2020雅思考试真题及答案 2020年1月11日雅思写作考试真题答案

Woman: Hello! Welcome to the travel depot! How can I help you?

Man: Well, I'm looking for a reasonably priced holiday. I went to South Africa for a month last year and I'd like to see North America this time maybe Canada.

The customer says he went to South Africa last year so the correct answer is C. Now we shall begin, you should answer the questions as you listen because you will not hear the recording a second time. Listen carefully and answer questions 1 to 6.

Woman: Hello! Welcome to the travel Depot! How can I help you?

Man: Well I'm looking for a reasonably priced holiday. I went to South Africa for a month last year and I'd like to see North America, this time maybe Canada but I'm also interested in Europe if the prices to Canada are too expensive. I'm on quite a tight budget, you see.

Woman: Well, you could go to Europe but I'll get some prices for Canada first. I've been to Vancouver, it's lovely at this time of year. And we have some special offers on at the moment.

Man: Ok, well I have some relatives over in Vancouver so that would be good. I can always travel around Europe next year. Besides, it may be a bit too hot for me at this time.

Woman: Right! Let's have a look at some prices then. When would you like to go?

Man: Sometime at the end of next month if possible but I'm quite flexible any time between the 24th and the 31st. I'd like to go for 3 weeks.

Woman: Well, there's lots of availability for those dates. Now if you're concerned about the cost, it's cheaper if you don't mind not flying direct.

Man: Sorry, what do you mean?

Woman: Well, if you don't mind changing planes then it's cheaper.

Man: Oh, well I don't mind changing things.

Woman: In that case, the cheapest flight I have leaves on the 25th and changes in New York. It's only a short stop. You'll be in the airport for two and a half hours. How does that sound?

Man: Sounds good! But what's the price?

Woman: That's four hundred and twelve pounds for a return flight but that doesn't include airport tax. Would you like to arrange any accommodation?

Man: No, I have a cousin I can stay with. All I need is the flight so think I'll take that one.

Woman: Right, I'll just check availability for your return. Three weeks did you say?

Man: Yes, that's right!

Woman: Okay, well there are seats available on the 14th or the 15th. Which one would you prefer?

Man: The 14th sounds good. Yes, from the 25th to the 14th sounds fine.

Woman: Our reserve that for you then. Can you tell me your name, please?

Man: Jim Jackson.

Woman: Is that J A C K S O N?

Man: That's right!

Woman: And can I take an address and contact number?

Man: Yes, it's 10 Allen Road, Oldham. Do you want a home number or my mobile?

Woman: Either's fine.

Man: Well, my home number is 051 433 398.

Woman: Okay, so you booked on flight number VN217 to Vancouver, leaving London Heathrow at 11:35 in the morning on the 25th, and returning on the 14th. So that's 20 nights. Now one more thing.

You now have some time to read questions 7 to 10. You now listen carefully and answer questions 7 to 10.

Woman: Now one more thing, do you have any travel insurance? We recommend all our clients take out some kind of cover even though most people don't end up needing it. Most people have it just for peace of mind.

Man: Well, what type of cover do you have?

Woman: There are two choices, the gold star and the silver star. Our most comprehensive cover is the gold star which will cost twenty-one pounds for the period you are away. It's a good policy because it covers almost all eventualities even extreme sports such as snowboarding and skydiving.

Man: Mm-hmm. What about the silver star?

Woman: That's 18 pounds but it doesn't cover you for any dangerous sports

Man: Well, for three pounds I think I'll take the first one, the gold cover please.

Woman: Right, and is there anything else I can help you with?

Man: Well, do you have any information about what to do in Vancouver?

Woman: Yes, I'm sure there's something on the computer that can help. Ah yes, there's a Shakespeare play at the theater but at $54. It's quite expensive. That starts at 8:00 p.m. The City Museum is really popular too, if you like that kind of thing. They have a special exhibition of Japanese armor next month. The entrance is free and the museum is open from 9 to 4:30 Monday to Saturday. Would you be interested in either of those?

