"Your husband, wife, or sweetheart probably doesn't come to work with you every day," says Brittany Solomon. But his or her influence clearly does.
Solomon, a Ph. D. candidate in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, recently led a study analyzing the careers and personalities of about 5,000 married people, aged 19 to 89, over a five-year period. About 75% were in two-career couples.
The conclusion: Employees of both sexes who scored highest on three measures of occupational success — salary increases, promotions, and job satisfaction — all went home at night to mates with the personality type known as "conscientious." These are people who are reliable, consistent, detail-oriented, and organized. The study result will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science.
Note to singles: If you're aiming high at work, you might want to settle down with someone conscientious. Psychologists often sort out people according to four other broad measures: openness, outgoingness, agreeableness, and neuroticism (神经质). Although previous studies show that "people tend to look for a potential mate with a high degree of agreeableness and low neuroticism, our findings suggest that anyone with ambitious career goals would be better off looking for a supportive partner with a highly conscientious personality," Solomon notes.
A mate's conscientiousness boosts career success in three ways, the study found. First is what the researchers call "outsourcing," which means it's a lot easier to concentrate on your next brilliant idea at work if someone else can be counted on to make sure the dog has all his shots, the car gets inspected on time, and the kids are fed. Also, the ability to depend on a significant other cuts down on overall stress and makes work-life balance easier to manage, for men and women alike.
But beyond the day-to-day being practical, a conscientious partner can have a subtler, more pervasive influence. "Conscientious people tend to be resilient in the face of setbacks, and they're thorough. They finish what they start," says Solomon. Over time, those features can rub off on a spouse. People often unconsciously try to equal those they live with — and the qualities we associate with 'conscientious' types are the same ones that lead to success in a career.
1. Which of the following qualities is what you can't find on a conscientious person?| A．Trustworthy. | B．Orderly. | C．Careful. | D．Neurotic. |
| A．To give examples of what a conscientious mate should be like. |
| B．To explain how one's mate's conscientiousness promotes one's career. |
| C．To describe what qualities can make a conscientious mate. |
| D．To stress the reliability of the final conclusion drawn from this study. |
| A．Erase off. | B．Wipe out. | C．Get influence. | D．Have effect. |
| A．conscientiousness is a must for career success |
| B．one's mate's personality influences one's career success |
| C．one's mate's personality promotes one's occupational success |
| D．conscientious persons are more suitable for ambitious ones |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】This love story began in Winchester, 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his arms and legs.
When Rick was 11, he managed to use a computer by touching a switch with the side of his head. He was finally able to communicate. And after a high school classmate was injured in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick typed, “Dad, 1 want to do that."
How was Dick, a fat man who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? But, he tried. That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!" And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became crazy about giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20.000 starters. “NO question about it,” Rick typed. “My dad is the father of the century.”
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago, he had a mild heart attack during a race. “If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, “you probably would have died 15 years ago." So, in a way Dick and Rick saved each other's lives.
They compete in some races every weekend, including the latest Father's Day. That night, Rick bought his dad dinner, but the thing he really wanted to give him was a gift he could never buy. “The thing I'd like most,” Rick typed, “is that my dad sits in the chair and I push him once."
1. What made a great difference to Dick's and Rick's lives?| A．Doctors' suggestions. | B．Becoming professional athletes. |
| C．Taking part in the running races. | D．A race held by Rick's high school. |
| A．It extends his lifetime. | B．It helps him to keep slim. |
| C．It makes his family close. | D．It brings him a comfortable life. |
| A．Regretful. | B．Excited. | C．Indifferent. | D．Embarrassed. |
| A．Father of the century | B．A charity run for a teenager |
| C．A moving disabled young man | D．A love story between Father and Son |
【推荐2】As a child I was one of the 125 people at our family get-together for New Year. These days we were a much smaller group in Belle Valley, Ohio. I insisted on acting as hostess and wanted to bring back the joy I’d felt at my childhood New Year that filled with love.
As family members arrived at the hall, I handed each one of them a numbered card and said, “Time for the alphabet (字母表) game.” “What kind of game is that?” one of my great-grandchildren asked. “Well,” I said, “who’s got number one?” A cousin raised her hand. “Tell us something you never forget,” I said. “Something that begins with the letter A.” My cousin smiled. “Apple pie!” she said. Great-granddaughter Mindy was next. “B,” she said. “I am impressed by Buckeye Country.” “Cookies!” Number 3 shouted.
Until N umber 17, “The next one’s a challenge,” I said. “Who’s got 17?” Ryan, my son, slowly raised his hand. “Q,” he said. “Quaker City Carnival (狂欢节).” The room went silent. “It’s one of the oldest traditions in Ohio,” Ryan said. “Grandma and Grandpa met there. That’s where they fell in love. That’s where this whole thing started. This whole family.” Ryan looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone. “We wouldn’t be here celebrating New Year together if it wasn’t for Quaker City Carnival.”
