Part One ? ? ?Words, Phrases and Sentences

baffle? ? (vt.)? hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; be a mystery or bewildering to ?使困難；使為難

e.g. ?Few cities in the world can baffle a GPS system like London can.

Imitation: ?His indifference just baffled her when she was to express her love.

unfathomable? ? (adj.)? impossible to come to understand ?深不可測(cè)的；難以理解的；高深莫測(cè)的?

e.g.? Half or more of the prospective drivers end up dropping out, but?those who stay with it and earn their licenses have internalized London to a degree that Google Maps,?with its satellite images, camera cars, and unfathomable memory and processing power, can only?vaguely approximate.

Imitation: ?The human brain is unfathomably complex.

nothing short of? ? downright; truly? 簡(jiǎn)直就是；無異于…；簡(jiǎn)直不比…差

e.g.? The resulting memory and navigational skills are nothing short of astonishing, and so London taxi?drivers have proved irresistible to psychologists interested in learning and, particularly, in the?learning of navigational skills.

Imitation: ?Sheldon, a guy who is nothing short of nerdy, is an outstanding physicist.?

loose end? ? a detail that is left unsettled, unexplained, or incomplete? 未了結(jié)的零星問題；不用的部分

e.g.? That still left one loose end, however: perhaps the taxi drivers in the studies had started out with?larger posterior hippocampi that gave them an advantage in finding their way around London, and the?extensive testing they went through was nothing more than a weeding-out process that zeroed in on?those prospective drivers who were naturally better equipped to be able to learn their way around the?maze that is London.

Imitation: ?You still have a loose end in your essay.

flat out? ? (informal)? with the maximum speed or effort; totally exhausted? 竭盡全力；用全速；疲憊

e.g.? Until the first decade of the twenty-first century, most scientists would have flat out denied that?something like what Maguire has seen in the brains of London cabbies was even possible.

Imitation: ?There's no need to feel sorry since you have just flatted out.

Part Two ? ? ?Summary

? ? In the first half of Chapter Two, still, the author showed us some conclusion about Harnessing Adaptability.

? ? Firstly, he made a contrast between the physical challenge ( visible) and the mental challenge ( invisible), and also told us the similarity between them. We can know from the first part that "both the structure and?the function of the brain change in response to various sorts of mental training".

? ? Next, when it comes to the brains of London cabbies, they were compared with the brains of birds that store food in different places and then with bus drivers' brains in a technical way. The same method was applied to three groups of prospective taxi drivers( passed; gave up and did something else; never accepted training ). The results showed us that " the human brain grows and changes in response to intense training ".

? ? ?At last, we are shown by the experiments made on blind and deaf people and those who were engaged in presbyobia that "the brain’s structure and function are not fixed. They change in response to use. It is possible to shape the brain in the ways that we desire through?conscious, deliberate training."?

Part Three ? ? ?What I Have Learned?

? ? ? ? 第二章講到了合理利用大腦的適應(yīng)性。我對(duì)這一部分提到的針對(duì)老花眼人群的實(shí)驗(yàn)覺得非常驚奇：在眼部狀況沒有改變的情況下，接受實(shí)驗(yàn)的人群視力竟然提高了。大腦的適應(yīng)性簡(jiǎn)直強(qiáng)到驚人。就我自己而言，因?yàn)槊詰偈謱?，多年以來一直?jiān)持手寫筆記，最近開始嘗試在電腦上寫筆記是非常不適應(yīng)的，最經(jīng)常的狀況就是面對(duì)著電腦寫不出東西來，可能慢慢摸索，向優(yōu)秀的筆記借鑒一下經(jīng)驗(yàn)，大腦也會(huì)慢慢適應(yīng)這種寫筆記的方法，情況會(huì)有改善吧。

今天的閱讀過程中有一個(gè)小小的疑問：“One of the most striking results to date could have implications for anyone who suffers from agerelated farsightedness—which is just about everyone over the age of fifty.” 這句話中的date怎么解釋比較合理呢？

謝謝各位的指教！