Why do girls perform better than boys in school?

主要内容介绍：

这段The Economist的录音描述了这样的现象：

在15岁左右的青少年中，

女孩比男孩成绩更好一些。

文中给出了三个原因：

女孩比男孩爱阅读，

女孩用在家庭作业上的时间比男孩多，

男孩更易受同辈压力的影响。

录音的最后描述了如何让让这种差异缩小。

笔果还原听力原文：

For centuries, boys were top of the class. But these days, that’s no longer the case. A new study by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, examined how 15-year-old boys and girls performed at reading, mathematics and science. Boys still score somewhat better at maths, and in science the genders are roughly equal. But when it comes to the students who really struggle, the difference is stark: boys are 50% more likely than girls to fall short of basic standards in all three areas.

Why are girls performing better at school than their male classmates? First, girls read more than boys. Reading proficiency is the basis upon which all other learning is built. When boys don’t do well at reading, their performance in other school subjects suffers too. Second, girls spend more time on homework. On average, girls spend five and a half hours per week doing homework while boys spend a little less than four and a half hours. Researchers suggest that doing homework set by teachers is linked to better performance in maths, reading and science. Boys, it appears, spend more of their free time in the virtual world; they are 17% more likely to play collaborative online games than girls every day. They also use the internet more. Third, peer pressure plays a role. A lot of boys decide early on that they are just too cool for school. They adopt a concept of masculinity that includes a disregard for authority, which means they’re more likely to be rowdy in class. Teachers mark them down for this. In anonymous tests, boys perform better. In fact, the gender gap in reading drops by a third when teachers don’t know the gender of the pupil they are marking.

So what can be done to close this gap? Getting boys to do more homework and cut down on screen-time would help. And offering boys a chance to read non-fiction would help too: they’re keener on comics and newspapers. But most of all, abandoning gender stereotypes would benefit all students. Boys in countries with the best schools read much better than girls. And girls in Shanghai excel in mathematics. They outperform boys from anywhere else in the world.

听力词汇/词组：

SST要点：

1.写出这段录音的主要内容：

关于为什么女孩普遍比男孩成绩优秀。

This recording is about the reasons why girls generally perform better than boys in school.

2. 写出三大原因：

-Firstly, girls read more than boys and reading proficiency is the foundation of almost all subjects.

-Secondly, girls spend more time on homework than boys. Boys tend to play more collaborative video games than girls.

-Thirdly, peer pressure plays a role in boy’s performance. Therefore, their scores are more likely to be negatively affected by teachers.

3. 结论：(如果前面miss掉了某一项)

In conclusion, more homework and less screen time for boys can help close the gap.