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Going to school means learning new skills and facts in different subjects. Teachers teach and students
learn, and many scientists are interested in finding ways to improve both teaching and learning processes.
Sian Beilock and Susan Leving, two psychologists at the University of Chicago, are trying to learn
about learning. In a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, Beilock and Levine
found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and what female students learn: If a
female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills, then her female students are more likely to
believe that boys are better than girls at math."If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers in
later grades, it may create a snowball effect on their math achievement," Levine told Science News. The
study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are, then these
girls may not do as well as they would have if they were more confident.
Just as students find certain subjects to be difficult, teachers can find certain subjects to be difficult
to learn-and teach. The subject of math can be particularly difficult for everyone.
The new study involved 65 girls, 52 boys and 17 first-and second-grade teachers in elementary
schools in the Midwest. The students took math achievement tests at the beginning and end of the school
year, and the researchers compared the scores. The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether
the students believed a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers: To
find out which teachers were anxious about math, the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times
when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt. A teacher who got nervous looking at
the numbers on a sales receipt, for example, was probably anxious about math.
Boys, on average, were unaffected by a teacher's anxiety. On average, girls with math-anxious teachers
scored lower on the end-of-the-year math tests than other girls in the study did. Plus, on the test showing
whether someone thought a math superstar had to be a boy, 20 girls showed feeling that boys would be
better at math-and all of these girls had been taught by female teachers with math anxiety.
According to surveys done before this one, college students who want to become elementary school
teachers have the highest levels of anxiety about math. Plus, nine of every 10 elementary teachers are
women, Levine said.
1. Sian Beilock and Susan Levine carried out the new research in order to _______.
A. know the effects of teaching on learning
B. study students' ways of learning math
C. prove women teachers are unfit to teach math
D. find better teaching methods for teachers
2. The underlined part in paragraph 2 most probably means that girls may _______.
A. end up learning math anxiety from their teachers
B. study the ways their female teachers behave
C. have an influence on their math-anxious female teachers
D. gain unexpected achievement in such subjects as math
3. In the study, what were the teachers required to do?
A. Prepare two math achievement tests for the students.
B. Tell their feelings about math problems.
C. Answer whether a math superstar had to be a boy.
D. Compare the students' scores after the math tests.
4. What is the finding of the new study?
A. No male students were affected by their teachers' anxiety.
B. Almost all the girls got lower scores in the tests than the boys.
C. About 30% of the girls thought boys are better at math than girls.
D. Girls with math-anxious teachers all failed in the math tests.
5. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
A. 117 students and teachers took part in the new study.
B. The researchers felt surprised at the findings of their study.
C. Beilock and Levine are interested in teaching math.
D. Men teachers are better at teaching math than women teachers.
