题目内容
B. origin
C. writing
D. originator
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 grades, 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.
【小题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 |
The poorer mental function seen among alcoholics,many of whom also regularly smoke cigarettes,may be partly due to the long term effects of nicotine(尼古丁),new research suggests.
“People who are also smokers are at a much higher risk,” Dr.Jennifer M.Glass of the University of Michigan's Addiction Research Center said. In her study,“Cigarette smoking has a bad effect on IQ and thinking,” she said.
This finding may seem counterintuitive(违反直觉的),since many smokers show that they feel quicker and focused after smoking. Indeed,research shows that improved mental functioning is one of the immediate effects of nicotine exposure. Chronic(慢性的)smoking,however,is known to have the opposite effect. Studies show that up to 87 percent of alcoholics smoke cigarettes.
Yet,few studies have looked into cigarette smoking as a factor that might explain the cognitive(认知的)lack reported among alcoholics. To search for that association,Glass and her colleagues examined brain function among 172 men from the same area,including 103 men who abused alcohol. The team found that men with higher scores on the lifetime alcohol problems scale(LAPS)and those who reported a higher number of pack years of smoking both had lower IQ scores.
Upon further research,the researchers found that smoking also appeared to be independently associated with weaker word and space reasoning.
Thus,though smoking did not account for all of the decreased mental functioning observed among the alcohol abusers,it did seem to account for some of the effects,the report indicates.
【小题1】What is the passage mainly about?
| A.Cigarette smoking contributes to decreased IQ and thinking. |
| B.Alcohol abuse is to blame for the poorer mental function. |
| C.Most of the alcoholics are also heavy smokers. |
| D.Non-smokers mostly have higher IQ scores. |
| A.Chronic smoking can improve mental functioning. |
| B.Chronic smoking has an immediate influence on mental functioning. |
| C.Chronic smoking has side effect on mental functioning improvement. |
| D.Chronic smokers feel quicker and focused after smoking. |
| A.cigarette smoking is not related to reasoning |
| B.nicotine exposure can improve mental functioning temporarily |
| C.the long term effects of nicotine cause alcoholics |
| D.men with lower scores on the LAPS have lower IQ scores |
| A.many alcoholics suffer a great deal from smoking |
| B.giving up smoking is significantly challenging for the alcoholics |
| C.alcoholics who do not smoke much have higher IQ scores |
| D.other factors can cause the poorer mental functioning besides smoking |
| A.to warn us of the bad effects of smoking on IQ and thinking |
| B.to tell us why people are addicted to smoking |
| C.to give us some advice on how to improve IQ and reasoning |
| D.to compare the bad effects of alcohol and cigarette |