Man: Oh well, maybe.

Woman: Well, I'm sure you can arrange that when you get there anyway. So, it's the flight and the gold star insurance, that's 433 pounds in total.

Man: Can I pay by Visa?

Woman: Yes, of course! If you start….

That is the end of Part 1. You now have half a minute to check your answers. Now turn to Part 2.

Woman: Thank you very much for inviting me here today. I understand that you all own your own home and some of you may be interested in buy an additional property here in the city so I hope you will find the information I am going to share with you useful and informative. I'm going to talk about the situation with property here in the city. The city center of any area is obviously going to have the highest prices and as more and more people are competing for houses in this area, both renting and buying are becoming increasingly difficult. It is most people's dream to one day own their own house. House ownership gives us a feeling of having achieved something and we can see clearly what we have worked so hard for all our lives. It can give us a sense of security for our old age and a knowledge that we will hopefully have something to pass on to our children. However, buying a house, particularly for first-time buyers is becoming more and more difficult. Not only due to increasing prices but also because of the need for a substantial deposit. For younger people, buying their first home is very difficult and often impossible. Young couples who cannot get the deposit together, need to rent for a long time and sometimes forever. While traditionally, homes near the center of the city have been the most desirable people are now looking further a field. This has happened for a number of reasons, the main one being that our style of work is changing along with that of other countries such as the USA. In certain professions, for example sales and computing, it is no longer necessary for people to be based in an office full-time. More and more people are beginning to work from home which means they can avoid the hustle and bustle of rush-hour traffic jams and to work and have more freedom to choose to live in a more rural and peaceful location. My company deals with finding property for both purchasers and renters in the city area. One of my main roles within the company is to find investment properties for people who wish to ahead for their future.

Woman: An investment property is usually at the cheaper end of the market. People buy investment properties not to live in but in addition to their own home in order to rent it out to other people. The advantage of putting your savings into property for the future is that you can be pretty certain that as a long-term investment. Your money will safely increase in value in line with inflation. Many people are turning to property investment instead of pension schemes as we hear the horror stories of countries such as the UK where people have invested all their lives into their pension schemes to find that now their money is relatively worthless. Houses automatically earn what is known as capital gains. That is for every year you owned the property it becomes more valuable and often gives a better rate of interest on your money than most banks do. However, that is not to say there are no risks. There are people who buy property when the market is high and prices are inflated beyond their true value, only to find that when the housing market slows down, they are in a state of negative equity. Negative equity is a situation that arises when you owe more for the house than the house itself is worth. In short, the best devices to be aware of the ups and downs of the housing market. property investment if handled correctly can be enormously satisfying. I hope that this has given you an insight into the basics of the property market. Thank you for listening! Please raise your hand if you have any questions and I will try to be of assistance.

Woman: Thank you very much for tuning in today to listen to our weekly hour on conservation issues. Last week, we spoke about the impact of environmental changes on primates and this week to continue the theme. We have invited Ana specialists by the name of Professor Andrew Ripley all the way from USA to tell us more about the problems faced by the cat family. Professor Ripley thank you very much for joining us today.

Man: It's my pleasure, thank you very much for inviting me.

Woman: So, I understand that you spent a great proportion of your time traveling the globe and monitoring changes in population levels of the cat family.

Man: Yes, that's correct. Of course, we're not talking about the domestic cat here but there man just a cousin such as the lion tiger and Jaguar to name but a few.

Woman: Which member of the cat family do you yourself find to be the most fascinating?

Man: Well, I've spent a lot of time recently studying Jaguars but the lion is still my personal favorite. It is the world's most social cat and unusual in the way in which it chooses to group together with others of its species. Pride of lions basking in the sunshine probably one of people's most vivid perceptions of the African bush.

Woman: Yes, certainly. I totally agree with you.

You now have some time to read questions 25 to 30. Now listen carefully and answer questions 25 to 30.

Woman: Can you tell me the current lion population in Africa these days.

