第二步：精读重点段落

（Tips: 双击文中单词可以查释义并加入你的生词本哦）

[1] An Australian study made headlines recently by claiming that a three-day work week is the best way to maintain a sharp brain as you age. The researchers analyzed cognitive test data from a large sample of older Australian workers (40 and above) and found that brain performance was lower in individuals who worked more than 25 hours a week. The culprit, the researchers believe, is stress.

• make headlines  成为头条新闻
• cognitive  adj. 认知的，认识的
• culprit  n. 犯人，罪犯；被控犯罪的人

[2] "Work can stimulate brain activity and help maintain cognitive functions for elderly workers, but at the same time, excessively long working hours can cause fatigue and physical and/or psychological stress, which potentially damage cognitive functioning," says researcher Colin McKenzie, professor of economics at Keio University, Japan, via email. Cognitive functions are brain functions like reasoning, memory and attention.

• stimulate ['stimjuleit] vi. 起刺激作用；起促进作用vt. 刺激；鼓舞，激励

[10] "In manufacturing, for example, older workers are able to diagnose problems faster and set about solving them quicker," says DeLong. "They can recognize a faulty machine before a less-experienced worker. The experiential knowledge of older workers will often trump any cognitive deficit that might come with age."

• diagnose vt. 诊断；断定vi. 诊断；判断
• trump  n. 王牌；法宝；喇叭vt. 胜过；打出王牌赢vi. 出王牌；吹喇叭
• deficit   n. 赤字；不足额

[13] Even if a long work week has potential side effects, there are still plenty of good reasons why a growing number of Americans are choosing to continue working full-time into their late 60s and 70s. Financial concerns are the biggest reason why older workers are delaying retirement. As we live longer, we need to stretch our working years to save more. But money isn't the only motivator.

• side effects  副作用    
• stretch  vt. 伸展,张开；（大量地）使用，消耗（金钱，时间）；使竭尽所能；使全力以赴；n. 伸展，延伸vi. 伸展；足够买（或支付）
• motivator  n. 动力；激励因素

（Tips: 双击文中单词可以查释义并加入你的生词本哦）

Should 40-somethings Only Work 20-something Hours?

[1] An Australian study made headlines recently by claiming that a three-day work week is the best way to maintain a sharp brain as you age. The researchers analyzed cognitive test data from a large sample of older Australian workers (40 and above) and found that brain performance was lower in individuals who worked more than 25 hours a week. The culprit, the researchers believe, is stress.

• make headlines 成为头条新闻
• cognitive adj. 认知的，认识的
• culprit n. 犯人，罪犯；被控犯罪的人

[2] "Work can stimulate brain activity and help maintain cognitive functions for elderly workers, but at the same time, excessively long working hours can cause fatigue and physical and/or psychological stress, which potentially damage cognitive functioning," says researcher Colin McKenzie, professor of economics at Keio University, Japan, via email. Cognitive functions are brain functions like reasoning, memory and attention.

• stimulate  vi. 起刺激作用；起促进作用vt. 刺激；鼓舞，激励

[3] Does this mean that anyone over 40 should immediately submit an HR request for Tuesdays and Thursdays off? Not quite. While a 25-hour work week is attractive for many reasons, it likely wouldn't pay nearly enough to cover the bills, even if workplaces were flexible enough to offer it (they aren't). So what's an aging worker to do?

• submit  vi. 提交；服从vt. 使服从；主张；呈递
• flexible  adj. 灵活的；柔韧的；易弯曲的

[4] The choice, it turns out, may not be that stark. A closer look at the Australian study reveals plenty of good reasons for older workers to stay on the job as long as they want. "We cannot and do not claim that we should be choosing to work in part-time jobs instead of full-time positions. To answer this question, we need further research on working patterns," says McKenzie. "This is because the degree of intellectual stimulation of work for brain activity would depend on both the 'quantity' and the 'quality' of work."

• stark [stɑ:k] adj. 完全的；荒凉的；刻板的；光秃秃的；朴实的adv. 完全；明显地；突出地；
• intellectual n. 知识分子；凭理智做事者adj. 智力的；聪明的；理智的

Different Kinds of Intelligence

[5] Jacquelyn James, co-director of the Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, would agree. She studies the aging of America's workforce and the changing nature of retirement. 

[6] "We know that different types of jobs carry different types of stress, and the researchers don't control for any aspect of job quality," says James, "It makes a big difference whether the stress is a 'positive' stress, like a challenge that's fun to meet, or a miserable day-to-day existence."

[7] She also has a problem with the way that the researchers defined cognitive ability, based mostly on "fluid intelligence" tests that gauged brain speed, such as memorizing a string of numbers and reciting them backwards, or correctly reading wrongly spelled words. James says that decades of studies have long proven that we lose some cognitive quickness as we age, but that's only one type of intelligence.

• gauged   v. 测量；判定；校准（gauge的过去分词）

[8] "Older adults do better than younger adults in what's called crystallized intelligence," says James. "Crystallized intelligence depends on your experience of the world, your education in broader sense, the informal learning experiences of every day — the kinds of things that you gather over time."

• crystallized intelligence  固定智力；晶态智力

[9] This type of experience-based intelligence can be hugely important in the workplace, says David DeLong, president of Smart Workforce Strategies and author of "Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce." 

[10] "In manufacturing, for example, older workers are able to diagnose problems faster and set about solving them quicker," says DeLong. "They can recognize a faulty machine before a less-experienced worker. The experiential knowledge of older workers will often trump any cognitive deficit that might come with age."

• diagnose  vt. 诊断；断定vi. 诊断；判断
• trump   n. 王牌；法宝；喇叭vt. 胜过；打出王牌赢vi. 出王牌；吹喇叭
• deficit   n. 赤字；不足额

Age Discrimination Ammunition?

[11] "I would hate to see this kind of research being used to argue that older workers need to work fewer hours," add James. "That only feeds the age discrimination that's already well-entrenched in our society."

• well-entrenched 根深蒂固的

[12] Counters McKenzie, "Our research is not about whether the productivity of older workers is lower than that of younger workers. We are examining whether engagement with work can prevent declining of cognitive functioning ... Our results show that, on average, people aged 40 and over can maximize the benefits of work on their cognitive functioning by working around 25 hours a week. That is, no work is worse than full-time work in terms of maintaining cognitive functioning, but full-time work is not maximizing the positive effects of work."

[13] Even if a long work week has potential side effects, there are still plenty of good reasons why a growing number of Americans are choosing to continue working full-time into their late 60s and 70s. Financial concerns are the biggest reason why older workers are delaying retirement. As we live longer, we need to stretch our working years to save more. But money isn't the only motivator.

• side effects  副作用    
• stretch  vt. 伸展,张开；（大量地）使用，消耗（金钱，时间）；
• motivator  n. 动力；激励因素

[14] "People want to continue to work, because work is what they've spent their lives building their capacities to do," says James of the Center on Aging & Work. "Studies show that older workers are more engaged in their work than younger workers are. Once we get to a certain age, we've found our way to something that we like doing and we just want to keep doing it."
[15] James has a caveat, though. She thinks it's dangerous to perpetuate the idea that all of us can keep working until we drop.

• caveat n. 警告；中止诉讼手续的申请；货物出门概不退换；停止支付的广告
• perpetuate vt. 使不朽；保持adj. 长存的

[16] "People can think they will work until their 70s, but they might not be able to for lots of reasons," says James. "Health is the number one reason people drop out of work. Next is taking care of family members or losing a job to layoffs."