熟悉四級閱讀理解題型的同學應該都了解，英語四級考試的閱讀理解材料大多選自《時代》《衛(wèi)報》《今日美國》等外刊。要想閱讀理解這部分拿到高分，必須在平常多閱讀，掌握新詞匯，鍛煉閱讀速度。
為此小編每日精選了《衛(wèi)報》《時代》等外刊上的文章供大家進行閱讀練習。
本篇閱讀材料“日有所思夜有所夢讓你更聰明”選自《時代》(原文標題：How Your Dreams Can Make You Smarter 2012.1.4)。如果大家覺得比較簡單，就當作泛讀材料了解了解，認識幾個新單詞或新表達方式也不錯。如果大家覺得這些材料理解上有難度，不妨當做挑戰(zhàn)自己的拔高訓練，希望大家都有進步^^
New research shows dreaming about a task gives you an edge in real life.
It’s late in the evening: time to close the book and turn off the computer. You’re done for the day. What you may not realize, however, is that the learning process actually continues — in your dreams.
It might sound like science fiction, but researchers are increasingly focusing on the relationship between the knowledge and skills our brains absorb during the day and thefragmented, often bizarre imaginings they generate at night. Scientists have found that dreaming about a task we’ve learned is associated with improved performance in that activity (suggesting that there’s some truth to the popular notion that we’re “getting” a foreign language once we begin dreaming in it). What’s more, researchers are coming to recognize that dreaming is an essential part of understanding, organizing and retainingwhat we learn — and that dreams may even hold out the possibility of directing our learning as we doze.
While we sleep, research indicates, the brain replays the patterns of activity it experienced during waking hours, allowing us to enter what one psychologist calls aneural virtual reality. A vivid example of such reenactment can be seen in this video, made as part of a 2011 study by researchers in the Sleep Disorders Unit at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. They taught a series of dance moves to a group of patients with conditions like sleepwalking, in which the sleeper engages in the kind of physical movement that is normally inhibited during slumber. They then videotaped the subjects as they slept. Lying in bed, eyes closed, the woman on the tape does a faithful renditionof the dance moves she learned earlier — “the first direct and unambiguous demonstration of overt behavioral replay of a recently learned skill during human sleep,” writes lead author Delphine Oudiette.
Of course, most of us are not quite so energetic during sleep — but our brains are busynonetheless. While our bodies are at rest, scientists theorize, our brains are extracting what’s important from the information and events we’ve recently encountered, then integrating that data into the vast store of what we already know — perhaps explaining why dreams are such an odd mixture of fresh experiences and old memories. A dream about something we’ve just learned seems to be a sign that the new knowledge has been processed effectively. In a 2010 study published in the journal Current Biology, researchers at Harvard Medical School reported that college students who dreamed about a computer maze task they had learned showed a 10-fold improvement in their ability to navigate the maze compared to participants who did not dream about the task.
Robert Stickgold, one of the Harvard researchers, suggests that studying right before bedtime or taking a nap following a study session in the afternoon might increase the odds of dreaming about the material. But some scientists are pushing the notion of enhancing learning through dreaming even further, asking sleepers to mentally practice skills while they slumber. In a pilot study published in The Sport Psychologist journal in 2010, University of Bern psychologist Daniel Erlacher instructed participants to dream about tossing coins into a cup. Those who successfully dreamed about the task showed significant improvement in their real-life coin-tossing abilities. Experiments like Erlacher’s raise the possibility that we could train ourselves to cultivate skills while we slumber. Think about that as your head hits the pillow tonight.
【重點單詞及短語】
retain v. 保持;記住
hold out 堅持;伸出;提供;維持
slumber v. 睡眠;麻木狀態(tài);靜止狀態(tài) v. 睡眠;蟄伏;麻木
overt adj. 明顯的;公然的;蓄意的
extract v. 提取;取出;摘錄
integrate into 成為一體，融入;使……并入
navigate v. 駕駛，操縱;使通過
odd adj. 古怪的
take a nap 睡午覺;小睡一下
odds n. 幾率;勝算
pilot study 初步研究;預備試驗
toss sth. into 把……扔進
Question time:
1. What have scientists found between dreams and what we learn?
2. How do our brains act when we are at rest?
