“Always wear sunscreen.” “Eat a balanced diet.” “A penny saved is a penny earned.” You probably all learned these lessons as a kid. But chances are, despite knowing these, you still stepped outside without putting on sunscreen, gulped (大口吞咽) an entire bag of chips in one go or spent more money than you had expected.
It’s a mistaken idea that knowing is half the battle.
Behavioral scientists have seen people struggle to save money, to cut back on their expenses, even after they’ve taken a financial class. People know what they need to do to improve their financial situation—to save more and spend less.
| A．So why is that? |
| B．How to deal with that? |
| C．Behavior change is not educational pursuit but an environmental one. |
| D．They think that financial education is a way that can make money for them. |
| E．They believe that financial security is just a problem that be taught to solve. |
| F．In most situations, just knowing something is not nearly enough for you to put it into practice. |
| G．Targeted ads are becoming more personalized and everything around you is focusing on spending. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】“Why do you have 9,632 emails in your inbox (收件箱)?”
I looked at my husband, “Um ... is that a lot? How many are in your inbox?”
“About twenty ,” he replied. I looked at my inbox. There were emails I had meant to deal with; emails from customers and the kids’ schools with information I needed; there were time-sensitive offers I’d never got around to investigating; endless updates from the social media platforms I subscribed to, and the rest I’d kept just in case.
I realized that I had become an email hoarder (囤积者). I clearly had a problem and I needed to act. I paused my work and began to delete unwanted emails. An hour later I made little progress. “Just delete the whole lot,” my husband strongly suggested.
Could I do that? It was appealing. But I paused. I couldn’t. I did have a problem! Then I decided to compromise. I kept the last month’s emails and deleted everything else. I looked at my almost-empty inbox. Wow, it felt so good.
To be honest, I feel genuine anxiety about deleting emails. FOMO (fear of missing out) is a real problem for many people like me with email issues. So many emails are “offers”. What if that amazing offer never comes up again? But the fact is that they do ... frequently. What’s more, these great offers are often time-sensitive and so we hang on to them just in case, then miss the deadline anyway and still don’t delete them.
I found it useful to cap my emails at 50 and I use an email system which ensures all school emails go into a separate inbox, so I can see at a glance when “Dress like a Roman” day or “Bring an onion to school” day (yes really) is coming up!
I feel more in control and organized now. I’m on top of my inbox. Now I’m off to handle the cupboard under the stairs!
1. What was the author’s immediate response to her husband’s suggestion?| A．She ignored it. | B．She approved of it. |
| C．She hesitated about it. | D．She felt angry at it. |
| A．Help her husband empty his inbox. | B．Reply to new emails as soon as possible. |
| C．Get rid of unwanted things in her cupboard. | D．Throw away all the things under the stairs. |
| A．How she takes control of her inbox. | B．How her husband looks at her emails. |
| C．Why FOMO is a real problem. | D．Why she has so many emails. |
【推荐2】In the far，far future，bicycles and perhaps skates may be run by jet power，and a new thing to ride may be a small flying saucer(飞碟). Imagine a race between them!
There may be telepathy helmets(心灵感应帽) that send through waves from your brain to that of your friend miles away. You just think a thought and your friend knows it！You can have secrets with each other that nobody else can turn in on!
What about the food of the future？Scientists think that much of it will be artificial—made in factories from such surprising things as coal，limestone，air，and water. The artificial food will be healthful because all the things that you need to live a long and healthy life will be put into it.
The future hospitals will probably have “body banks” that can give you almost any new part you need to keep on living. People of the future may live to be a lot older than 100 years.
What about highways of the future？Well，a very small child probably will be able to drive a car. Nobody will need to steer(驾驶). Electric signals will hold each car on the right road to get wherever the “driver” wants to go. And it probably will be impossible for cars to smash together. Controls that won’t even have to be touched will make all speeding cars miss each other or will put on the brakes. Driving cars will be as safe as being at home.
But maybe the most wonderful surprise in the future will be weather control. Cities may have giant plastic domes(圆顶罩) over them to keep out snow，rain，or storms. When you plan a picnic in a park，you won’t have to worry about rain. It will rain only when the “weatherman” thinks it is necessary to fresh the air inside the city. All other days will be fair and warm.
The future should be a wonderful time in which to live and the time we are living in now is also a wonderful future to the people who lived 100 years ago.
