题目内容
Most people can remember a phone number for up to thirty seconds. When this short amount of time elapses, however, the numbers are erased from the memory. How did the information get there in the first place？ Information that makes its way to the short term memory (STM) does so via the sensory storage area. The brain has a filter which only allows stimuli that is of immediate interest to pass on to the STM, also known as the working memory.
There is much debate about the capacity and duration of the short term memory. The most accepted theory comes from GeorgeA. Miller, a cognitive psychologist who suggested that humans can remember approximately seven chunks of information. A chunk is defined as a meaningful unit of information, such as a word or name rather than just a letter or number, Modern theorists suggest that one can increase the capacity of the short term memory by chunking, or classifying similar information together. By organizing information, one can optimize the STM, and improve the chances of a memory being passed on to long term storage.
When making a conscious effort to memorize something, such as information for an exam, many people engage in "rote rehearsal". By repeating something over and over again, we are able to keep a memory alive. Un- fortunately, this type of memory maintenance only succeeds if there are no interruptions. As soon as a person stops rehearsing the information, it has the tendency to disappear. When a pen and paper are not handy, you might attempt to remember a phone number by repeating it aloud. If the doorbell rings or the dog barks to come in before you get the opportunity to make your phone call, you will forget the number instantly. Therefore, rote rehearsal is not an efficient way to pass information from the short term to long term memory. A better way is to practice "elaborate rehearsal". This involves assigning semantic meaning to a piece of information so that it can be filed along with other pre-existing long term memories.
Encoding information semantically also makes it more retrievable. Retrieving information can be done by recognition or recall. Humans can recall memories that are stored in the long term memory and used often However, if a memory seems to be forgotten, it may eventually be retrieved by prompting. The more clues a person is given (such as pictures), the more likely a memory can be retrieved. This is why multiple choice tests are often used for subjects that require a lot of memorization. (426)
The underlined word "elapses" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______.
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Specialization can be seen as a response to the problem of an increasing accumulation of scientific knowledge. By splitting up the subject matter into smaller units, one man could continue to handle the information and use it as the basis for further research. But specialization was only one of a series of related developments in science affecting the process of communication. Another was the growing professionalisation of scientific activity.
No clear-cut distinction can be drawn between professionals and amateurs in science: exceptions can be found to any rule. Nevertheless, the word "amateur" does carry a connotation that the person concerned is not fully integrated into the scientific community and, in particular, may not fully share its values. The growth of specialization in the nineteenth century, with its consequent requirement of a longer, more complex training, implied greater problems for amateur participation in science. The trend was naturally most obvious in those areas of science based especially on a mathematical or laboratory training, and can be illustrated in terms of the development of geology in the United Kingdom.
A comparison of British geological publications over the last century and a half reveals not simply an in- creasing emphasis on the primacy of research, but also a changing definition of what constitutes an acceptable research paper. Thus, in the nineteenth century, local geological studies represented worthwhile research in their own right; but, in the twentieth century, local studies have increasingly become acceptable to professionals only if they incorporate, and reflect on, the wider geological picture. Amateurs, on the other hand, have continued to pursue local studies in the old way. The overall result has been to make entrance to professional geological journals harder for amateurs, a result that has been reinforced by the widespread introduction of refereeing, first by national journals in the nineteenth century and then by several local geological journals in the twentieth century. As a logical consequence of this development, separate journals have now appeared aimed mainly towards either professional or amateur readership. A rather similar process of differentiation has led to professional geologists coming together nationally within one or two specific societies, whereas the amateurs have tended either to remain in local societies or to come together nationally in a different way.
Although the process of professionalisation and specialization was already well under way in British geology during the nineteenth century, its full consequences were thus delayed until the twentieth century. In science generally, however, the nineteenth century must be reckoned as the crucial period for this change in the structure of science. (424)
The growth of specialization in the 19th century might be more clearly seen in sciences such as ______.
Dearest Julian and Juliette,
You must be back from Africa, I imagine, by now--but meanwhile Africa has come to us, with a vengeance, in a frightful heat wave with temperatures day after day of 105, and 80 degrees at night. In my own case, meteorology has been compounded by a spell of ill-health, due to the after-effects of a long course of radiation which I had to take this spring. I hadn't told you of this trouble before, since it hadn't seriously interfered with my activities and there seemed to be no point in spreading unnecessary apprehensions. It started in 1960, with a malignant tumour on the tongue. The first surgeon I went to wanted to cut out half the tongue and leave me more or less speechless. I went with him to my old friend, Dr Max Cutler. Cutler recommended treatment with radium needles and so did the Professors of Radiology and Surgery at the U. of Cal. Medical Centre at San Francisco, whom I consulted. I took the treatment in the early summer of 1960, and it was remarkably successful. The tumour on the tongue was knocked out and has shown no signs of returning. However, as generally happens in these cases, the lymph glands of the neck became involved. I had one taken out in 1962, and this spring another mass appeared. This was subjected to twenty-five exposures of radio-active cobalt, an extremely exhausting treatment from which I was just recovering when at last I was able to make the trip to Stockholm and London. Since my return there has been a flare-up of secondary inflammation, to which tissues weakened by radiation are peculiarly liable, often after considerable intervals~ Result: I have had to cancel my lecture tour ... Another handicap is my persistent hoarseness due to the nerve that supplies the right-hand vocal cord having been knocked out, either by an infiltration of the malignancy, or by the radiation. I hope this hoarseness may be only temporary, but rather fear I may carry it to the grave.
