Imagine this: You’re at a movie theater food stand loading up on snacks. You have a choice of a small, medium or large soda. The small is $3.50 and the large is $5.50. It’s a tough decision: The small size may not last you through the whole movie, but $5.50 for some sugary drink seems unreasonable. But there’s a third option (选择), a medium soda for $5.25. The medium might be just right for you, but the large only cost a quarter more. If you’re like the majority of people, you end up buying the large.
If you’re wondering who would purchase the medium soda, the answer is almost no one. Actually, there’s a good chance that the marketing department purposely priced the medium soda as a decoy (诱饵), making you more likely to buy the large soda rather than the small.
I have written about this unique human nature previously with my friend Dan Ariely, who, after noticing pricing for subscription (订阅) to The Economist, studied this phenomenon extensively. The digital subscription was $59, the print subscription was $125, and the print plus digital subscription was also $125. No one in their right mind would buy the print subscription when you could get digital as well for the same price, so why was it even an option? Ariely ran an experiment and found that when only the two “real” choices were offered, more people chose the less-expensive digital subscription. However, the bad option increased people’s likelihood of selecting the expensive print plus digital option.
Brain scientists call this effect “asymmetric dominance” and it means that people are attracted to the option that is closest to an obviously inferior (较差的) option. Marketing professors call it the decoy effect, which is certainly easier to remember. It works because of the way our brain assigns value when making choices. Value is rarely absolute; rather, we decide an object’s value relative to other choices. If more options are introduced, the value equation (方程) changes.
1. Why do the shops give the third option — the medium soda?| A．To offer people more choices. | B．To give people the right size of soda. |
| C．To help people save some money. | D．To earn more money. |
| A．The Economist’s print edition turns out to sell the best. |
| B．More readers choose the digital over the print edition. |
| C．Lower-priced goods attract more customers. |
| D．The Economist’s promotional strategy works. |
| A．https://www.lifestyle.com/health | B．https://www.science.com/local |
| C．https://www.consumers.com/money | D．https://www.education.com/science |
| A．By considering its usefulness. | B．By comparing it with other choices. |
| C．By examining its former value. | D．By taking its low quality into account. |
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【推荐1】When you hear “I have a dream…”, one of the most famous speeches in human history you’ll never have the idea how the audience on the scene were fueled by emotional intelligence. When Martin Luther King. Jr. presented his dream, he chose language that would stir the hearts of his audience. Delivering this electrifying (震撼性的) message required emotional intelligence — the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions.
Emotional intelligence has been highly recommended by leaders, policymakers, and educators as the solution to a wide range of social problems. Emotional intelligence is important, but the uncontrolled enthusiasm has obscured (掩盖) a dark side. New evidence shows that when people sharpen their emotional skills, they become better at controlling others. When you’re good at controlling your own emotions, you can hide your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can motivate them to act against their own best interests.
Social scientists have begun to document this dark side of emotional intelligence. In a research led by University of Toronto professor Jochen Menges, when a leader gave an inspiring speech filled with emotion, the audience was less likely to scrutinize (细察) the message and remembered the content. Ironically (讽刺的是), audience members were so moved by the speech that they claimed to recall more of it.
The authors call this the awestruck effect,but it might just as easily be described as the dumbstruck effect. One observer reflected that Hitler’s persuasive impact came from his ability to strategically express emotions — he would “tear open his heart” — and these emotions affected his followers to the point that they would “stop thinking critically and just emote.”
Leaders who master emotions can rob us of our abilities to reason. If their values are out of step with our own, the results can be destructive. New evidence suggests that when people have self-serving motives, emotional intelligence becomes a weapon for controlling others.
Throwing light on this dark side of emotional intelligence is one mission of a research team led by University College London professor Martin Kilduff. According to these experts, emotional intelligence helps people disguise (伪装) one set of emotions while expressing another for personal gain. Professor Kilduff’s team writes, “The strategic disguise of one’s own emotions and the controlling of others’ emotions for strategic ends are behaviors evident not only on Shakespeare’s stage but also in the offices and corridors where power and influence are traded.”
Of course, people aren’t always using emotional intelligence for nefarious ends. More often than not high EQ is helpful in most aspects of our life. Emotional intelligence — like any skill — can be used for good or evil. So whether it is a gift or a curse lies in your hand.
