study suggests that camping in the great outdoors for a couple of days can reset your body clock and help you get more sleep.
The body clock is an internal system that tells our bodies when it’s time to go to sleep and when it's time to wake up. Scientists track this clock by measuring the amount of melatonin (褪黑激素) circulating in a person’s blood at any given time.
In a healthy sleeper, melatonin levels rise a few hours before bedtime, stay high through the night, and then settle back down when it’s time to wake up.
In our modern society, however, most of us stay up many hours past sunset and would probably sleep in many hours after sunrise if we could. And the trouble is, your melatonin levels may still be high when your alarm clock goes off in the morning, which leads to fatigue. It may also have other health consequences as well, such as diabetes (糖尿病), overweight and heart disease.
Professor Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado in the US wanted to see if our body clocks can be reset by a short stay in nature. His team recruited (招募) fourteen physically active volunteers in their 20s and 30s. Nine went on a weekend camping trip, while the other five stayed home. At the end of the weekend, the researchers reported that in just two days, the campers’ body clocks had shifted so that their melatonin levels began to rise more than an hour earlier than they did before they left on the trip. By contrast, the body clocks of the group that stayed home shifted even later over the course of the weekend.
“This tells us we can reset our clocks fast,” Wright said.
Therefore, if you want to change your sleep patterns you could try to increase your exposure to natural light during the day and decrease the amount of artificial light you see at night. And if that doesn’t work，there’s always camping.
1. The underlined word “fatigue” in Paragraph 4 probably means ________.| A．excitement |
| B．tiredness |
| C．relief |
| D．disappointment |
| A．Those staying outdoors reset the clock inside their bodies over a short period. |
| B．The body clocks of the two groups didn’t show much difference. |
| C．The body clocks of those who stayed at home remained the same. |
| D．Changes to the body clock don't necessarily affect melatonin levels in our bodies. |
| A．stay home to reset our body clock and get more sleep |
| B．stay up late long past sunset and sleep long after sunrise |
| C．get exposed to more natural light but less artificial light |
| D．try to reduce melatonin levels as much as possible at night |
| A．To inform us of a possible way to adjust the body clock. |
| B．To explain how a lack of sleep is bad for our health. |
| C．To analyze how the body clock influences our sleeping habits. |
| D．To explore how the body clock is connected with melatonin levels. |
【推荐1】It was reported that a worker’s strike happened because industry bosses are planning to cancel paper tickets and close almost 1,000 station ticket offices in England. The government says nothing has been decided in reply to this strike. But some officials advise to save money in this way.
Regardless of the outcome of the strike, the direction of digital change is clear. With time going by, station ticket offices are likely to become a sepia-tinted memory. For us, we who have been used to organising travel via a smartphone feel little sadness. But for people without online skills — who may be older, poorer and weaker — another small social barrier will be built.
From doctor appointments to payment apps, more and more key services are now provided online. Local government, lack of money, has to do business in this way. As this change takes place, some people hold that it can be unfair to some users. In the case of health and social care, those who need help most are unable to navigate (导航) a digital route to the place. A recent report estimated that around 6% of households have no internet access. As digital technology becomes the gatekeeper to everyday life, some groups may face the problem of exclusion and isolation.
The debate over ticket offices offers an opportunity to reflect on the increasing role of technology in our society. Clearly, it is important to help marginalised groups gain easy online access. Some people will never become comfortable using smartphones or tablets. Some offline options must be maintained for important services. This will cost more. But that is the price of being fair to those who find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide.
1. What is paragraph 1 of the text mainly about?| A．The desire of the government. | B．The disappearance of paper tickets |
| C．The causes of an employee’s strike. | D．The problem of station ticket offices. |
| A．Latest. | B．Different. | C．Profound. | D．Dated. |
| A．The digital divide risks | B．The majority households. |
| C．The exclusion process. | D．The individual estimates. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Negative. | C．Doubtful. | D．Approving. |
【推荐2】Art is everywhere. Any public space has been carefully designed by an artistic mind to be both functional and beautiful. Why, then, is art still so widely considered to be "the easy subject" at school, insignificant to wider society, a waste of time and effort?
Art can connect culture with commercial products in a way that not many other things can; art generates money and holds significant emotional and cultural value within communities. When people attend a concert, they are paying for music, sure, maybe even hotel rooms, meals, and transport, but they also gain an incredible experience, a unique atmosphere and a memory that will go through the rest of their lives. People don't just want material things anymore, they want to experience life---the arts are a perfect cross over between culture and commerce.