Man: Well, it's very difficult to measure it accurately. The figures range from 100,000 to as few as 30,000 but it's generally estimated that there are 50,000. In order to maintain the population and protect the species from poachers, many move to protected areas.

Woman: Which member of the cat family do you feel is most at risk?

Man: For different reasons, a number of species of the cat family are endangered sometimes due to natural predators or environmental changes but mainly because of the threat of hunters. For example, I'm sure you're aware the bones and body parts of tigers have been and still are traditionally used in medicines in the Far East. Because of this and the demand for medicine made from tiger parts, their numbers have been falling for some time. And to date there are fewer than 6,000 tigers living in their natural habitat of the forests and plains of Asia.

Woman: What is being done to curb the population decrease?

Man: Well, specialists such as myself work closely with conservationists groups such as the World Wildlife Federation or WWF to protect tigers from illegal hunting. WWF considers the drop in tiger numbers to be catastrophic and they're working hard to conserve the populations in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia.

Woman: I understand that the poaching is not the only problem faced by the leopard. Let me get this right! Is it the Snow Leopard which lives in the mountains in Asia?

Man: Yes, it is. The poaching has been a problem but not the most important. Its natural prey the animals at hunts is declining too. Its natural habitat in high-altitude area specifically the pastures as threatened by the growth of agriculture. It is the main problem for the Snow Leopard. It's going to be extremely difficult for numbers to recover, but again the WWF has been working hard to continue to fund projects to aid the snow leopard in Nepal and Pakistan and hopefully Bhutan very soon.

Woman: Well, this is fascinating information you are giving us, Professor. We are just going into a short commercial break when we come back, I have a few questions for you about the Puma and the Jaguar. Remember lessness there will be an opportunity to phone in and voice any opinions or questions you may have for the Professor in ten minutes.

Woman: Good afternoon, I'm pleased to see so many of you here today as I told you all on Monday the lecture on overpopulation has been postponed until next week as we have a guest speaker today. I'd like to introduce you all to Donald Mackenzie who has recently returned from a 12-month research project in America. He is here to share with us some of the results of his studies into the problem of illiteracy

Man: Hello, now as sociology students I have no doubt that you are aware that it is commonly believed that one indicator of a developed country, the level of education of its citizens. Now most of these nations have free compulsory education for all and strict teacher certification requirements, so it would logically follow that people from countries such as America would be highly educated. Yet, this isn't always so. In America alone, 42 million *s cannot read and 50 million can recognize so few printed words. They each have the reading ability of a ten-year-old frightening statistics indeed, but not as frightening as the trend suggested by current estimates, the number of illiterate *s is increasing by approximately two and a quarter million people each year and although global statistics have not been compiled as it suggests an extremely disturbing figure. Inevitably, this is having an impact on employment. In America the annual cost and welfare programs and unemployment compensation due to a literacy stands at six billion US dollars and an additional 237 billion a year in unrealized earnings is forfeited by people who let basic reading skills. There is also the cost of post school literacy programs which have been put in place in order to counter this increasing figure. A conservative estimate places the cost of these programs at 10 billion dollars each year and growing steadily.

Moving on, I'd like to talk about some of the causes of this increasing illiteracy. Children were taught to read by first learning the alphabet then the sounds of each letter, how they blended into syllables and how those syllables made up words. They were taught that English spelling is logical and systematic, and that to become a fluent reader it was necessary to master the alphabetic code in which English words are written. To the point where the code is used automatically with little conscious thought given to it. And to make myself to you, I mean readers could sound out the letters, spelling them phonetically. Once a child learned this ability, attention could be turned to more advanced content. It seldom if I ever occurred to teachers to give children word lists to read or to make beginner level readers memorize whole words before learning the components of those words or to memorize whole stories as today's proponents of the whole language approach recommend.

