2019年托福阅读：哈欠谜团 The Mystery of Yawning
余年寄山水
718次浏览
2021年01月25日 13:08
最佳经验
本文由作者推荐
第八次-
2019
年托福阅读：哈欠谜团
The Mystery of
Yawning
The Mystery of Yawning
哈欠谜团
P1
：
According to conventional theory, yawning takes
place when people are bored or sleepy and serves the function
of increasing alertness by reversing, through deeper
breathing, the drop in blood oxygen levels that are caused by
the shallow breathing that accompanies lack of sleep or
boredom. Unfortunately, the few scientific investigations of
yawning have failed to find any connection between how often
someone yawns and how much sleep they have had or how tired
they are. About the closest any research has come to
supporting the tiredness theory is to confirm that adults
yawn more often on weekdays than at weekends, and that school
children yawn more frequently in their first year at primary
school than they do in kindergarten.
难词解析：
conventional adj.
传统的
yawning n.
打哈欠
function n.
作用
boredom n.
厌倦
accompany v.
陪伴
难句解析：
According to conventional theory, yawning takes place
[when people are bored or sleepy and serves the function of
increasing alertness by reversing, through deeper breathing,
the drop in blood oxygen levels that are caused by the
shallow breathing that accompanies lack of sleep or boredom.]
根据传统理论，当人们无聊或者困倦时就会打哈欠 。伴随睡眠不
足或无聊的是浅呼吸，而浅呼吸会降低血液中氧的含量。
题目演练：
Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential
information in the highlighted sentence in the passage?
Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or
leave out essential information.
A. It is the conventional theory that when people are
bored or sleepy, they often experience a drop in blood oxygen
levels due to their shallow breathing.
B. The conventional theory is that people yawn when bored
or sleepy because yawning raises blood oxygen levels, which
in turn raises alertness.
C. According to conventional theory, yawning is more
likely to occur when people are bored or sleepy than when
they are alert and breathing deeply.
D. Yawning, according to the conventional theory, is
caused by boredom or lack of sleep and can be avoided through
deeper breathing.
Answer
：
B
解题思路：
句子简化题
本句表述传统理论下，打哈欠发生的情况及其功能。这是本句主
体。下面逐个找出信息
打哈欠发生的情况：
when people are bored or sleepy
打哈欠的功能：
increasing alertness by reversing the drop
in blood oxygen levels.
(through deeper breathing
用于指明
reversing the drop in
blood oxygen
的方式，与主体无关
;
同理，用于修饰
drop in blood
oxygen
的定语从句也是次要信息。
)
下面用上述信息对应选项。
A
选项错误明显，未提及句子主体
yawning
B
选项所有信息均准确对应，是准确选项。
C
选项中的比较关系原文中并未提及。
D
选项中的因果关系
(is caused by)
错误。原文仅提及人在无 聊或
困倦时会打哈欠，但并未提及二者之间存有因果关系。另外，
D
选项中
指 出可通过深呼吸避免打哈欠，这个表述原文中也未出现。
P2
：
Another flaw of the tiredness theory is that yawning
does not raise alertness or physiological activity, as the
theory would predict. When researchers measured the heart
rate, muscle tension and skin conductance of people before,
during and after yawning, they did detect some changes in
skin conductance following yawning, indicating a slight
increase in physiological activity. However, similar changes
occurred when the subjects were asked simply to open their
mouths or to breathe deeply. Yawning did nothing special to
their state of physiological activity. Experiments have also