Question

Do you feel nervous when you sit a math exam? For most, math can be difficult but new research suggests that it can also cause us physical pain.

Scientists came to this conclusion with an in-depth experiment. They began by finding out how much participants (參與者) fear math. Those participants were asked a series of questions such as how they feel when they receive a math textbook or when they walk into a math lesson.

According to their answers, participants were divided into groups. One group was made up of people who were very afraid of math and participants in the other group were more comfortable with this subject.
　 Both groups were then given either math tasks or word tasks. When a math task was going to come next, a yellow circle would appear but when a word task was soon to come, a blue square would be shown.

Using a brain-scan (掃描) machine, scientists noticed that whenever from Group One saw a yellow circle, their brain would respond（反應(yīng)）in a way similar to when their body is feeling pain. For example, if they burnt their hand on a hot stove. But they reacted less strongly when they knew that they would be faced with a word task.

However, scientists saw no strong brain response from people in the second group.

“When you are really thinking about it (math problems), your mind is racing and you are worrying about all the things that could go wrong,” explained Ian Lyons from University of Chicago, US, leader of the study. “The more worried people were about the math, the more they activated brain regions that we know are often caught when people experience pain or detect a threat（威脅）.”

More interestingly, the brain activity disappeared when participants actually started dealing with the math tasks. “This means that it’s not that math itself hurts, instead, the anticipation of math is painful.” Lyons said.

According to the study, scientists suggested that things could be done to help students worry less and move past their fear of math, which might mean they perform better in tests.

57.　 What have scientists recently discovered about how people react to math?

A.Most people find it difficult to work out math problem.

B.The fear of math can cause physical pain.

C.They have found out just how much people fear math.

D.They have found out what makes people fear math.

58.The underlined word “anticipation” is closest in meaning to _______.

A.expectation　 　B. understanding　 C. experience　　 D. participation

59.Which of the following statement about the experiment is true?

A. When people are worried, more parts of their brains are activated.

B. Both groups responded the same in the experiment’s word tasks.

C. People might get better results in math exams if they are less worried about it.

D. When participants saw a yellow circle, they felt the same as they got their hands burned.

Answer 1

BAC