Furthermore, the arts can bring communities together, reducing loneliness and making people feel safer. Social bonds are created among individuals when they share their arts experiences through reflection and discussion, and their expression of common values through artworks in honour of events significant to a nation's experience.
The arts clearly have a pretty positive impact on physical and psychological health. It is found that people who frequent cultural places or participate in artistic events are more likely to gain good health compared to those who do not; more engagement with the arts is linked to a higher level of people’s wellbeing. The Royal Society of Public Health discovered that music and art, when used in hospitals, help to improve the conditions of patients by reducing stress, anxiety and blood pressure.
Children who are involved with the arts make greater achievements in their education: those engaged with drama have greater literary ability while others taking part in musical practice exhibit greater skills in math and languages. Kids with preference for the arts have a greater chance of finding employment in the future. Participating in the arts is essential for child development; encouraging children to express themselves in constructive ways could help to form healthy emotional responses in later life.
Vital to human life, art is celebrated and used by nations across the world for various purposes. Life without art would be boring and dead still, for art is a part of what makes us human.
1. Art products differ from most other commercial products because_____ .| A．most people purchase them for collection |
| B．they are more expensive and less accessible |
| C．they have both commercial and cultural values |
| D．their prices may climb up as time passes |
| A．They enjoy better living conditions. |
| B．They like to compare themselves with others. |
| C．They are particularly good at both music and art. |
| D．They tend to be healthier physically and mentally. |
| A．It promotes their academic performance and emotional growth. |
| B．It gives them more confidence in exhibiting their learning skills. |
| C．It inspires their creativity in designing their future career. |
| D．It helps to make responsible people out of them. |
| A．How Art Cures Our Hearts |
| B．Art: A Blessing to Humankind |
| C．How Art Benefits Communities |
| D．Art: A Bridge Between Cultures |
【推荐3】Video calls are a common occurrence, but have you imagined being able to touch the person on the other end of the line? Scientists are making this a reality.
Researchers at the University of New South Wales Australia, have invented a soft skin stretch device (SSD), a haptic device that can recreate the sense of touch. Haptic technology imitates the experience of touch by stimulating localized areas of the skin in ways that are similar to what is felt in the real worlds through force, vibration or motion.
Vibration is the most common haptic technology today and has been built into many electronic devices, such as one attached to the back of a trackpad in laptops, which simulates a button clicking. However, haptic feedback with vibration becomes less sensitive when used continuously. The existing technology also has great difficulty recreating the sense of touch with objects in virtual environments or located remotely according to Mai Thanh Thai, lead author of the study.
The new technology overcomes issues with existing haptic devices. The research team introduced a novel method to recreate the sense of touch through soft, artificial “muscles”.
“Our three-way directional skin stretch device, built into the fingertips of the wearable haptic glove we also created, is like wearing a second skin—it’s soil, stretchable and mimics the sense of touch—and will enable new forms of haptic communication to enhance everyday activities, ” said Thanh Nho Do, senior author of the study.
It works like this: Imagine you are at home and you call your friend who is in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs and your friend also wears a glove with integrated 3D force sensors. If your friend picks up an object, it will physically press against your friend’s lingers. And the glove with 3D force sensors will measure these interactions. The force signals can be sent to your glove so your device will generate the same 3D forces, making you experience the same sense of touch as your friend.
The haptic devices could be applied in various scenes, allowing users to feel objects inside a virtual world or at a distance. This could be especially beneficial during such times like the COVID-19 pandemic when people rely on video calls to stay connected with loved ones. Or it could be used in medical practices. Doctors can feel a patient’s organ tissues with surgical（手术的）tools without touching them.
1. What can we learn about the SSD?| A．It imitates the sense of touch through animal skin. |
| B．It mainly uses vibration technology. |
| C．It makes virtual haptic communication possible. |
| D．It takes the shape of a glove. |
| A．The advantages of the new haptic glove. |
| B．An explanation of how the haptic device works. |
| C．The applications of the new haptic technology. |
| D．A personal experience of using SSDs during a video call. |
| A．Interviewing someone face to face. |
| B．Recreating organ tissues. |
| C．Evaluating surgeries from a distance. |
| D．Feeling a silk scarf being sold online. |
| A．To encourage the use of a new product. |
| B．To introduce the development of haptic technology. |
| C．To compare different haptic devices. |
| D．To inform readers of a new invention. |
