2025届高三英语一轮复习培优外刊阅读导学案：人类大脑

高三英语培优外刊阅读 班级：____________学号：____________姓名：____________ 外刊精选｜人类大脑缩小了，我们是在变笨吗？ 众所周知，人类拥有独一无二、高度发达的大脑，并且凭借智慧“统治”了地球。经过数百万年的进化，人类脑部相对于身体的比例远高于其他动物。但是不久前，《生态学与进化前沿》期刊上发表的一项研究显示，在近几千年里，人类大脑变小了，而且缩小的体积还不是一点点。这表示人类变笨了吗？科学家是如何解释这种进化现象的？ Our Big Brains Have Shrunk. Scientists Might Know Why. The development of bigger brains has long been considered a hallmark of our species' increased intelligence and subsequent dominance on this planet. The last two million years of our evolution were marked by a nearly fourfold increase in brain volume. But a growing body of evidence suggests our brains recently changed in an unexpected way: They diminished in size sometime following the end of the last Ice Age. "Most people think of brain evolution happening in this linear way. It grows, plateaus and stops," said Jeremy DeSilva, a professor of paleoanthropology. "But we've lost brain tissue equal to the volume of a lime—it isn't a tiny little sliver we're talking about." A group of researchers led by DeSilva used a mixture of fossil and modern specimen data to pinpoint that this loss of gray matter happened between 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. Human societies got so cooperatively organized in the past 3,000 years that we began relying on what researchers call collective intelligence. It is the idea that a group of people is smarter than the smartest person in the group. If you live in a group, you solve problems more rapidly, more efficiently and more accurately than what's possible for any individual. "We're so social that we don't have to know everything anymore," DeSilva said. 【词汇过关】 请写出下面文单词在文章中的中文意思。 1.subsequent (adj.) _____________________________________ 2.fourfold (adj./adv.) _____________________________________ 3.diminish (v.) ____________________________________ 4.plateau (n.) _____________________________________ 5.sliver (n.) _____________________________________ 6.pinpoint (v.) _____________________________________ 【词块学习】 请从文章中找到下面中文相对应的文词块。 1._____________________________________.的标志 2._____________________________________ 以...为特点 3._____________________________________ 以线性的方式 4._____________________________________灰质（大脑中的物质，主要负责处理信息） 拓展练习阅读理解 Our brains have an “auto- correct” feature that we use when re- interpreting ambiguous (含混不清的) sounds, according to new research. The study sheds light on how the brain uses information gathered after the discovering of an initial sound to aid speech comprehension. The findings point to new ways we use information and context to aid in speech comprehension. “What a person thinks they hear does not always match the actual signals that reach the ear,” explains lead author Laura Gwilliams. “This is because the brain re-evaluates the interpretation of a speech sound at the moment each following speech sound is heard in order to update interpretations as necessary,” Gwilliams says. It’s well known that the perception of a speech sound is determined by its surrounding context — in the form of words, sentences and other speech sounds. This plays out in everyday life — when we talk, the actual speech we produce is often ambiguous. For example, when a friend says she has a “dent (凹痕) ” in her car, you may hear “tent”. Although this kind of ambiguity happens regularly, we, as listeners, are hardly aware of it. “This is because the brain automatically resolves the ambiguity for us — it picks an interpretation and that’s what we perceive to hear, ” explains Gwilliams. “The way the brain does this is by using the surrounding context to narrow down the possibilities of what the speaker may mean.” In the study, the researchers sought to understand how the brain uses this following information to adjust our perception of what we initially heard. To do this, they conducted a series of experiments in which the subjects listened to isolated syllables and similarly sounding words. Their results produced three primary findings: The brain’s primary auditory cortex (听觉皮层) is sensitive to how ambiguous a speech sound is at just 50 milliseconds after the sound’s appearance. The brain “replays” previous speech sounds while interpreting the following ones, suggesting re-evaluation as the rest of the word unfolds. The brain makes commitments to its “best guess” of how to interpret the signal after about half a second. 