A study of sleep in sparrows suggests the relationship between sleep and the ability to learn may be more complicated (复杂) than realized．

    Niels C. Rattenborg of the University of Wisconsin—Madison wanted to find out how the sparrows were able to deal with getting so much less sleep．He and his team brought eight wild birds into a lab and watched them for one year．They invented a game to check how well the birds could learn．In the game, the sparrows had to peck (啄) three buttons (按钮) in a certain order to get a food treat．The scientists discovered that the birds' ability to learn the right button order depended on (依靠) two things, the time of year and the

amount of sleep the birds had．

    During the migration (迁徙) season, the sparrows were restless at night and got much less sleep than usual．Even so, they were able to understand how to get the food quickly as if they'd had a regular night of sleep．Outside the migration season, they found the sparrows that got less sleep than usual had much more difficulty learning how to get the food treats than birds that had a regular sleep．

    The results show that the sparrows can deal with much less sleep during the migration season than usual．If scientists can find out why, they may learn from sparrows and find ways of helping people deal with getting much less sleep．Until scientists fully understand the relationship between sleep and learning, it's better to get plenty of sleep when preparing for an exam．

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     I was very disappointed not to be able to go to the jazz concert last Friday. The advertisement in the paper said that you could buy tickets at the theatre box in Richland Hills any day between 10:00 and 4:00. Since I work from 9:00 to 5:30, the only time I could go to the theatre was during my 45-minute lunch break.

    Unfortunately, the theatre is on theother side of the town, and the bus service between my office and Richland Hills is not very good. Butif you are lucky, you can make the round trip in 45 minutes. Last Monday, Istood at the bus stop for 15 minutes waiting for the bus, By the time I saw onecome around the corner, there was not enough time left to make the trip.

     So I gave up and went back to the office. The same thing happened on Tuesday, and again next day. On Thursday, my luck changed. I got on a bus right away and arrived at the theatre in exactly 20 minutes. When I got there, however, I found along line of people at the box office, I heard one man say he had been waitingin line for over an hour. Realizing I would not have enough timeto wait in line. I caught the next bus and headed back across the town.

    By Friday I realized my only hope was tomake the trip by taxi, it was expensive, but I felt it would be worth it tohear the concert. The trip by taxi only took 10 minutes, but felt like an hour to me. When I got to the theatre, I was relieved to see that nobody was waiting in line. The reason, however, I quickly discovered, was that they had already sold all the tickets.

-- Good idea. But I don't have ______ soccer ball.