1. Why does the author mention Martin Luther King, Jr?| A．To honor the great leader for his courage. |
| B．To recommend his speech to other leaders. |
| C．To introduce the major topic to readers. |
| D．To advocate a society with fewer problems. |
| A．His followers would tear open their hearts to him. |
| B．His followers would express emotions strategically. |
| C．His followers would lose the ability to reason properly. |
| D．His followers would develop the self-serving motives. |
| A．They disguise their true emotions and show another one. |
| B．They help their colleagues to buildup confidence. |
| C．They present their strategic behaviors on the stage. |
| D．They lower their own dignity to gain popularity. |
| A．Immoral. | B．Unimportant. | C．Illegal. | D．Uncontrollable. |
【推荐2】For more than one hundred years, a great number of scientists have believed that tiredness in athletes originates in the muscles(肌肉). Precise explanations have varied, but all have been based on the “Limitations Theory”. In other words, muscles tire because they hit a physical limit—they either run out of fuel or oxygen or they drown in harmful by-products(副产品).
In the past few years, however, Timothy Noakes from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, has examined this standard theory. Tiredness, he argues, is caused not by signals springing from overtaxed muscles, but is an emotional response which begins in the brain. The fundamental nature of his new theory is that the brain paces the muscles to keep them well back from the edge of tiredness. When the brain decides it’s time to quit, it creates unbearable muscle tiredness. This “Central Governor” theory remains controversial, but it does explain many puzzling aspects of athletic performance.
A recent discovery that Noakes calls the “lactic acid paradox” made him start researching this area seriously. Lactic acid is a by-product of exercise, and the increase of it is often mentioned as a cause of tiredness. But when research subjects exercise in certain conditions created artificially, they become tired even though lactic acid levels remain low. Nor has the oxygen content of their blood fallen too low for them to keep going. Obviously, something else was making them tire before they hit either of these physiological limits.
Noakes conducted an experiment with seven cyclists. It has long been known that during exercise, the body never uses 100% of the available muscle fibres(纤维). The amount used varies, but in some tasks such as this cycling test the body calls on about 30%. His team found that as tiredness set in, the electrical activity in cyclist’s legs declined—even when they were making a great effort to cycle as fast as they could.
To Noakes, this was strong evidence that the old theory was wrong. “The cyclists may have felt completely exhausted,” he says, “but their bodies actually had considerable reserves that they could theoretically tap by using a greater amount of the resting fibres.” This, he believes, is the proof that the brain is regulating the pace of the workout to hold the cyclists well back from the point of extreme tiredness.
1. Why do athletes feel tired according to “Limitations Theory”?| A．Because the muscles run out all energy. |
| B．Because the brain protects the muscles. |
| C．Because the scientists performed researches. |
| D．Because Noakes examined standard theory. |
| A．Muscle fibres control athletes’ movements. |
| B．Lactic acid levels remain high in cycling tests. |
| C．Mental processes control the symptoms of tiredness |
| D．Different exercises use different amount of muscle fibres |
| A．The energy in human bodies can be balanced |
| B．Tiredness is a harmful by-product of exercise. |
| C．Lactic acid will not caused tiredness necessarily. |
| D．The oxygen content will rise after taking exercise. |
| A．Muscles or Brains?——Which brings athletes tiredness? |
| B．Lactic acid or Oxygen content——Which is vital for athletes? |
| C．Working out or Being relaxed——Which will better our health? |
| D．Common belief or New discovery——Which should we believe? |
【推荐3】This week Xingliang Zhang of Northwest University in China reports in Science the discovery of a new site full of soft-bodied animals that have never been seen before.
For soft-bodied animals to be preserved, something disastrous must take place. In the case of the world's two most famous Cambrian（寒武纪）sites, the Burgess Shale accumulation in Canada and the Chengjiang site, this disaster was a series of storms that dunked vast quantities of mud upon a community of animals, burying them alive.
The new site that Dr Zhang is reporting, known as Qingjiang, is similar to the others in that the animals seem to have been killed by a sudden mud burial. However, that is where the similarities end.
Qingjiang has produced over 20, 000 specimens（样本）thus far. Of these, 4, 351 have been properly analysed and are thought to represent around 100 groups of creatures. Dr Zhang and his colleagues estimate that 54 of these groups have never been seen before.