Several recent studies have found that 90% of remedial reading students and developed countries are not able to decode fluently, accurately and at an automatic level of response. The currently used whole language method was originally conceived then used in the early 1800s to teach the deaf how to read, a method which is long since being discarded by the teachers of the deaf themselves as inadequate and out murdered. English is an alphabetic language that when written uses letters to represent speech sounds when students were taught to read, they consciously identified the speech sounds and learned to recognize the letters used to represent them. They were then trained to apply this information to decode the names of unwritten words, understand their meaning and comprehend the information presented as a complete thought. The English language contains approximately half a million words. On these words, about 300 compose about three-quarters of the words that we use regularly. As I said in schools where the whole language method is taught, children are constantly memorizing sight words during the first three or four grades of school but I never taught how to unlock the meaning of the other 499 thousand seven hundred or more words. Whole language learning causes frustration, poor spelling and hostility towards reading. Very bright children who can't memorize long lists of words and retain their meaning are placed in special education. When all they need is to be taught that 26 letters of the alphabet, the 44 sounds they make, and the seventy common ways to spell those sounds.

Some researchers believe dyslexia and the symptoms of attention deficit disorder actually caused by this reversal of the normal learning sequence. So, why do faulty reading methods continue to be used? Well, in short, it's big business. The sale of instructional reading programs is big business today. Each year publishing companies compete for the adoption of reading programs and workbooks which have to be replaced annually concentrating on phonics would seriously reduce the cost of education.

spelling：name，address，flight number, the spelling of words
numbers ：contact number， passport

NOTES:
420 pounds
jim jackson
0151433398
Z127
21-24
weekly hour
cat family
lion - most social animal
threat of hunters
snow napital
speech soudn
represent
decode
sounds
common ways

expansion of agriculture
growth of agriculture

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Red: numbers - listen carefully
Yellow：wrong spelling of words
Blue: only need to focus on keywords

If you have missed one part, then you can choose the word that you heard in the recording. Don't guess!!

/ielts-mock-test-2020-february-listening-practice-test-1

一月上旬的雅思考试已经顺利落幕，大家对考试的结果想必是非常的关心的吧，不妨先来和的我看一看2020年1月11日雅思写作考试真题答案。

Task 1

Process diagram （流程图，最简单的图表）

Task 2

Some people think that climate change could have a negative effect on business. Other people think that climate change could create more opportunities. Discuss both views and give your own opinion. （想观点容易，语料也多，算是比较简单）

Introduction： 气候变化既带来消极影响也带来颂局发展机会。

Body-1：消极影响

1. 气候变野腊让化导致更多的极端天气，这会影响很多行业，比如旅游业，运输业和农业。

2. 气候变化对传统的能源行业和依赖传统能源行业的企业也带来消极影响。为了控制温室气体的排放，减少污染，全球大多数国家都制定了减排措施，减少对传统化石燃料的使用是必然的趋势。

Body-2： 带来的机会

1.气候变化会为清洁能源的发展带来很多的机会。水力，风能，太阳能，核能等的项目会越来局判越多。

2. 气候变化会为使用清洁能源的设备带来发展带来机会。比如电动汽车。相比于传统的燃油车，电动汽车更环保，排放更少的二氧化碳。

结论：气候变化带来的危害与机会并存，它促使商业社会像可持续发展转型。

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作品相关介绍：

雅思考试（IELTS），全称为国际英语测试系统，是著名的国际性英语标准化水平测试之一。不管留学、移民、或工作，雅思都是国际英语测试的较好选择。

Over the past few decades , rapid urbanization in the world has resulted in the fast growth of population in cities. Consequently , an increasing number of city dwellers live in *all apartments with *all or no outdoor areas. From my perspective , this situation may negatively affect *s and kids.

To begin with , the importance of outdoor areas in promoting health and happiness has long been recognized because a scientific research has indicated an essential relationship between outdoor space and general well-being. To be specific , sufficient outdoor regions in cities are not only aesthetically pleasing for the public but also great to reduce people's pressure after a long and tiring day. Without adequate outdoor places, city residents are likely to suffer from stress, anxiety and depression as they have no room to participate in physical exercise and interact with their neighbors.

