三、阅读理解
Time flies when you play on your smartphone. But when you get down to studying, things are different. Why are we so easily attracted by smartphones but not by studying?
It all boils down to something small and hard to see: dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical (化学物质) that makes people feel good. Our brains give it out when we eat yummy food, get a prize or after we exercise. Compared with studying, playing on smartphones causes our brains to give out more dopamine. For example, checking your phone for a text leads to a 400 per cent increase in dopamine.
But why? When we visit social media, we don't know what we will see next, or who will give opinions about things we post. This magic of "maybe" makes the dopamine system active. We get excited wondering if we have messages from our friends. When our expectations are met, dopamine is given out. And to find more dopamine, we continue checking our phones. Studying doesn't provide such magic. Without this excitement, we get bored much more easily.
Can we do something to change that? According to scientists, apps can become less attractive if we turn off notifications (通知) or change the screen colours to black and white. We can also set time limits (限制) on apps so that we do not overuse them.
"As for studying, you can check your progress daily or weekly and reward yourself for it," said a scientist in this field. "You can also try to use what you've learnt to make an influence in the real world. This will make learning much more interesting."
(
D
) 1. When do people have more dopamine?
A. When they know what will happen next.
B. When they stay in a familiar (熟悉的) environment.
C. When they get used to something.
D. When their expectations are met.
(
A
) 2. Which statement is true according to the passage?
A. Dopamine is something that can make us feel good.
B. Our brains give dopamine out before we exercise or get a prize.
C. The magic of "maybe" excites us after we read messages.
D. Apps can become less attractive if we change the sound of notifications.
(
B
) 3. Which of the following might make learning more interesting?
A. Setting time limits on everything you do.
B. Using what you have learnt to make an influence in real life.
C. Giving yourself a test daily or weekly to check your progress.
D. Reading the interesting parts in your textbooks first.