1. What can we learn from the passage?| A．With telepathy helmets, we can share our thoughts without any words. |
| B．The artificial food made from coal and limestone tastes the most delicious in the future. |
| C．There will be “body banks” instead of hospitals in the future. |
| D．Plastic domes themselves can automatically control the weather. |
| A．small children have to learn to drive |
| B．car accidents still couldn’t be avoided |
| C．we can be taken to the destination without steering |
| D．cars will be no longer equipped with brakes |
| A．disappointed | B．pessimistic |
| C．satisfied | D．doubtful |
【推荐3】As years went by, I realized that one of the biggest problems of these adults was worry. A large majority of students were businessmen, executives, salesmen, engineers, accountants：a cross section of all the trades and professions—and most of them had problems! There were women in the classes—businesswomen and housewives. They, too, had problems! Clearly, what I needed was a textbook on how to conquer worry—so again I tried to find one.
I went to New York’s great public library at Fifth Avenue and Fortysecond Street and discovered, to my astonishment, that this library had only twenty-two books listed under the title WORRY. I also noticed, to my amusement, that it had one hundred and eighty-nine books listed under WORMS. Almost nine times as many books about worms as about worry! Surprising, isn’t it? Since worry is one of the biggest problems facing mankind, you would think, wouldn’t you, that every high school and college would give a course on “How to Stop Worrying”?
Yet, is there even one course on that subject in any college in the land? I have never heard of it. No wonder David Seabury said in his book How to Worry Successfully：“We grow up with as little preparation for the pressures of experience as a bookworm asked to do a ballet (芭蕾舞).”
The result? More than half of our hospital beds are occupied by people with nervous and emotional troubles.
I looked over those twenty-two books on worry, reposing(靠) on the shelves of the New York Public Library. In addition, I purchased all the books on worry I could find；yet I couldn’t discover even one that I could use as a textbook in my course for adults. So I decided to write one by myself.
1. What made the writer realize one of the adults’ biggest problems?| A．His wide reading. |
| B．His practical survey. |
| C．His scientific research. |
| D．His students’ real situation. |
| A．Worry is extremely common. |
| B．We lack knowledge of worry. |
| C．We show no interest in worry. |
| D．Worry can hardly be controlled. |
| A．show us how to conquer worry |
| B．warn us of the possible danger of worry |
| C．persuade us to get rid of worry |
| D．explain why he wanted to write a book on worry |
【推荐1】“A CAREER BOOK about Asians? Aren’t they doing fine…?” So begins Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling, a very large scholarly book by Jane Hyun published in 2005. Because Asian-Americans had higher incomes and education levels and committed fewer crimes than their average countrymen, they were seen as a model minority. Despite this, they rarely rose to the top of companies. A mix of individual, cultural and organizational barriers — the “bamboo ceiling” of the book’s title — seemed to prohibit them from rising.
Fifteen years later Asians are still under-represented. In the technology sectors, Asians make up over 30% of the workers but less than 15% of bosses. In 2017 Asians made up roughly 6% of the country’s population but only 3% of the bosses of S&P 500 (标准普尔 500 指数) firms.
Some prominent Asians run big companies. Arvind Krishna is IBM’s new boss. Satya Nadella runs Microsoft and Sundar Pichai leads Alphabet. But few other Asians have joined their ranks — and, revealingly, these stars all have Indian roots. There are fewer South Asians in America than East Asians, but they still made up 13 of all 16 Asian S&P 500 CEOs.
Why are there so few Asians among America’s business elite? And if a bamboo ceiling is to blame, why do South Asians break through more easily? These questions are the focus of a study by Jackson Lu of MIT Sloan School of Management and colleagues, who surveyed hundreds of senior executives and business-school students. They found that while discrimination exists, it is not destiny. South Asians endure greater racism than East Asians but still outperform even whites (if success is weighed against share of population). Their research also rules out lack of ambition: a greater share of Asians than whites endeavor for high-status jobs.
That leaves culture. The researchers conclude that South Asians tend to be more determined and confident than East Asians in how they communicate at work, which fits Western concepts of how a leader should behave. The same tendency for confident remarks featured in “The Argumentative Indian”, a book by Amartya Sen, a Nobel-prize winning economist. The researchers owe East Asians’ silence to Confucian values of modesty and respect for social ranking. Sometimes bravery and bombast are needed to break bamboo.
1. What does “bamboo ceiling” refer to?| A．The top of an American technology company. |
| B．A roof made of bamboo typical of Asian buildings. |
| C．Promotion obstacles facing Asian employees in America. |
| D．The invisible discrimination against Asians in the USA. |
| A．Lacking representatives. | B．Hard to show their talents. |
| C．Being underestimated. | D．Unable to land a job. |
| A．A small population. | B．Discrimination. | C．Lack of ambition. | D．Culture. |
| A．Western people prefer modesty to confidence in communication. |
| B．The confidence they demonstrate consists with Western leadership. |
| C．They endure greater racism and become more ambitious. |
| D．Their ambition urges them to endeavor for high-status jobs. |
【推荐2】A British energy supplier has apologized for the “poorly judged and unhelpful” advice sent to customers which suggested they could snuggle(依偎) up to their pets and exercise to cut back on their heating bills.