What the future holds, one doesn't know. In general these malignancies in the neck and head don't do much metastasizing. Meanwhile I am trying to build up resistance with the combination of a treatment which has proved rather successful at the University of Montreal and the University of Manila--the only institutions where it has been tried out over a period of years--and which has been elaborated upon by Professor Guidetti, of the University of Turin, who has read papers on his work at the last two International Cancer Congresses, at Buenos Aires and Moscow. I saw Guidetti while in Turin and was impressed by some of his case-histories, and with Cutler's approval we are carrying out his treatment here. When this damned inflammation dies down, which may be expected to do in a few weeks, I hope to get back to regular work. For the present I am functioning at only a fraction of normal capacity. (515)
Much love to you both from both of us,
Ever your affectionate
Aldous
The author is suffering from ______.
Women and the Winning of the West
The popular version of the lone wagon train, forging its way west, in constant danger of losing the faintly marked trail, its occupants trembling in fear of imminent Indian massacre, is just a Hollywood concoction, says historian Sandra Myres, who has been researching the role of women in settling the American west. She has unearthed vivid accounts of the trail west and of homesteading at the journey's end. The journals, diaries and letters she has read help dispel some long-cherished myths about the American frontier.
Forget the image of the lone wagon train silhouetted against the horizon. The fact was that after the California Gold Rush in 1849, isolated travel was not even a possibility. "You couldn't get lost if you wanted to, because you couldn't get out of sight of another wagon train," explains Myres, professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington.
"The country was so level that we could see the long trains of white-topped wagons for many miles," ob~ served a pioneer woman, Margaret Frink. "It appeared to me that none of the population had been left behind," she wrote in her Journal of the Adventures of a Party of California Gold Seekers, published in 1897:
It seemed to me that I have never seen so many human beings in all my life before. And, when we drew nearer to the vast multitude, and saw them in all manner of vehicles and conveyances, on horseback and on foot... I thought, in my excitement, if one-tenth of these teams and these people get ahead of us, there would be nothing left for us in California worth picking up.
Another favorite Hollywood image--the wagon train forming a circle at dusk--bears little resemblance to reality. The wagons might have made a circle, but if so it was to enclose livestock which might 0therwise wander off and become fair game for rustlers. So the protective stockade of wagons was for the benefit of Cows, horses and pigs. Men, women and children naturally preferred to sleep in tents well outside the circle.
In the movies, we know the Indians are going to descend on the settlers as soon as the sun goes down. Hollywood was only preserving misconceptions of the American Indian that had long-flourished in popular literature and imagination. The 19th-century pioneers themselves were steeped in simplistic views--many of which still persist today. Nineteenth-century fiction depicted either the good Indian--the noble savage of James Feni-more Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales--or the bad Indian. In Robert Bird's Neck of the Wood, for in- stance, Indians are bloodthirsty and treacherous; the heroic settlers ultimately vanquish them.
Settlers on their way west, however, were more likely to meet Indians who descended on the wagons in order to exploit the possibilities for trade the transcontinental travelers offered. Pioneer women found the Indians extremely helpful in identifying and preparing indigenous food and herbs. "You can't find an Indian attack for anything,' says Myres ruefully after reading more than 500 women's journals.
Marauding Indians did occasionally harass the rare party of isolated travelers, but whites and Indians generally regarded each other with a curiosity tinged with mutual apprehension. Pioneer women were keen observers of Indian customs and ceremonies, often recording them in minute detail, very much as a modern anthropologist would. Indian women too were watching their counterparts; some of these accounts have also been pre- served in English transcriptions made by interpreters, at times via sign language.
"The 19th century tended to be an age of journals, thank God," says Myres. The virtues of keeping a journal were instilled in young women by their teachers and the flood of ladies' magazines that kept them up-to-date on the latest eastern styles. It was one's duty to keep up a journal which could be read by friends and relations b
听力原文： How much do American high school students know about economics？ A new report shows that seventy-nine percent of twelfth-graders have at least a basic level of understanding. (29)The results come from testing eleven thousand five hundred students last year in public and private schools.
(30) In fact, students did better in economics than in history or science. Only forty-seven percent of those tested reached the basic level in history. And fifty-four percent performed at or above the basic level in science.
This is the first time the federal government has measured economic understanding among high school students. The study was done as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the Nation's Report Card.
How many students were in this test about economics？
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