Question

If you remember taking class notes in longhand(速记), there’s a good chance you also remember more about a variety of topics than today’s students do. A study investigated whether taking notes by hand helps you learn better than taking notes on a laptop. It was no contest.

Study authors and psychologists Pam A. Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel M. Oppenheimer of the University of California– Los Angeles conducted three separate experiments involving a total of 327 students. All students got the same lectures, but some used laptops, and others took notes by hand.

When it came to learning the concepts, the handwriters won. When it came to retrieving facts, the groups were comparable, except when given time to go home and look at their notes, at which point the handwriters did better.

“Even when allowed to review notes after a week’s delay, participants who had taken notes with laptops performed worse on tests of both factual content and conceptual（概念的）understanding,” the study states.

Learning suffered not because of “multitasking” or the distraction available to students using Wi-Fi– enabled laptops. In the lab, scientists allowed no extraneous（不相干的）activity. Students who paid attention and took deep notes on their laptop still didn’t learn as well—in fact, the study suggests the thoroughness of their notes contributes to the problem.

Laptop users tend to record long, verbatim quotes, which they type mindlessly. Handwriters are more selective. They “wrote significantly fewer words than those who typed,” according to the study. By processing and selecting the more important information, they studied more efficiently, said researchers.

Here’s what’s a bit frightening: When the laptop students were instructed to cut down or eliminate the verbatim note taking, they couldn’t. The study adds to a ton of evidence that for learning, writing is better and that the hand has a “unique relationship with the brain when it comes to composing thoughts and ideas.”

Of course, the chance of persuading students to put away their laptops is probably zero. Many of them can’t write longhand, a forgotten subject in many American schools, itself a source of controversy.

So are we stuck with traditional classrooms and learning techniques if we want the brightest pupils? Perhaps not: Another possibility, some have suggested, is apps that permit handwriting on tablets, a compromise that students might accept.

1.The reason why taking notes by hand is considerably better than taking notes on a laptop may be that_______.

A. longhand note takers engage in more processing than laptop note takers

B. students using laptops paid attention and took deep notes

C. handwriters have a tendency to use long verbatim quotes

D. laptop users are more selective when taking notes

2.What’s the meaning of the underlined word “verbatim”?

A. 板书的 B. 冗长的

C. 完全照字面的 D. 重要的

3.What can be inferred from the passage?

A. The experiments show that there are advantages of longhand over laptop note taking.

B. In many American schools, longhand has always been popular with the students.

C. When allowed to review notes after a week’s delay, participants who had taken notes with laptops performed equivalently to longhand note takers.

D. There is a good chance that many students will put away their laptops and take class notes in longhand.

4.The passage is most likely to be taken from _____.

A. National Geography B. The Economist

C. Psychological Science D. Wall Street Journal

 

Answer 1

1.A

2.C

3.A

4.C

【解析】

试题分析：如果你会使用速记在课堂上做笔记的话，你会比其他学生记住更多的知识。一项研究关注了速记和用笔记本电脑做笔记哪一个更有助于学习。结果显示，用手进行速记的学生对信息进行了更多的脑加工，记忆效果比用笔记本的学生更好。

1.By processing and selecting the more important information, they studied more efficiently”可知，用手写记笔记的学生比用笔记本记笔记的表现更好，是因为他们有选择性地记下他们认为重要的内容，他们在头脑中进行了更多的信息加工(process)，故选A。

2.which they type mindlessly”可知，使用笔记本记笔记的学生，往往是心不在焉地记下那些冗长的、字面的内容，他们不会进行深层次的思考，这些学生使用笔记本long是“冗长的”意思，排除B，D项与语境不符，故选C。

3.Students who paid attention and took deep notes on their laptop still didn’t learn as well”和第七段“The study adds to a ton of evidence that for learning, writing is better”可知，研究表明，用手进行速记比使用笔记本做笔记更有优势，故选A。

4.A study investigated whether taking notes by hand helps you learn better than taking notes on a laptop.”和文章大意可知，文章猪样讲述的是一项研究，研究表明，用手速记包含了更多的脑加工，比用笔记本做笔记对学习更有帮助。由此可知，这是一篇研究速记的心理机制的文章，故选C。

考点：教育类短文阅读