2012年职称英语阅读理解第四十篇B级.doc

*第四十篇? ?? ?Teaching Math, Teaching AnxietyIn a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, the psychologists at theUniversity of Chicagol1 Sian Beilock and Susan Levine found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and what female students learn:If a female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills, then her female students are more likely to believe that boys are better than girls at math.If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers2 in later grades, it may create a snowball effect on their math achievement3 said Levine. In other words,girls may end up learning math anxiety from their teachers4. The study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are,then these girls may not do as well as they would have if they were more confident.Just as students find certain subjects to be difficult, teachers can find certain subjects to bedifficult to learn -- and teach. The subject of math can be particularly difficult for everyone.Researchers use the word anxiety to describe such feelings: anxiety is uneasiness or worry.The new study found that when a teacher has anxiety about math, that feeling can influencehow her female students feel about math. The study involved 65 girls,52 boys and 17 first- andsecond-grade teachers in elementary schools in the Midwest. The students took math achievement tests at the beginning and end of the school year, and the researchers compared the scores.The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed that a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers:To find out which teachers were anxious about math,the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt5. A teacher who got nervous looking at the numbers on a sales receipt, for example,was probably anxious about math.Boys,on average,were unaffected by