The room burst into laughter and was full of love. “This is the best New Year we’ve ever had,” a great-grandson said to me secretly. Whatever their New Year would look like when they grew up, they’d remember this one. And for me, I had an unforgettable New Year to treasure—a memory where love started with the letter Q.
1. Why did the author want to organize the alphabet game?| A．To enjoy the family get-together. |
| B．To share moving stories with family. |
| C．To act as the hostess of the New Year party. |
| D．To experience long-lost New Year happiness. |
| A．Teddy Bear. | B．Yogurt. | C．Watermelon. | D．Steak. |
| A．It was connected with their family roots. | B．They understood the meaning of love. |
| C．They knew their grandparents better. | D．It brought a tradition back to them. |
| A．A Letter Full of Love | B．A Traditional New Year Game |
| C．A Family Custom at New Year | D．A Love Story About the Carnival |
Jack has married twice. His first wife died when she was 32. He met his second wife Maria while he was cycling round France. They have been married for 50 years，and they have lived happily in a small village since they got married.
Jack says that he has never been ill in his life. The secret of good health, according to my grandfather, is exercise. He goes swimming every morning. He has done this since he was a boy. He also has a glass of wine every night！Perhaps that is his secret!
1. Which of the following does Jack think is the most beautiful place?
| A．Kathmandu. | B．The Pyramids. |
| C．The Sahara Desert. | D．Taj Mahal. |
| A．India | B．In Nepal. |
| C．In France. | D．In Egypt. |
| A．He has a glass of wine. |
| B．He goes swimming. |
| C．He hunts lions. |
| D．He rides a camel. |
【推荐1】That the Leaning Tower of Pisa no longer leans quite so much after a￡20 million project to save it has proved to be a great success. The tower, which was on the edge of collapse, has been straightened by 18 inches, returning to its 1838 position.
“It has straightened a little bit more than we expected, but very little helps,” said Prof. John Burland, the only British member of the rescue committee. “The tower is still very slightly moving towards being upright.”
The tower, which has been leaning almost since building work first began in 1173, was closed to the public in 1990 because of safety fears. The 183-foot tower was nearly 15 feet off vertical and its structure was found to have been weakened by centuries of strain (作用力).
Prof. Burland said it could have collapsed “at any moment”. However, it took nine years of quarreling before any work was done. The last attempt at straightening the tower was carried out. Concrete was poured into the foundations, but the result was that the tower sank further into the soil.
The straightening work involved digging out around 70 tonnes of earth from the northern side of the tower, causing it to sink on that side. Before the digging started, the tower was fixed with steel ropes and 600 tonnes of lead weights.
However, halfway through the project, concerns about the ugliness of the weights led to their removal and the tower leaned greatly. The weights were hurriedly reattached. In one night, the tower moved more than it had averaged in an entire year. The tower’s stonework has also been restored.
The Italian government stepped in after a tower collapsed in Pavia in 1989, killing four people. Experts suddenly realised that the tower at Pisa, which was similarly built and on the same sort of earth, could do the same.
1. What would be the best title for the passage?| A．The Building of the Leaning Tower of Pisa |
| B．Saving the Leaning Tower of Pisa |
| C．The Collapse of the Leaning Tower of Pisa |
| D．The History of the Leaning Tower of Pisa |
| A．closed for the straightening work in 1990 |
| B．began to lean more than 800 years ago |
| C．has a history of more than 1,000 years |
| D．has become vertical |
| A．The development of new technology. |
| B．The advice of Prof.John Burland. |
| C．The expectation of the rescue committee. |
| D．The collapse of a tower in Pavia. |
| A．The lead weights fixed to the tower. |
| B．Restoring the stonework. |
| C．Pouring concrete into the foundations. |
| D．Digging earth from the southern side of the tower. |
【推荐2】When is a media company not a media company? When it’s on the Internet. YouTube and Facebook convey what their users read and watch, and sell advertising next to it. Edited content, financed by advertising? It sounds a lot like the model that dominated media for much of the 20th century. And yet these firms have long claimed to be mere "platforms”，passively hosting content they say they are neither able nor willing to assess. It's true that they are not like traditional media companies. Much of their content is donated by their users; and algorithms (算) not editors, decide what is most worthy of attention. But they are getting more like them every day.
The anger over “fake news” has led Facebook to employ fact checkers, hire editorial staff to control the algorithms, crack down on the spread of junk and invest in tools to help out journalists.
So what kind of media companies are Facebook, YouTube and the rest? Not good ones. Their enormous power to inform, and the huge potential value of forming connections between people around the world, have in fair measure been wasted by prioritising attention-grabbing content 一 regardless of its quality, truthfulness or seriousness, which has made the online content cheap and its tone rude.
