牛津高中英语模块一UnitoneWelcometotheunitReadingPreshyreading.doc

Section_Ⅰ Welcome to the unit & Reading — Pre-reading 1．How many hours of sleep a day do the teenagers need on average? 2．Why do students perform badly in the test in the early morning? 现在，许多国家的中学生都患有“睡眠缺乏症”，美国也不例外。不过，在美国越来越多的中学已经考虑推迟上课时间，让缺乏睡眠的孩子们多睡一会。 When Klyce's alarm clock sounds at 5：45 a．m., the 17-year-old rolls over and turns it off. Without the second alarm clock that goes off at 6, she might have a much harder time getting to Kennedy High School in Fremont, Calif for the 7：35 a．m. first bell. When she's running late, she goes without breakfast and doesn't do her hair. Research shows that when teens hit puberty (青春期), they need 9 hours of sleep a day on average. Now a growing number of schools are pushing back the morning bell so class time and students' energy are better balanced. “The good side is, students are more awake，” says principal (校长) Amy McNamara of Logan High in New Haven Unified, which pushed back its morning bell to 8：40 in 2007. But a few parents complain that sports and extra courses can go into dinnertime, and in winter, into the dark.“That is a worry，” she says.“It's not perfect, but you can't please everybody.” It sounds clear: students don't test well early in the morning. In one Illinois study, every high school senior performed better when tests were given in the afternoon than in the morning. But most important tests, like the SAT, start at 8 a．m. “Their brains just aren't awake then，” said Sullivan, a children sleep specialist at Stanford Sleep Medicine Center.“Young people are in great need of sleep.” Teens don't necessarily stay up later when school starts later. In studies in Kentucky and Minnesota, when schools pushed the bell by an hour, high school students slept an extra 30 minutes per night. More sleep means fewer sleepy drivers, suggests another study. Car accidents dropped by 16.5% among students in a Kansas county after schools there moved their start time forward by one hour. 　　Welcome to the unit1．How do you feel