Can You Make Yourself Smarter? - Dan Hurley

Dan Hurley was born on November 11, 1957. He is American author and scientific journalist. Hurley studied at Beloit college in Wisconsin and Westem Carolina university. In 1995, he received the American society of journalists and Author`s award. He has written several books and hundreds of articles for the New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Neurology Today. Currently, he lives in New Jersey with his family ( his wife and two daughters). “Can You Make Yourselves smarter?” is a independent scientific article that ts written by Dan Hurley to inform his audiences about the effects of training on memory and fluid intelligence.

Purpose: Besides informing (and perhaps entertaining) readers, consider how the text aims to persuade audiences to do something. Dan Hurley`s purpose is to write an attractive article that discuses about some of the studies related to “brain training” and the ability to improve intelligence.

Audience: What can you tell about the intended audience? Is this a friendly, wavering, or hostile audience? The article`s audiences are friendly audience.

Hurley`s purpose is to amplify his audiences`belief.

The Author’s Claim or Argument: Dan Hurley claims that base in recent studies people can create changes on their capacity intelligent and make improve their intelligent by training.Tone (Angry? Humorous? Sarcastic? Ironic? Reasonable?): I think . Hurley`s tone is Key quotes (choose four):

1) Jaeggi says, “If you training attention and working memory, you increases your basic cognitive skills that help you for many different complex tasks.”

2)” Those two things, working memory and cognitive control, I think, are at the heart of intellectual functioning,” Jonides told Hurley.

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3) “We know that height is heavily genetically determined,” Jondies told me. “But we also know there are powerful environmental influences on height,like nutrition. So the fact that intelligence is partly heritable does not mean you can not modify it.”

4)”Do you think they are now smarter for the rest of their lives by just four weeks of training?”

Jaeggi asks.Your thoughts/ ideas/ analysis about each key quote:

1) Education increases our performance in doing different tasks.

2) The two main factors that allow humans to think and argue for their solutions.

3) It is true that intelligence is hereditary, but we can improve intelligence by making a number of changes to environmental factors.

4 )Our training to improve the working memory and cognitive skills must be permanent like many other tasks. Otherwise, we can not succeed in our goal.

1) What are some of the best vocabulary terms in the text? Be sure to give a brief statement of rationale for the terms you choose (please select 3-4 terms from the reading).

a) Heritable: In the past several decades, people believed that intelligence is hereditary and can not be changed.

b) Premise: The author has used several assumptions to prove his topic.

c) Provocative: The assumptions provide in the article provoke opponents.

d) replicate: Doing the N-back tests repeated for several times in the article by different groups.

2) After reading the text, what issues remain? What questions would you like to ask of the text? Why the progress of this premise is  slow?

3) Do you notice any patterns of development in the text? What are they? The author has used the N-back tests and the progressive matrix tests.

4) Does the text change, shift, or surprise you? How so? No, because I agree wit this topic that we can make ourselves smarter and I have personally experienced.

5) Does the text relate to your own personal life? How so? Yes, In my country,  my son participated in a special class called abacus (the abacus is a interesting tool that used for calculating). In this class, my son trained that calculate mathematics calculation in his mind without using calculator. This training mad my son can do mathematics calculation faster.

6) Does the text teach or instruct you on a particular subject? How so? Yes, Dan Hurley discussed about the main topic in all paragraphs.

7) After reading this text, how have your first impressions been confirmed or disrupted? I agree with the premise and my first impressions have been confirmed by the text.