The tech giants are now coming under increasing pressure to clean up their acts. Perhaps more exactly, the advertisers have begun to revolt （反抗）：Google and Facebook now take nine out of every 10 new dollars spent on online advertising, although they have been accused of marking their own homework'", making unconvincing and unverifiable （无可考证的）claims about its effectiveness.
Meanwhile, the companies are avoiding responsibility for setting rules over their services. Excuses that the problem is too technically complex are not convincing: their engineers have proven skillful at cracking down on, say, copyright violation when it suits the firms. Nor does a firm position on free speech hold up: history is filled with examples of how a fair balance can be struck. Those have involved dialogue and democratic considerations that social media companies have thus iar mostly disdained （轻视）.They should do so no longer. The firms have enjoyed the privileges and profits of media for long enough: it's time they picked up the responsibilities too.
1. What does the author think of YouTube and Facebook's claim in Paragraph 1?| A．It is unexpected. | B．It is absurd. |
| C．It is practical. | D．It is influential. |
| A．their low quality content | B．their prejudice against morality |
| C．their being a time-waster | D．their lack of control of speech |
| A．may not actually satisfy advertisers' needs |
| B．has invited users^ questioning of privacy issues |
| C．will be cut down to respond to public discontent |
| D．may not gain profit as ad spending keeps rising |
| A．improve their overall technology |
| B．abandon the democratic ideal of free speech |
| C．take responsibility for regulating copyright issues |
| D．act as a medium despite their Internet background |
【推荐3】Creative people are more likely to make the most of their idle (空闲的) time during a typical day by exploring their mind, a new study by University of Arizona researchers suggests.
In the study, the researchers divided the study into two parts. For the first experiment, the researchers asked each participant to sit alone in a room for 10 minutes without any access to digital devices. In the absence of any particular prompt (提示), the participants were asked to speak out their thoughts aloud in real time. The recorded files from 81 participants were then analyzed.
The researchers assessed the participants’ creativity through a thinking test, a lab-based verbal test that measures a person’s ability to think outside of the box. Participants who performed well in the thinking test had thoughts that flowed freely and were associated with one another, often indicated by phrases such as “this reminds me of” or “speaking of which”.
“While many participants had a tendency to jump between seemingly unrelated thoughts, creative individuals showed signs of thinking more associatively,” Raffaeli said, who was a senior author of the paper.
The first experiment also found that creative people were more engaged in their thoughts when they were left alone without distractions (干扰), such as the cellphone and Internet. “Creative people rated themselves as being less bored, even over those 10 minutes. They also spoke more words overall, which indicated that their thoughts were more likely to move freely,” Raffaeli said.
To further prove their initial findings, the researchers extended their study in the context of a much larger span of time—from 2020 to 2023 when many people were alone with their thoughts more often. For the second experiment, over 2,600 adults answered questions through a smartphone app called Mind Window. Participants who self-identified as being creative reported being less bored and more engaged in their thoughts during that period.
The researchers are continuing this line of work using their Mind Window app. They encourage people to download and use the app to help scientists understand how people across the world think in their everyday lives. “Understanding why different people think the way they do may lead to promising interventions to improve health and well-being,” Raffaeli said.
1. What were the participants asked to do in the first experiment?| A．Play digital devices for just 10 minutes. |
| B．Voice their thoughts quickly when asked. |
| C．Observe and record each other’s performance. |
| D．Make self-assessment in a thinking test. |
| A．They often had associated ideas. |
| B．They thought of anything as a reminder. |
| C．They preferred to sit alone without being distracted. |
| D．They tended to jump between unrelated thoughts. |
| A．To analyze their own thoughts. | B．To try out the function of the app. |
| C．To keep track of their thinking. | D．To improve their own mental well-being. |
| A．Idle Time Makes Creative People |
| B．Creative Thoughts Appear in Idle Time |
| C．Creative People Are Less Affected by Distraction |
| D．Creative People Enjoy Idle Time More Than Others |
【推荐1】When an infant cries, parents comfort their baby with a gentle song. Attracted by this relationship between infants and music, scientists set out to study whether a baby can also be calmed by lullabies(摇篮曲) from other cultures sung in a foreign language. The results show the universal power of music and the strength of song as a parenting tool.
This study will motivate parents to improve their “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star skills.” Researchers played foreign lullabies to American infants, as well as familiar lullabies. In their experiment, they showed an infant an animated video featuring two characters singing either a lullaby or a regular song. They had to work fast; infants lose attention after five minutes, so this was a quick experiment! The study included 16 songs in many languages and from a variety of cultures
The results may not be surprising. Infants do respond positively to all lullabies including those with foreign songs and words. This leaves researchers to conclude that there are universal elements to all lullabies. The exact elements of a lullaby may bring more hope to sleep-deprived(睡眠不足)parents. In a study, researcher Marieve Corbeil, had babies aged 7 to 10 months listen to singing in Turkish. She discovered that babies remained calm twice as long when listening to calming foreign music as opposed to speech, Lullabies are a powerful parenting tool to soothe babies all over the world and prove how effective music is.
