Reading Is Important For Your Brain
You can take fish oil pill or go to a language class, puzzle books, or a few hours of exercise every week. There are countless methods to improve your memory and cognitive (认知的) functioning. But the cheapest and easiest way to sharpen your brain is right in front of your face. It’s called reading.
The most basic impact occurs in the area associated with language reception. Processing written material—from the letters to the words to the sentences to the stories themselves—puts our brain to work. That happens when we process spoken language, too, but the very nature of reading encourages the brain to work harder and better. And the benefits of reading continue long after you’ve put down that great book. A small study at Emory University found that some of those benefits lasted for five days. “We call that a shadow activity, almost like a muscle memory,” says Gregory Berns, PhD, director of the Center for Neuro-policy at Emory. In fact, this is how reading in a certain font can improve your memory.
However, not all reading is created equal. Results from a study conducted at Stanford University indicate that close literary reading in particular gives your brain a major workout. MRI scans of people who are deep into a Jane Austen novel showed an increase in blood flowing to areas of the brain that control both cognitive and executive function, as opposed to the more limited effects that come from more leisurely reading.
The ability to read closely is something that needs to be cultivated. An author notes that even she, someone who reads for a living, has found her ability to concentrate on the written word fading as more of what we read is on a screen. “Unfortunately, this form of reading is rarely continuous, sustained, or concentrated,” she writes.
Of course, there’s an easy solution: Turn off your phone and your computer, set aside a good hour or two—and just read.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
| A．19th-century American literature. |
| B．The independent life of some American young girls. |
| C．The hard life people had in the old days on the American frontier. |
| D．The effort cowboys made to survive 19t-century frontier life. |
| A．She attempted to escape from the farm. |
| B．She worked very diligently on the farm. |
| C．She had to work on the rich people's farm. |
| D．She was a Spanish immigrant girl. |
| A．He knew lots of people from the Midwest. |
| B．He read many novels about the Midwest. |
| C．He lived in the Midwest throughout his life. |
| D．He was brought up in the Midwest. |
| A．Buy the book Main-Travelled Roads in a bookstore. |
| B．Lend the book Main-Travelled Roads to the woman. |
| C．Look for Hemlen Garlen's other works in the library. |
| D．Write a book review on Main-Travelled Roads. |
| A．differences B．privileged C．exploring D．account E．amazement F．research G．strongly H．unthinkable I．separately J．recognize K．education |
Perri Klass and her mother, Sheil a Solomon Klass, both gifted professional writers, prove to be ideal co-writers as they examine their decades of motherhood, daughterhood, and the wonderful ways their lives have overlapped（重叠）.
Perri notes with
A child of the Depression（大萧条）, Sheil a was raised in Brooklyn by parents who considered
Each writing in her own unmistakable voice, Perri and Sheil a take turns
Looking deep into the lives they have lived
| A．Talking about sports. | B．Writing up local news. |
| C．Reading newspapers. | D．Putting up advertisements. |
5 . Reading allows you to de-stress by unplugging and escaping. In one study, reading was found to be as effective as yoga and humor in reducing subjective feelings of stress over a 30-minute period, as well as objective measurements of blood pressure and heart rate.
In a longitudinal (纵向的) study of individuals aged 64 and over, those who read at least once a week were less likely to experience cognitive decline than those who did not. At the 14-year mark of the study, and regardless of educational level, those who read more enjoyed greater protection. This effect is maintained into readers’ 80’s.
Bibliotherapy, or the use of various reading materials for the promotion of psychological health, is a well-known aid to mental health treatment.
Reading can be an important bedtime ritual for anyone-not just kids.
| A．It may include self-help books, focused readings, first-hand accounts of other’s experiences, and even relevant fiction. |
| B．Additionally, readers are expected of a longer life span than non-readers. |
| C．Another study found that cognition in those over 80 was protected by activities such as reading. |
| D．This means that reading benefits your physical as well as your psychological health. |
| E．However studies have shown that electronic devices are by no means helpful in reading. |
| F．For adults, reading a book before bed can reduce the amount of time it takes to fall asleep and increase sleep duration. |
| A．The man can find his talent by himself. |
| B．It’s impossible to find one’s hidden talent. |
| C．The book won’t be as good as it is introduced. |
| D．It’s ridiculous to judge a person by his talent. |
7 . Textbooks represent an $11 billion dollar industry, up from $8 billion in 2014. Textbook publisher Pearson is the largest publisher — of any kind — in the world.
