Interactive Reading

Read the passage and answer the question.

Sleep researchers have found that learning a new skill is not finished when practice ends. During deep sleep, the brain replays the patterns of activity it produced while practicing, strengthening the connections involved. Volunteers who learned a sequence of finger movements and then slept performed noticeably better the next day than those who stayed awake for the same period. This effect helps explain why pulling an all-nighter before an exam often backfires. Without enough sleep, the brain has little chance to consolidate what was studied, and much of the effort spent cramming may simply fade away.