1. What result did scientists find?| A．Infants are only interested in local songs. |
| B．All lullabies can work on infants. |
| C．Foreign lullabies are popular. |
| A．Children's concentration is short. |
| B．Animated videos are rather short. |
| C．Scientists hoped to save time. |
| A．Excite. | B．Calm | C．Inspire. |
| A．Movies. | B．Sports. | C．Science. |
【推荐2】Researchers at the University of Chicago have trained an artificial intelligence system, to write fake reviews on Yelp, a website showing customers reviews on shopping or something else, and it's pretty hard to tell them apart from a human review.
Their study, which will be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in October, aimed to throw attention onto how easily these systems can write reviews like humans and how damaging they can become if they’re not monitored properly.
Since many small businesses rely on online reviews to help grow and keep their reputation, a future where someone—like a rival or angry customer—could crazily fill their page with negative reviews written by a machine is pretty worrying.
And, according to the research team, the threat goes far beyond a bunch of fake reviews on Yelp. “In general the threat is bigger,” Ben Y. Zhao. one of the authors of the study, said. “I think the threat towards society is large and it really misleads users and shakes our belief in what is real and what is not. I think that' s going to be even unimaginable.”
To test how believable these reviews came across, the researchers invited 40 volunteers and had AI generate five fake reviews for 40 actual restaurants. The volunteers were asked how useful they thought the review was and whether or not they thought it was fake. The AI reviews ranked as “effectively indistinguishable” from real reviews，according to the study. Further, the fake reviews were given a 3.15 "usefulness" rating, compared to a 3.28 rating for human reviews.
1. What can the new artificial intelligence system do according to the passage？| A．It can help train new reviewers. |
| B．It can tell the real reviews from the fake ones. |
| C．It can write human-like reviews. |
| D．It can easily damage the businesses. |
| A．A person who respects you deeply. |
| B．A person who competes with you. |
| C．A person who loves to give fake reviews. |
| D．A person who can control you from distance. |
| A．Artificial intelligence can put the society in danger. |
| B．The artificial intelligence is only used by the researchers |
| C．Ben Y. Zhao is optimistic about the further development of artificial intelligence. |
| D．The artificial intelligence will help people shake. |
| A．Tips Suggestions on Giving Reviews. |
| B．How to Tell the Fake Reviews. |
| C．Development of AI in Review on Yelp. |
| D．AI is Coming to Steal Your Reviews. |
【推荐3】Earthquakes cannot be forecast, but engineers can prepare for them. Seismic-isolation systems use concrete (水泥), rubber and metal to reduce quake damage. But such adaptations are expensive. Engineer Jian Zhang of the University of California, Los Angeles, says the system can increase building costs by 20 percent. Although these systems might save more than they cost over time, builders in some areas may not have the money for them.
A new seismic-isolation method uses the physics of rolling to create a simpler, lower-cost choice with easily found things: used tennis balls. The team of Michalis Vassiliou, an engineer, based its method on an early form of seismic isolation that rolls a shaking building to a stop the way a skater comes to rest. By separating a building from the ground with a layer of balls, rolling isolation changes horizontal shaking into a soft rocking movement and uses friction to reduce the shaking.
The researchers built a cheap model consisting of four filled tennis balls between two concrete boards, and they found that it withstood simulated (仿造的) earthquake shaking while supporting eight kilonewtons (千牛顿) of force per ball — about twice what isolation systems might experience under one-story houses. The balls had to contain exactly the right amount of the concrete mixture to reduce the shaking without cracking during tests.
Zhang, who didn’t take part in the study, says that the work is valuable. But she notes that the results are basic. Vassiliou agrees that next steps will mean creating and testing a larger model with hundreds of tennis balls. Vassiliou says that he has received money to test the system on the ground to improve the invention. “For this to actually be applied,” he adds, “you need to develop it with engineers from developing countries so that it actually deals with their needs.”
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．Earthquakes can’t be forecast. |
| B．Seismic-isolation systems can reduce quake damage. |
| C．Engineers can prepare for earthquakes. |
| D．Present seismic-isolation systems are very expensive. |
| A．It is simple. | B．It is cheap. |
| C．It only needs used tennis. | D．It is better to reduce damage. |
| A．The new system model. | B．The simulated earthquake. |
| C．A filled tennis ball. | D．A one-story house. |
| A．It is little valuable. | B．It is too simple to use. |
| C．It needs to be improved. | D．It only be needed in developing country. |