Furthermore , living in *all-sized apartments without ready access to outdoor spaces is detrimental for children’s growth. According to an educational research , playing outside may facilitate children to develop their learning abilities. The exploration of natural elements in outdoor areas is also significant to capture children’s attention to the diversity of nature. In outdoor activities, children will be more willing to join in games during which they will talk to different children and make new friends. Unfortunately , cities that lack enough outdoor space can’t offer children such opportunities

All in all , with city population increasing exponentially , nowadays most urban families are living in *all-sized apartments without ready access to outdoor areas for both *s and kids, so they often cannot invite friends or host social gatherings at home. Therefore , it is a negative development.

（278 words）

8月1号进行了八月初的第一场雅思的考试，相信大家对真题以及答案会非常的感兴趣、今天就由的我为大家介绍2020年8月1日雅思阅读考试真题答案。

一、考题解析

P1 土地沙漠化

P2 澳大利亚的鹦鹉

P3 多重任务

二、名师点评

1.8月份首场考试的难度总体中等，有出现比较多的配对题，没有出现Heading题，其余主要以常规的填空，判断和选择题为主。文章的话题和题型搭配也是在剑桥真题中都有迹可循，所以备考重心依然还是剑桥官方真题。

2. 整体分析：涉及环境类（P1）、动物类（P2）、社科类（P3）。

本次考试的P2和P3均为旧题。P2是动物类的话题，题型组合为：段落细节配对+单选+summary填空，难度中等。题型上也延续19年的出题特点，出现配对题，考察定位速度和准确度。P3也出现了段落细节配对，主要是段落细节配对+单选+判断。三种题型难度中等，但是文章理解起来略有难度。

3. 部分答案及参考文章：

Passage 1：土地沙漠化

题型及答案待确认

Passage 2：澳大利亚的鹦鹉

题型：段落细节配对+单选+Summary填空

技巧分析：由于段落细节配对是完全乱序出题，在定位时需要先做后面的单选题及填空题，最大化利用已读信息来确定答案，尽量避免重复阅读，以保证充分的做题时间。

文章内容及题目参考：

A 概况，关于一个大的生物种类

B 一些物种消失的原因，题干关键词：an example of one bird species extinct

C 一种鹦鹉不能自己存活，以捕食另一种鸟为生，吃该鸟类的蛋。题干关键词：two species competed at the expense of oneanother

D 吸引鹦鹉的原因以及鹦鹉嘴的特点。题干关键词：*ysis of reasons as Australian landscapeattract parrots

E 植物是如何适应鹦鹉。题干关键词：plants attract birds which make the animal adaptto the environment

F 南半球对英语的影响

G 两种鹦鹉从环境改变中获益并存活下来。题干关键词：two species of parrots benefit fromm theenvironment change

H 外来物种及本地鹦鹉

I 鸟类栖息地被破坏以及人类采取的措施

J 作者对于鹦鹉问题的态度

单选题：

why parrots in the whole world are lineal descendants of

选项关键词：continent split from Africa

the writer thinks parrots species beak is for

选项关键词：adjust to their suitable diet

which one is not mentioned

选项关键词：should be frequently maintained

填空题：分布在文章的前两段

one-sixth

16th century

mapmaker

John Gould

Passage 3：多重任务

题型：段落细节配对+单选+判断

参考答案及文章

28 F

29I

30C

31B

32G

33C

34B

35A

36YES

37YES

38NO

39NOT GIVEN

40NO

Passage3： multitasking

Multitasking Debate—Can you do them at the same time？

Talking on the phone while driving isn＇t the only situationwhere we＇re worse at multitasking than we might like to think we are. Newstudies have identified a bottleneck in our brains that some say means we arefundamentally incapable of true multitasking. If experimental findings reflectreal-world performance， people who think they are multitasking are probablyjust underperforming in all-or at best， all but one -of their parallelpursuits. Practice might improve your performance， but you will never be asgood as when focusing on one task at a time.