It costs about $1 million to create a new textbook. A freshman textbook will have dozens of contributors, from subject-matter experts through graphic and layout artists to expert reviewers and classroom testers. Textbook publishers connect professors, instructors and students in ways that alternatives, such as open e-textbooks and open educational resources, simply do not. This connection happens not only by means of collaborative development, review and testing, but also at conferences where faculty regularly decide on their textbooks and curricula for the coming year.
It is true that textbook publishers have recently reported losses, largely due to students renting or buying used print textbooks. But this can be chalked up to the excessively high cost of their books — which has increased over 1,000 percent since 1977. A restructuring of the textbook industry may well be in order. But this does not mean the end of the textbook itself.
While they may not be as dynamic as an iPad, textbooks are not passive or lifeless. For example, over the centuries, they have simulated (模拟) dialogues in a number of ways. From 1800 to the recent day, textbooks have done this by posing questions for students to answer inductively (归纳性地). That means students are asked to use their individual experience to come up with answers to general questions. Today’s psychology texts, for example, ask: “How much of your personality do you think you inherited?” while ones in physics say: “How can you predict where the ball you tossed will land?”
Experts observe that “textbooks come in layers, something like an onion.” For an active learner, engaging with a textbook can be an interactive experience: Readers proceed at their own pace. They “customize” their books by engaging with different layers and linkages. Highlighting, Post-It notes, dog-ears and other techniques allow for further customization that students value in print books over digital forms of books.
1. What does the passage say about open educational resources?| A．They contribute to teaching as much as to learning. |
| B．They don’t profit as much as traditional textbooks do. |
| C．They can’t connect professors and students as textbooks do. |
| D．They compete fiercely for customers with textbook producers. |
| A．Failure to meet student need. | B．Industry restructuring. |
| C．Emergence of e-books. | D．Falling sales. |
| A．Think carefully before answering each question. |
| B．Ask questions based on their own understanding. |
| C．Answer questions using their personal experience. |
| D．Give answers showing their respective personality. |
| A．They can digitalize the prints easily. |
| B．They can learn in an interactive way. |
| C．They can purchase customized versions. |
| D．They can adapt the material themselves. |
| A．The popularity of travel guidebooks. |
| B．The decline of travel guidebooks. |
| C．The close connection between guidebooks and travellers. |
| D．Travel guidebooks’ ability to make money. |
| A．Social network. |
| B．Travel guidebooks. |
| C．Friends from travel business. |
| D．Geography teachers. |
| A．Its high price. | B．Its lack of individuality. |
| C．Its unreal introduction. | D．Its outdated information. |
| A．She only read the contents of the book. |
| B．She didn’t omit a single detail. |
| C．She scanned the whole book. |
| D．She read only some chapters of the book. |
10 . Reading involves looking at illustrative symbols and expressing mentally the sounds and ideas they represent. Concepts of reading have changed
These authorities
Many adults, although they have the ability to read, have never read a book in its
| A．specifically | B．dramatically | C．abstractly | D．ridiculously |
| A．understanding | B．translating | C．defining | D．substituting |
| A．involves | B．concentrates | C．specializes | D．analyzes |
| A．opinions | B．effects | C．manners | D．functions |
| A．view | B．look | C．reassure | D．agree |
| A．support | B．argue | C．attempt | D．compete |
| A．interpreting | B．saying | C．reciting | D．reading |
| A．in addition to | B．for example | C．according to | D．such as |
| A．completely | B．carefully | C．publicly | D．actually |
| A．part | B．whole | C．standard | D．straight |
| A．applied | B．granted | C．classified | D．graded |
| A．instructive | B．doubtful | C．certain | D．complicated |
| A．strike | B．illustrate | C．define | D．unlock |
| A．purposes | B．degrees | C．stages | D．steps |
| A．On the other hand | B．In short | C．By the way | D．So far |
