你是否用过洗开的牌检测自己的记忆力？下文中提到的几位人物不得不令人惊叹：两位英国人在短暂的时间内竟然能记住许多张牌面的顺序；日本人更不示弱，他们通过背诵π的位数来挑战记忆力极限，背诵的位数竟然达到小数点后4万多位！下面我们一起来看看这几位堪称记忆力的“大家”！

　　Try this memory test. Mix up the cards in a deck(副) of playing cards. Now look at the top seven cards. Can you remember these cards in the correct order that you saw them after looking at the cards only once?

　　Dominic O'Brien can. In fact, he memorized the order of more than 2,000 cards after looking at them only once! In 1993, Mr. O'Brien memorized the order of 40 decks of cards after the cards were mixed up by looking at all of the cards one time. After he got through looking at the cards, Mr. O'Brien recited all 2,000 of them in the correct order on national television in England. He only made one mistake.

　　Mr. O'Brien also held the record for memorizing one deck of cards in only 56 seconds until Tom Groves broke the record in 1994. Mr. Groves, who is also from England, memorized one deck of cards after the cards had been mixed up in 42 seconds. Keep in mind that there are 54 cards in a deck. He recited the order of the cards with no mistake.

　　Not everyone tries to prove their memory skills by reciting cards. Some people memorize words or numbers. Hideaki Tomoyori of Japan wanted to prove that his memory was the best in the world by reciting pi. Pi is a mathematical constant(常数) often used in science which is almost equal to 3.14159. This number never repeats itself or ends.

　　Mr. Tomoyori wanted to memorize more of pi than any other person in the world. He thought that he would go down in history as the man with the best memory when, on March 9 — 10, 1987, he recited pi to 40,000 places. It took the 55-year-old man more

　　than 12 hours to recite the numbers, but he did it without making a mistake!

　　Then, eight years later, a 21-year-old

　　man who was also from Japan beat Mr. Tomoyori's record. Hiroyuki Goto recited pi to 42,195 places at the NHK television station in Tokyo, Japan on February 18,1995.

　　Choose the best answer to each question.

　　1. What did Mr. Groves do better than Mr. O'Brien?

　　A. He memorized more cards.

　　B. He memorized cards faster.

　　C. He made fewer mistakes than Mr. O'Brien.

　　D. He memorized pi.

　　2. What is true about the number pi?

　　A. It is a constant.

　　B. It is used in science.

　　C. It never repeats itself.

　　D. All of the above.

　　3. How did Mr. Goto beat Mr. Tomoyori's record?

　　A. He recited pi faster.

　　B. He made fewer mistakes.

　　C. He memorized more numbers in pi.

　　D. He recited pi on television.

　　Key:

　　1—3 BDC

　　(文/本报资料； 英语辅导报高一版 04~05学年度第22期；版权归英语辅导报社所有，独家网络合作伙伴新浪教育，未经许可，不得以任何形式进行转载。)