The problem， according to René Marois， a psychologist atVanderbilt University in Nashville， Tennessee， is that there＇s a sticking pointin the brain. To demonstrate this， Marois devised an experiment to locate nteers watch a screen and when a particular image appears， a red circle，say， they have to press a key with their index finger. Different colouredcircles require presses from different fingers. Typical response time is about half a second， and thevolunteers quickly reach their peak performance. Then they learn to listen todifferent recordings and respond by making a specific sound. For instance， whenthey hear a bird chirp， they have to say ＂ba＂； an electronic soundshould elicit a ＂ko＂， and so on. Again， no problem. A normal personcan do that in about half a second， with almost no effort. The trouble comeswhen Marois shows the volunteers an image， then almost immediately plays them asound. Now they＇re flummoxed. ＂If you show an image and play a sound atthe same time， one task is postponed，＂ he says. In fact，if the second taskis introduced within the half-second or so it takes to process and react to thefirst， it will simply be delayed until the first one is done. The largestdual-task delays occur when the two tasks are presented simultaneously； delaysprogressively shorten as the interval between presenting the tasks lengthens（See Diagram）.

There are at least three points where we seem to getstuck， says Marois. The first is in simply identifying what we＇re looking  can take a few tenths of a second， during which time we are not able tosee and recognise a second item. This limitation is known as the＂attentional blink＂： experiments have shown that if you＇re watchingout for a particular event and a second one shows up unexpectedly any timewithin this crucial window of concentration， it may register in your visualcortex but you will be unable to act upon it. Interestingly， if you don＇texpect the first event， you have no trouble responding to the second. Whatexactly causes the attentional blink is still a matter for debate.

A second limitation is in our short-term visual ＇s estimated that we can keep track of about four items at a time， fewer ifthey are complex. This capacity shortage is thought to explain， in part， our astonishinginability to detect even huge changes in scenes that are otherwise identical，so-called ＂change blindness＂. Show people pairs of near-identicalphotos -say， aircraft engines in one picture have disappeared in the other -andthey will fail to spot the differences （if you don＇t believe it， check out theclips at /~rensink/flicker/download）. Here again， though， thereis disagreement about what the essential limiting factor really is. Does itcome down to a dearth of storage capacity， or is it about how much attention aviewer is paying？

A third limitation is that choosing a response to astimulus -braking when you see a child in the road， for instance，or replyingwhen your mother tells you over the phone that she＇s thinking of leaving yourdad -also takes brainpower. Selecting a response to one of these things willdelay by some tenths of a second your ability to respond to the other. This iscalled the ＂response selection bottleneck＂ theory， first proposed in1952.

Last December， Marois and his colleagues published apaper arguing that this bottleneck is in fact created in two different areas ofthe brain： one in the posterior lateral prefrontal cortex and another in thesuperior medial frontal cortex （Neuron， vol 52， p 1109）. They found this byscanning people＇s brains with functional MRI while the subjects struggled tochoose among eight possible responses to each of two closely timed tasks. Theydiscovered that these brain areas are not tied to any particular sense but aregenerally involved in selecting responses， and they seemed to queue theseresponses when presented with multiple tasks concurrently.

Bottleneck？ What bottleneck？

But David Meyer， a psychologist at the University ofMichigan， Ann Arbor， doesn＇t buy the bottleneck idea. He thinks dual-taskinterference is just evidence of a strategy used by the brain to prioritisemultiple activities. Meyer is known as something of an optimist by his  has written papers with titles like ＂Virtually perfect time-sharing indual-task performance： Uncorking the central cognitive bottleneck＂（Psychological Science， vol 12， p101）. His experiments have shown that withenough practice -at least 2000 tries -some people can execute two taskssimultaneously as competently as if they were doing them one after the  suggests that there is a central cognitive processor that coordinates allthis and， what＇s more， he thinks it uses discretion： sometimes it chooses todelay one task while completing another.

