1 . When your alarm clock rings and you drag yourself out of bed, you probably wonder: Why on earth does school have to start so early?
Fortunately, there is a new law to back you up—or better still, science. A law in California requires that public middle schools begin classes no earlier than 8:00 am and that high schools start no earlier than 8:30 am. The law will go into effect by July 1, 2022.
Starting school at 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning may not sound like a big change, but it could mean one more hour of sleep for students who used to start school at 7:30 or even earlier. “The effect of that one hour is something they will be feeling as 40-year-old adults,” Sumit Bhargava, a sleep expert at Stanford University, told The New York Times. He said that not having enough sleep can affect students’ mental health and increase the risk of fatness and diabetes.
In the short run, students’ school performances should improve almost immediately. Kyla Wahlstrom, a researcher at the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development, found that students who have enough sleep are more active in class and get better grades.
Some might say that urging students to go to bed earlier could have been a much easier solution than changing the school timetable across an entire state. But according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teenagers go through biological changes when they enter adolescence, which makes it difficult for them to fall asleep before 11:00 pm. So when school starts at 8:00 or earlier, they can hardly get the ideal 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep that experts suggest they need to do their best in the daytime.
This is why when the new law came out, its author, Anthony Portantino, said, “Generations of children will come to appreciate this historic day and our governor for taking bold action.”
1. What does the first paragraph serve as?
| A．A background. | B．An explanation. | C．An introduction. | D．A definition. |
2. What can we learn from Bhargava’s words?
| A．The new law is of lasting benefit to students. |
| B．Lack of sleep affects adults more than children. |
| C．Enough sleep guarantees students’ mental health. |
| D．The amount of sleep people need changes with age. |
3. What is the passage mainly talking about?
| A．Less sleep easily makes for health problems. |
| B．California is pushing back school start times. |
| C．A law to start the school day later takes effect. |
| D．Teenagers’ biological changes affect their sleep patterns. |
