托福听力训练材料—六十秒科学：睡眠和记忆

托福听力训练用什么材料好？科学美国人的六十秒科学（简称SSS）是练习托福听力的利器材料，它短小精悍，仅仅有一分钟的时间，语速也非常快，里面包含了许多科学知识和实验，和托福的“学术性”息息相关，每天坚持听写SSS，托福听力至少能提高5分！今天 环球托福楠楠老师要给大家带来的是一篇有关睡眠和记忆的文章。你是不是感觉自己总是记不住单词？或者是单词看着或是听着熟悉，就是怎么也想不起来它的中文意思呢？那么，也许环球托福楠楠老师帮你选的这篇托福听力材料能帮到你。

托福听力训练材料：

Scientific American: Sixty- Second Science

Want to remember something? Sleep on it.

A recent study finds that the more we value a piece of information the more likely we'll review it during our sleep. And because we do that, we'll tend to remember it.

Participants were shown objects with different corresponding dollar amounts on a computer screen. If participants could remember that object later on a test, they were rewarded with the associated dollar amount. Objects were also accompanied by an associated sound, for instance a cat was accompanied by a “meow.”

After either a 90-minute nap or wake period subjects' memory for low-value objects was worse than for high-value objects.

In a second experiment associated sounds were played either when the subjects were awake or asleep, as a way to trigger the memory of the object.

Researchers found that low-value objects were better remembered when the associated sound was played during subjects' sleep as opposed to when they were awake.

The authors believe that during sleep is when we tend to go over the day's new information, so that is why they could manipulate the memory storage of lower-value objects during sleep time rather than wake time.

Gives new meaning to the term sound asleep.

听力材料释义：科学六十秒：睡眠有助于记忆

想记住某些事情吗？睡一觉再想吧。

一项近的研究发现，人们越重视某条信息，就越有可能在睡觉时回顾这条信息。因为如此，所以我们往往会有它的记忆。

研究人员通过电脑屏幕向参与者展示金额不等的相应物体。如果参与者能够在稍后的测试中记住物体，那么就能获得相关金额的奖励。这些物体出现时也会伴有相关的声音，例如一只猫会伴有一声猫叫。

不论是小睡90分钟或者醒着，受试者对低价值物品的记忆要差于对高价值物品的记忆。

第二次实验中，为了触发对物体的记忆，研究人员在受试者睡着或清醒时播放相关的声音。

研究人员发现当受试者睡着时播放相关声音，他们对于低价值物品的记忆要好一些。

研究人员认为正是在睡觉时间人们往往会回顾当天接收的新信息，这就是为什么人们能够在睡觉时更好地掌控对低价值物品的记忆存储。

这又赋予“sound asleep（熟睡）”一个新的含义。

重点单词：

对于托福听力训练材料——六十秒科学总结：

这篇SSS的文本文章总体来说还是比较容易理解的，没有过于生僻的词汇和专业术语，相信每一位托儿都可以在看了第一遍之后就把握住它的中心大意。楠楠老师在这里提醒一下托儿们，平时在做精听练习的时候，一定不忘分析文章的行文结构，因为往往讲座的考点就分布在这些起承转合上面，分析文章的逻辑结构可以帮助托儿更加深刻的理解讲座内容，抓住考点，达到事半功倍的效果。比如这篇文章，一开始就提出一个新实验结果，然后用了两个实验佐证了这个实验的发现。第一个是用金钱做实验，接下来用猫咪的叫声做实验，研究人们对于不同的价值的不同的记忆；第二个实验研究人们在睡觉时和醒着时的记忆力是否有所不同，结果发现睡觉的时候还是会复习醒着时的知识或信息的。这是不是正好的解释了我们中国的一个谚语“日有所思，夜有所梦”呢？不管如何，接下去托儿们如果在背单词的时候犯困了，不妨睡上一觉，也许会在睡梦中把单词记住了呢——！下次见——环球托福祝你好梦！