# PTE SWT #21: Neurological Development in...

Summarize Written Text #21 - Level 2 - Feeds Writing + Reading

> Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence. Type your response in the box at the bottom of the screen. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your answer.

Teenagers can look like adults, dress like adults, and even act like adults at times; sometimes, it might be hard to tell the teenagers from adults (and other times it isn't hard at all), but it's also crucial to remember that their brains are wired completely differently. It's long been known that at the end of the day, teenagers just don't think like adults, and that's because the different sections of their brains aren't connected the way they will be once they've matured a little more. Most specifically, teenagers lack many of the nerve connections that tie the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain, limiting their ability to think ahead. It all has to do with the way the brain matures, a concept that's been given the pretty logical name of neuromaturation. The brain is made up of white matter and grey matter. The grey matter stores all the information, and the white matter forms the connections between the different parts of the brain. Our grey matter matures when we're between 11 and 12 years old, but the white matter hasn't completely developed until we're in our early twenties. That means that the brains of teenagers literally aren't physically fully connected. In an adult brain, there are a number of neural connections that allow the different parts of the brain to all work together. In the teenage brain, these connections aren't fully formed yet, and it, unsurprisingly, impacts the brain's ability to process information in a way that looks at the entire picture. It's been found that the last part of the brain to finish developing its connections is the frontal lobe, which is also the part of the brain that governs attention span, impulses, and motivation.

## Answer

Teenagers' brains, still undergoing neuromaturation, lack fully developed neural connections in the frontal lobe, which affects impulse control, attention span, and decision-making, distinguishing their cognitive processes from those of adults and shaping their behavior during adolescence.

## Explanation

A successful summary must synthesize the core argument: that adolescent behavior is rooted in the incomplete physical connectivity of the brain, specifically the white matter and frontal lobe development.

## Hints

- Focus on the distinction between grey and white matter mentioned in the text.
- Explain why the frontal lobe's late development impacts teenage decision-making.

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