SSE,which is owned by OVO Energy, suggested 10 “simple and cost effective ways to keep warm this winter,” according to the Financial Times. Eating bowls of oatmeal, doing star jumps and cuddling(搂抱) pets were among the recommendations on the now-deleted web page.
In a statement sent to CNN Tuesday, a spokesperson for OVO Energy said, “Recently a link to a blog containing energy saving tips was sent to customers. We understand how difficult the situation will be for many of our customers this year.” The spokesperson added, “We are working hard to find meaningful solutions as we approach this energy crisis, and we recognize that the content of this blog was poorly judged and unhelpful. We are embarrassed and sincerely apologize.”
Some British businesses and households have seen their energy bills rise in recent months, as suppliers deal with a sharp rise in wholesale gas prices. British consumers will pay roughly 790 more to heat and light their homes this year, according to Bank of America. Wholesale European gas prices have jumped by 400% over the previous year and electricity prices have increased by 300%, the bank’s analysts said last week. The increases have been driven by cold weather, nuclear plant outages in France and reduced gas flow from Russia.
According to National Energy Action, more than 4 million UK households are facing fuel poverty—a figure which the charity believes could rise by 2 million in April when a cap(上限) on energy prices is expected to increase.
OVO Energy removed its advice after a wave of angry responses from lawmakers and campaigners(运动参与者). Following the apology, British lawmaker Darren Jones, who chairs Parliament’s business select committee, tweeted: “Good, I’m glad they apologized. I’m not sure who signed off a marketing campaign telling people to wear a jumper and eat porridge instead of turning on the heating if you can’t afford it.”
1. Why did OVO Energy apologize for its advice on the ways of keeping warm sent to customers?| A．The ways are too costly. |
| B．The ways are too simple. |
| C．The suggestions are difficult. |
| D．The suggestions are ineffective. |
| A．Energy bills rise too sharply in winter for most UK households. |
| B．All customers can afford the increasing price of coal. |
| C．The British government has found meaningful methods to face it. |
| D．The energy crisis have been driven by cold weather. |
| A．Nervous. | B．Angry. | C．Pleased. | D．Concerned. |
| A．A travel brochure. | B．A newspaper. | C．A health magazine. | D．A science fiction. |
【推荐3】Our culture has changed greatly as a result of the smartphone. We can get reassurance for every doubt by texting our friends or feel approval by getting “likes” on our social media. But heavy dependence on devices is responsible for a shift in how we regulate our emotions. A by-product of this instant communication is a decreased ability to sit with uncertainty.
Intolerance to uncertainty tends to cause a range of psychological difficulties. Psychologists consider a person’s over-dependence on their phones as a “safety seeking behaviour” which reduces anxiety in the moment. But over time, safety behaviours actually feed anxiety because they prevent people from realizing their fear has no basis once the situation has actually unfolded, or that it is something they’re able to deal with.
Learning to face uncertainty is essential to managing our mental health. Being more comfortable with uncertainty improves a person’s ability to deal with worry and is closely associated with improvement for those experiencing anxiety. When treating anxiety, psychologists encourage clients (客户) to sit without knowing the outcome of a particular situation and wait to see if what they are afraid of will happen. They gradually learn to let go of trying to control situations and realizes they can survive the uncertainty.
Using phones to push the worry onto another person prevents self-management from occurring. Often, we don’t realize that after a little while the unpleasant feeling will go away. Keep in mind the old saying that “no news is good news” and resist the tendency to message first. If something unpleasant happens, it is healthy to talk to someone and reflect on a situation that upsets us, especially if it is really important. However, to have this as the first option to manage every doubt is not healthy. Being able to wait and let go of the desire to control each situation is a major key to overcoming anxiety.
1. What might be a consequence of relying on electronic devices too much?| A．Getting “likes” more easily. |
| B．Being able to sit attentively. |
| C．Sending text messages rarely. |
| D．Having trouble controling feelings. |
| A．They realize their fear has no basis. |
| B．Their physical security is threatened. |
| C．They fail to judge the reality correctly. |
| D．Their safety isn’t guaranteed in the real world. |
| A．Learn to face uncertainty. |
| B．Pay attention to the worries. |
| C．Keep in touch with psychologists. |
| D．Consider the outcome of a situation. |
| A．Wait and see. | B．Talk to someone. |
| C．Take control of it. | D．Let go of the past. |