Even with practice， not all people manage to achieve thisharmonious time-share， however. Meyer argues that individual differences comedown to variations in the character of the processor -some brains are just more＂cautious＂， some more ＂daring＂. And despite urban legend，there are no noticeable

differences between men and women. So， according to him，it＇s not a central bottleneck that causes dual-task interference， but rather＂adaptive executive control＂， which ＂schedules task processesappropriately to obey instructions about their relative priorities and serialorder＂.

Marois agrees that practice can sometimes eraseinterference effects. He has found that with just 1 hour of practice each dayfor two weeks， volunteers show a huge improvement at managing both his tasks atonce. Where he disagrees with Meyer is in what the brain is doing to achievethis. Marois speculates that practice might give us the chance to find lesscongested circuits to execute a task -rather like finding trusty back streetsto avoid heavy traffic on main roads -effectively making our response to thetask subconscious. After all， there are plenty of examples of subconsciou*ultitasking that most of us routinely manage： walking and talking， eating andreading， watching TV and folding the laundry.

But while some dual tasks benefit from practice， otherssimply do not. ＂Certain kinds of tasks are really hard to do two atonce，＂ says Pierre Jolicoeur at the University of Montreal， Canada， whoalso studies multitasking. Dual tasks involving a visual stimulus andskeletal-motor response （which he dubs ＂in the eye and out the hand＂）and an auditory stimulus with a verbal response （＂in the ear and out themouth＂） do seem to be amenable to practice， he says. Jolicoeur has foundthat with enough training such tasks can be performed as well together asapart. He speculates that the brain connections that they use may be somehowspecial， because we learn to speak by hearing and learn to move by looking. Butpair visual input with a verbal response， or sound to motor， and there＇s nodramatic improvement. ＂It looks like no amount of practice will allow youto combine these，＂ he says.

For research purposes， these experiments have to be keptsimple. Real-world multitasking poses much greater challenges. Even the upbeatMeyer is sceptical about how a lot of us live our lives. Instant-messaging andtrying to do your homework？ ＂It can＇t be done，＂ he says. Conducting ajob interview while answering emails？ ＂There＇s no way you wind up being asgood.＂ Needless to say， there appear to be no researchers in the area ofmultitasking who believe that you can safely drive a car and carry on a phoneconversation. In fact， last year David Strayer at the University of Utah inSalt Lake City reported that people using cellphones drive no better thandrunks （Human Factors， vol 48， p 381）. In another study， Strayer found thatusing a hands-free kit did not improve a driver＇s response time. He concludedthat what distracts a driver so badly is the very act of talking to someone whoisn＇t present in the car and therefore is unaware of the hazards facing thedriver.

“No researchers believe it＇s safe to drive a car andcarry on a phone conversation”

It probably comes as no surprise that， generallyspeaking， we get worse at multitasking as we age. According to Art Kramer atthe University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign， who studies how ageing affectsour cognitive abilities， we peak in our 20s. Though the decline is slow throughour 30s and on into our 50s， it is there； and after 55， it becomes moreprecipitous. In one study， he and his colleagues had both young and oldparticipants do a simulated driving task while carrying on a conversation. Hefound that while young drivers tended to miss background changes， older driversfailed to notice things that were highly relevant. Likewise， older subjects hadmore trouble paying attention to the more important parts of a scene than youngdrivers.

It＇s not all bad news for over-55s， though. Kramer alsofound that older people can benefit from practice. Not only did they learn toperform better， brain scans showed that underlying that improvement was achange in the way their brains become active.

Whileit＇s clear that practice can often make a difference， especially as we age， thebasic facts remain sobering. ＂We have this impression of an almightycomplex brain，＂ says Marois， ＂and yet we have very humbling andcrippling limits.＂ For most of our history， we probably never needed to domore than one thing at a time， he says， and so we haven＇t evolved to be ableto. Perhaps we will in future， though. We might yet look back one day on peoplelike Debbie and Alun as ancestors of a new breed of true multitaskers.