题型：阅读理解 题类：常考题 难易度：普通
北京市西城区20182019学年高二下学期英语期末考试试卷（含小段音频）
A new study suggests some language learning can take place during sleep. Researchers from Switzerland's University of Bern say they discovered people were able to learn new language words during deep levels of sleep.
Much of the earlier research found that memories made when awake were strengthened during sleep. This supported the idea that information learned while awake is replayed and deeply embedded in the sleeping brain.
The researchers theorized that, if replay during sleep improves the storage of learned information while awake, the processing and storage of new information should also be possible during sleep.
They carried out experiments on a group of young Germanspeaking men and women, which centered on periods of deep sleep called "upstates". They identified these slowwave peaks as the best moments for sleeplearning.
The researchers observed individuals in a controlled environment during brief periods of sleep. Brain activity was recorded as pairs of words were played for the study subjects. One word in the pair was a real German word. The other was a madeup foreign word. For later identification purposes, the German words chosen were things clearly larger or smaller than a shoebox.
Each word pair was played four times, with the order of the words changed each time. The word pairs were played at a rhythm that is similar to actual brain activity during deep sleep. The goal was to create a lasting memory link between the false word and the German word that individuals could identify while awake.
When the subjects woke, they were presented with the false language wordsboth by sight and sound. They were then asked to guess whether the false word played during sleep represented an object smaller or larger than a shoebox. Results of the study found that a majority of subjects gave more correct answers about the sleeplearned words than would be expected if they had only guessed at random.
The researchers said they measured increased signals affecting a part of the brain known as the hippocampus. This brain structure is very important for building relational memory during nonsleep periods. The researchers also said memory was best for word pairs presented during slowwave peaks during sleep.
The study suggests that memory formation in sleep appears to be caused by the same brain structures that support vocabulary learning while awake. The researchers say more studies are needed to support their findings. However, the experiments do provide new evidence that memories can be formed and vocabulary learning can take place in both conscious and unconscious states.
Age has its privileges in America, and one of the more prominent of them is the senior citizen discount. Anyone who has reached a certain age — in some cases as low as 55 — is automatically entitled to dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life. Eligibility is determined not by one's need but by the date on one's birth certificate. Practically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses — as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners.
People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them; yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent(有支付能力的). Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous (同义的). Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor. But most of them aren't.
It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the generations.
Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involve a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point. Buoyed (支持) by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job — thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers.
Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become a formidable economic privilege to a group with millions of members who don't need them.
It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can't take care of themselves and need special treatment; and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against — discrimination by age.
Outline | Details |
Introduction | Age determines whether an American can be given a discount, which is a common {#blank#}1{#/blank#}in American business life today. |
Origin of senior citizen discount | ●Since the senior citizens are often treated as people who are in {#blank#}2{#/blank#}, they are given such priority. |
{#blank#}3{#/blank#} situation | ●The situation has changed a lot where the majority of the elderly are not poor at all. ●Younger Americans were at a/an {#blank#}4{#/blank#} directly or indirectly due to the discounts given to the elderly, thus leading to conflicts between generations. ●The number of older Americans {#blank#}5{#/blank#} to work rather than retire is on the increase, which means {#blank#}6{#/blank#} opportunities for young workers. ●It is no longer a kind of charity because millions of senior citizens don't need the priority {#blank#}7{#/blank#}. |
Conclusion | It's unwise to offer discount priority to the elderly. ●It will mislead people to think they are unable to {#blank#}8{#/blank#} to themselves. ●People may think that they are ungrateful and they're hurting the {#blank#}9{#/blank#} of other age groups. ●Actually senior citizen discounts, to some extent, {#blank#}10{#/blank#}against their age. |
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