9．What is the study mainly about? A．Why some people process information faster. B．How brains tell apart useful information. C．How brains understand unclear words. D．Why people make unclear sounds. 10．What does the author want to show by giving the example in Paragraph 3? A．People are likely to mistake a word for something familiar. B．People can understand others even if they mishear a word. C．People are more likely to mishear their friends. D．It is normal for people to make unclear sounds. 11．What do we know about the unclear words in the experiments? A．They stopped us thinking further. B．They led to misunderstanding. C．They were noticed instantly. D．They seemed to be useless. 12．What does the underlined part “the signal” in the last paragraph refer to? A．The following speech sound. B．The unclearly sounding word. C．The similarly sounding word. D．The isolated syllable. 外刊精选答案 【词汇过关】 请写出下面文单词在文章中的中文意思。 1.subsequent (adj.) 随后的，后来的 2.fourfold (adj./adv.) 四倍的（形容词/副词） 3.diminish (v.) 减少，变小 4.plateau (n.) 高原，平稳期 5.sliver (n.) 细条，薄片 6.pinpoint (v.) 精确指出 【词块学习】 请从文章中找到下面中文相对应的文词块。 1.a hallmark of ...的标志 2.be marked by 以...为特点 3.in a linear way 以线性的方式 4.gray matter 灰质（大脑中的物质，主要负责处理信息） 【全文翻译】 我们的大脑变小了。科学家可能知道原因。 长期以来人们一直认为，大脑发育得更大标志着人类智力的提高以及之后对这个星球的主导。在近200万年的进化过程中，人类大脑的体积增加到原来的近4倍。 但越来越多的证据表明，我们的大脑最近发生了一种出人意料的变化：在最后一个冰河时代结束后的某个时期，它们的体积缩小了。 “大多数人以为大脑的进化是线性的：它不断增大，进入稳定期，然后就停止发育了。”古人类学教授杰里米·德席尔瓦（Jeremy DeSilva）说。“但实际上我们失去的脑组织有一个青柠那么大，那可不是一小片而已。” 德席尔瓦领导的研究团队通过化石和现代标本数据，确定了这种灰质的流失发生在大约3000至5000年前。 在过去的3000年里，人类社会组织变得高度协作，因此我们开始依赖于研究人员所说的“集体智慧”，即一群人的智慧胜过群体中最聪明的那个人。与个人单打独斗能做到的相比，生活在一个群体中可以更迅速、高效、精准地解决问题。德席尔瓦说：“我们有了很多人际交往，以至于我们不再需要知道一切。” 拓展练习阅读理解 9．C 10．B 11．C 12．B 【导语】这是一篇说明文。文章主要说明了根据一项新研究，我们的大脑在重新解释模棱两可的声音时会使用一种“自动纠正”功能。文章介绍了研究开展的过程以及发现。 9．细节理解题。根据第一段“Our brains have an “auto- correct” feature that we use when re- interpreting ambiguous (含混不清的) sounds, according to new research. The study sheds light on how the brain uses information gathered after the discovering of an initial sound to aid speech comprehension.(新研究表明，我们的大脑具有一种“自动纠正”功能，该功能在我们重新解释含混不清的声音时会发挥作用。该研究揭示了大脑如何利用在发现初始声音后收集到的信息来帮助理解语言)”可知，这项研究的主要内容是大脑如何理解不清晰的词语。故选C项。 10．推理判断题。根据第三段“It’s well known that the perception of a speech sound is determined by its surrounding context—in the form of words, sentences and other speech sounds. This plays out in everyday life—when we talk, the actual speech we produce is often ambiguous. For example, when a friend says she has a “dent (凹痕) ” in her car, you may hear “tent”. Although this kind of ambiguity happens regularly, we, as listeners, are hardly aware of it. “This is because the brain automatically resolves the ambiguity for us— it picks an interpretation and that’s what we perceive to hear, ” explains Gwilliams. “The way the brain does this is by using the surrounding context to narrow down the possibilities of what the speaker may mean.”(众所周知，对语音的感知是由其周围的语境决定的，这些语境以单词、句子和其他语音的形式存在。这在我们的日常生活中随处可见——当我们说话时，我们实际说出的内容往往很模糊。例如，当朋友说她车上有“凹痕”时，你可能会听到“帐篷”。尽管这种模糊性经常发生，但我们作为听众几乎不会意识到这一点。“这是因为大脑会自动为我们解决这种模糊性——它会选择一种解释，而这就是我们感知到的内容，”格威廉姆斯解释道。“大脑这样做的方式是利用周围的语境来缩小说话者可能表达的意思范围。”)”可推知，作者想通过第三段的例子说明即使听错了一个词，人们也能听懂别人说的话。故选B项。 11．细节理解题。根据最后一段“Their results produced three primary findings: The brain’s primary auditory cortex (听觉皮层) is sensitive to how ambiguous a speech sound is at just 50 milliseconds after the sound’s appearance. The brain “replays” previous speech sounds while interpreting the following ones, suggesting re-evaluation as the rest of the word unfolds. The brain makes commitments to its “best guess” of how to interpret the signal after about half a second.(他们的研究结果产生了三个主要发现：大脑的初级听觉皮层在声音出现50毫秒后就对语音的歧义程度很敏感。大脑在解释接下来的声音时“重播”之前的声音，暗示随着单词的展开重新评估。大脑会在半秒后做出“最佳猜测”来解释信号)”可知，实验中不清楚的单词很快就被注意到了。故选C项。 12．词句猜测题。根据划线词上文“Their results produced three primary findings: The brain’s primary auditory cortex (听觉皮层) is sensitive to how ambiguous a speech sound is at just 50 milliseconds after the sound’s appearance. The brain “replays” previous speech sounds while interpreting the following ones, suggesting re-evaluation as the rest of the word unfolds.(他们的研究结果产生了三个主要发现：大脑的初级听觉皮层在声音出现50毫秒后就对语音的歧义程度很敏感。大脑在解释接下来的声音时“重播”之前的声音，暗示随着单词的展开重新评估)”可知，他们的研究结果产生了三个主要发现：大脑的初级听觉皮层在声音出现50毫秒后就对语音的模糊程度很敏感。大脑在解释接下来的声音时“重播”之前的声音，暗示随着单词的展开重新评估。大脑会在半秒后做出“最佳猜测”来解释发音不清楚的单词。故划线词意思“发音不清楚的单词”。故选B项。 学科网（北京）股份有限公司 $$