“Most experiences of absent - mindedness-forgetting where you left something or wondering why you just entered a room-are caused by a simple lack of attention, ” says Schacter. “You’re supposed to remember something, but you haven’t encoded（编码） it deeply.”
Encoding, Schacter explains, is a special way of paying attention to an event that has a major impression on recalling it later. Failure to encode properly can create troublesome situations. If you put your mobile phone in a pocket, for example, and don’t pay attention to what you did because you’re involved in a conversation, you’ll probably forget that the phone is in the jacket now hanging in your cupboarD.“ Your memory itself isn’t failing you, ” says Schacter, “Rather, you didn’t give your memory system the information it needeD.”
Lack of interest can also lead to absent -mindedness. “A man who can recite sports statistics from 30 years ago, ” says Zelinski, “ may not remember to drop a letter in the mailbox.”Women have slightly better memories than men, possibly because they pay more attention to their environment, and memory relies on just that.
“Visual cues（ 视觉提示 ）can help prevent absent- mindedness, ”says Schacter, “But be sure the cue is clear and available. ”If you want to remember to take a medicine with lunch, put the pill bottle on the kitchen table-don’t leave it in the medicine box and write yourself a note that you keep in a pocket.
Another common experience of absent - mindedness: walking into a room and wondering why you’re there. Most likely, you were thinking about something else. “Everyone does this from time to time, ”says Zelinski. “The best thing to do is to return to where you were before entering the room, and you’ll likely remember.”
36．The writer of the passage thinks that encoding properly is very important because ________.
A. it enables us to recall something from our memory
B. it slows down the process of losing our memory
C. it helps us understand our memory system better
D. it helps us to get back to where we were
37．One possible reason why women have a little better memories than men is that________.
A. they rely more on the environment
B. they have a wider range of interests
C. they have an unusual power of focusing their attention
D. they are more interested in what’s happening around them
38．Why can a note in the pocket hardly serve as a reminder? ________.
A. It will easily get lost
B. It is out of your sight
C. It’s not clear enough for you to read
D. It might get mixed up with other things
39．From the last paragraph we can learn that________.
A. repetition might help improve our memory
B. memory depends to a certain extent on the environment
C. we’d better return to where we were if we forget things
D. we should think about something else while doing one thing
40．The passage is mainly about ________.
A. the memory system of persons
B. a way of encoding and recalling
C. the causes of absent - mindedness
D. the impression of the environment on memory
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