为什么“忘性大”反而对你有好处？

Why forgetting is good for you

常速 | 五级（易）| 379词 | 2min9s

刘立军供稿

Part I. QUESTIONS

Listen to the news and choose the best answer to each question you hear.

Q1. According to neuroscientist Charan Ranganath, why is forgetting beneficial?

A. It allows people to avoid embarrassing situations.

B. It helps people prioritize and retrieve relevant memories.

C. It prevents people from remembering unpleasant events.

D. It improves people’s ability to memorize new faces.

Q2. What can be inferred about the brain’s ability to update memories?

A. It requires forgetting irrelevant details to adapt to new information.

B. It improves with age and accumulated knowledge.

C. It depends on memorizing faces and schedules.

D. It is hindered by the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.

Q3. What does the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon suggest about memory?

A. Forgotten memories cannot be retrieved.

B. Some memories are temporarily inaccessible.

C. Older people experience this phenomenon less frequently.

D. It occurs when people forget irrelevant details.

Q4. What analogy do Sanjay Sarma and Luke Yoquinto use to describe forgetting?

A. Forgetting is like a crumbling cliff.

B. Forgetting is like a collapsing building.

C. Forgetting is like a deep forest house.

D. Forgetting is like a fading photograph.

Q5. What is the main purpose of the text?

A. To explain why forgetting is a natural process of aging.

B. To explore the connection between memory and emotions.

C. To highlight the negative effects of memory loss.

D. To discuss the advantages of forgetting.

Part II. TRANSCRIPT

Why forgetting is good for you

Have you ever bumped into someone and their name just doesn’t come to you? Or, you walk into a room and suddenly can’t recall why you’re there? Being forgetful can be really annoying, sometimes even embarrassing. But what if I told you that there are actually good reasons for our memories fading away?

In a BBC interview, neuroscientist Charan Ranganath uses a hoarding analogy. We don’t tend to store everything we’ve ever owned in our house. Similarly, we don’t need to store all our memories either. He says, (Q1) “If we didn’t forget anything, we’d be hoarding memories, and you’d never be able to find what you want, when you want it.” For example, you don’t need to remember the hotel number weeks after you’ve left the hotel or memorize all the faces you pass on the street.

neuroscientist n. 神经科学家

hoarding n. 贮藏，囤积

We also need to be able to forget things in order to update our memories with new information. Imagine you get used to the same school timetable or work schedule for a whole year, but the next year, you have new procedures or routines. (Q2) Your brain needs to be flexible and forget irrelevant details in order to handle the new information. Or, maybe it’s been 10 years since you last saw a distant relative. It’s likely their face has changed a lot since then, so that memory needs to be updated as well.

And, if you’ve ever been convinced that you know a word, but it just doesn’t pop into your head, you’re not alone. (Q3) This tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon may suggest that some things are not fully forgotten, just currently inaccessible. Those with a higher level of knowledge are more affected by this, according to studies such as ‘Impact of knowledge and age on tip-of-the-tongue rates’, because their brains have to sort through more information to find the word.

tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon 舌尖效应，指心理学中“话到嘴边却无法说出”的现象

Memories are sometimes compared to a cliff: once they have crumbled, they are lost and cannot be retrieved. However, in their article ‘Forgetfulness: Why your mind going blank can be a benefit’, Sanjay Sarma and Luke Yoquinto write that (Q4) forgetting, it seems, is “less like a cliff slowly collapsing into the sea, and more like a house deep in the woods that becomes harder and harder to find”.

crumble v. 崩塌，碎裂

retrieve v. 找回，恢复

Part III. KEY

Q1. B. 【解析】细节题。题目出处为：If we didn’t forget anything, we’d be hoarding memories, and you’d never be able to find what you want, when you want it. 意为：“如果我们什么都忘不掉，我们就会囤积大量记忆，而你将永远无法在需要时找到你想要的那段记忆。”文章提到遗忘有助于我们优先处理和检索相关记忆，因此正确答案为B。

Q2. A. 推理题。题目出处为：Your brain needs to be flexible and forget irrelevant details in order to handle the new information. 意为：“你的大脑需要保持灵活性，忘掉那些不相关的细节，才能更好地处理新的信息。”从中可以推断，遗忘是为了存储新信息而必需的过程，因此正确答案为A。

Q3. B. 细节题。题目出处为：This tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon may suggest that some things are not fully forgotten, just currently inaccessible. 意为：“‘话到嘴边却想不起来’的现象可能表明，有些信息并非被完全遗忘，而只是暂时无法提取。”因此正确答案为B。

Q4. C. 细节题。题目出处为：Forgetting, it seems, is ‘less like a cliff slowly collapsing into the sea, and more like a house deep in the woods that becomes harder and harder to find.’ 意为：“遗忘似乎更像是‘一座深藏林中的房屋，变得越来越难找到’，而不像‘悬崖缓慢崩塌入海’那样彻底消失。”正确答案为C。

Q5. D. 【解析】主旨题。文章主要讨论了遗忘的好处，涉及更新信息和避免记忆过载，因此正确答案为D。

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