Unit 4
Section One
Tactics for Listening
Part 1
Spot Dictation
Stephen Powelson
鈥?/p>
s Amazing Memory
When Stephen Powelson was nine, his school organized a (1) weekly contest
in
memorizing
passages
from
the
Bible.
Stephen
paid
(2)
no
attention
until
he
was chided* for (3) not competing. The next Sunday he surprised everyone by (4)
reciting all the passages for the (5) entire year.
As a teenager in prep school, Stephen took Greek. His teacher (6) assigned
21
lines
of
the
Iliad*
to
be
memorized
(7)
in
a
week.
At
the
end
of
the
hour
-
though he (8) insisted he paid full attention to the (9) lecture - Stephen knew all
21. He went on to memorize the first (10) 100 lines.
In 1978, for the first time (11) since college, Powelson, now 60, had some (12)
spare time. To keep his mind active, he reread the Iliad and (13) discovered that
he still knew the first 100 lines (14) by heart.
That someone could memorize so much between ages 60 and 70 is (15)
astonishing to most people, who are (16) convinced that memory (17) worsens as
we grow older.