2024届高考英语外刊阅读天天练： 综合训练 二十

高考英语外刊阅读天天练 综合训练 二十 I. 阅读理解 Pen is mightier than the keyboard, so give your brain a scribbled boost 【The Times (January 26, 2024)】 Scribbling in felt-tip pen on a yellow legal notepad, Susan Sontag swore by the power of handwriting. Only for later drafts would the American writer resort to the typewriter or keyboard, preferring the“slowness”of traditional penmanship. Now scientists have discovered that handwriting also trumps typewriting as a boost for the brain, urging teachers to ensure that penmanship remains a core part of teaching even as tablets and laptops become more common in the classroom. The skill and concentration needed to form the shapes of letters while writing with a pen or pencil stimulates a far greater range and complexity of connections within the brain than simply tapping the correct keys on a keyboard, according to a study by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The scientists examined brain activity while people were writing by hand with a pen and compared it with activity when they were typing on a computer keyboard. They were specifically looking at the degree of“brain connectivity”observed during each activity. This refers to the strength of interactions and connections between different regions of the brain.“We showed that when writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns are far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard,”said Professor Audrey van der Meer, a researcher at the university. Though writing longhand may boost creativity, it could also be key for learning, according to the Norwegian researchers. Their study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, noted that connectivity between areas of the brain was“crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and beneficial for learning”. The researchers fitted 36 university students with electroencephalogram brain sensors to measure brain activity. The students were asked to write words in cursi