Question

All we have a clock located inside our brains. Similar to your bedside alarm clock, your internal clock runs on a 24-hour cycle. This cycle, called a circadian (昼夜节奏的) rhythm, helps control when you wake, when you eat and when you sleep.

Somewhere around puberty, something happens in the timing of the biological clock. The clock pushes forward, so adolescents and teenagers are unable to fall asleep as early as they used to. When your mother tells you it's time for bed, your body may be pushing you to stay up3 for several hours more. And the light coming from your computer screen or TV could be pushing you to stay up even later.

This shift is natural for teenagers. But staying up very late and sleeping late can get your body's clock out of sync with the cycle of light and dark. It can also make it hard to get out of bed in the morning and may bring other problems, too. Teenagers are put in a kind of a gray cloud (提不起精神的状态) when they don't get enough sleep, says Mary Carskadon, a sleep researcher at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. It affects their mood and their ability to think and learn.

But just like your alarm clock, your internal clock can be reset. In fact, it automatically resets itself every day. How? By using the light it gets through your eyes.

Scientists have known for a long time that the light of day and the dark of night play important roles in setting our internal clocks. For years, researchers thought that the signals that synchronize the body's clock were handled through the same pathways that we use to see. But recent discoveries show that the human eye has two separate light-sensing systems. One system allows us to see. The second system tells our body whether it's day or night.

(Note: Answer the questions or complete the statements in NO MORE THAN TEN WORDS.)

81. The clock located inside our brains is similar to our bedside alarm clock because ________________________________________.­

82. Children before puberty tend to __________________________________than adolescents.

83. The author wants to tell the reader that   _____________________________________.

84. What did the previous researchers think about the human eye's light-sensing system?

 

Answer 1

81. it has a cycle of 24 hours

82. fall asleep earlier at night

83. staying up late affects teenagers' ability to think and learn.

84. The human eye had one light-sensing system.