Is comprehension the same whether a person reads a text onscreen or on paper? And are listening to and viewing content as effective as reading the written word when covering the same material? The answers to both questions are often “no”. The reasons relate to a variety of factors, including reduced concentration, an entertainment mindset (心态) and a tendency to multitask while consuming digital content.
When reading texts of several hundred words or more, learning is generally more successful when it’s on paper than onscreen. A large amount of research confirms this finding. The benefits of print reading particularly shine through when experimenters move from posing simple tasks — like identifying the main idea in a reading passage — to ones that require mental abstraction — such as drawing inferences from a text.
The differences between print and digital reading results are partly related to paper’s physical properties. With paper, there is a literal laying on of hands, along with the visual geography of distinct pages. People often link their memory of what they’ve read to how far into the book it was or where it was on the page.
But equally important is the mental aspect. Reading researchers have proposed a theory called “shallowing hypothesis (假说)”. According to this theory, people approach digital texts with a mindset suited to social media, which are often not so serious, and devote less mental effort than when they are reading print.
Audio (音频) and video can feel more engaging than text, and so university teachers increasingly turn to these technologies — say, assigning an online talk instead of an article by the same person. However, psychologists have demonstrated that when adults read news stories, they remember more of the content than if they listen to or view identical pieces.
Digital texts, audio and video all have educational roles, especially when providing resources not available in print. However, for maximizing learning where mental focus and reflection are called for, educators shouldn’t assume all media are the same, even when they contain identical words.
A Seem unlikely to last. B. Seem hard to explain.
C. Become ready to use. D. Become easy to notice.
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答案
D
解析
【导语】本文是议论文。主要讨论了纸质阅读与数字阅读、音频和视频学习方式的差异和效果。 【详解】 词句猜测题。根据前文“When reading texts of several hundred words or more, learning is generally more successful when it’s on paper than onscreen. A large amount of research confirms this finding.(当阅读几百字或更多的文本时，在纸上学习通常比在屏幕上学习更成功。大量的研究证实了这一发现)”可知，在纸上学习更有成效，以及后文“when experimenters move from posing simple tasks — like identifying the main idea in a reading passage — to ones that require mental abstraction — such as drawing inferences from a text.(当实验人员从提出简单的任务(如识别阅读文章的主旨)转移到需要思维抽象的任务(如从文本中推断)时)”推知，此处应是表达“当实验者从简单的任务转向需要精神抽象的任务时，纸质阅读的益处就变得显而易见”之意，所以shine through应是“显而易见”之意，和D项意思相近。故选D项。