There are some familiar animals like cnidarians（刺细胞动物），but these also raise quite a lot of questions. Cnidarians exist widely in modern oceans and have simplistic bodies that suggest they evolved early during the rise of animal life. Given this, it was expected that cnidarians would be common in the sedimentary layers when the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang sites were first unearthed. But precisely the opposite proved true.
Qingjiang surprised Dr Zhang by being loaded with spectacularly well-preserved members of this soft-bodied group. Containing everything from delicate comb jellies to the medusae（水 母）,Qingjiang reveals that these animals were well established at the time and rapidly multiplying in some environments. Precisely what these environmental differences were though, remains the subject of considerable inquiry. Anyway, the discovery of the fossils could make clear the diversity of extinct creatures as well as their connection with animals in modern times, said Zhao Fangchen, a researcher of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
1. What is the most probable reason of those soft-bodied animals' being so well-preserved?| A．Existing widely in some environments. |
| B．Being buried alive by a sudden mud. |
| C．Being abandoned during evolution. |
| D．Being well-established at the time. |
| A．100 groups of creatures were found in Qingjiang site for the first time. |
| B．Cnidarians were common in Burgess Shale and Chengjiang sites. |
| C．Cnidarians existed in large numbers in Qingjiang site. |
| D．The animals were killed by something disastrous. |
| A．They became extinct because of sudden mud burials. |
| B．The environmental differences of their existence are clear now. |
| C．Their bodies are so simplistic that they can be easily wiped out. |
| D．They developed at the beginning of the appearance of animal life. |
| A．To bring us some knowledge about Qingjiang site. |
| B．To display the diversity of extinct water creatures. |
| C．To illustrate the significance of archaeology. |
| D．To distinguish Qingjiang site from others. |
【推荐1】Wander through Edinburgh and you will find Walter Scott, Scotland’s most famous novelist, everywhere: pubs named after characters or places in his books, his walking cane and slippers in The Writers’ Museum. Just outside the Waverley train station, Scott’s statue stands beneath a monument affectionately nicknamed the Rocket.
Built in 1840, eight years after his death at the age of 61, the Scott Monument captures the extreme regard for this international bestselling writer and son of Edinburgh. Scott’s adventurous historical stories, set against a dramatic background of high mountains, dark lakes and deep valleys, brought a vision of Scotland to the world.
As his friend, Jane Austen once remarked, Scott had two careers in literature. He quickly became Europe’s most famous poet in 1805 with immediate success of his first narrative poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the tale of two lovers on opposite sides of a family conflict.
A 1810 book-length poem of King James V’s struggles with the powerful family Douglas, The Lady of the Lake would have obtained his reputation on its own. Selling 25,000 copies in eight months, it broke records for poetry sales and brought its setting, the fantastic Lake Katrine, to the attention of a novel (新颖的) tourism industry.
Scott also wrote songs and collected ballads for future, but after the success of his poetry, he turned to novel writing in his 40s. For nearly 20 years he produced a series of fat novels, which spread his reputation around the globe further still. Although involving in the gothic style popular at the time, Scott favoured historical themes, not only set in Scotland but also England, France, Syria and elsewhere, as far back as the 11th century. However, these days, Scott’s writing has fallen out of fashion thanks in part to the absolute length of the novels.
Waverley, Scott’s exploration of the Jacobite uprising of 1745, lends itself to political as much as literary analysis. The Highland Widow captures the conflicted mood of a young lad who, seeking better fortune, joins in the Black Watch, upsetting his mother. Drugging her son so he misses his appointment, she sends him to military execution (处决). Although written in a sentimental (伤感的) style popular at the time, the story finds much to say about national tensions, military occupation, and cultural conflict in the lives of post-Union Scots.
1. Why will you find Walter Scott everywhere when wandering through Edinburgh?| A．Because the characters or places in his books are set only in Scotland. |
| B．Because pubs in Edinburgh are fond of being named after Walter Scott. |
| C．Because Walter Scott’s cane and slippers are displayed in the Writers’ Museum. |
| D．Because Walter Scott is an international bestselling author and son of Edinburgh. |
| A．lengthy | B．novel | C．uninteresting | D．complicated |
| A．Waverley. | B．The Lady of the Lake. |
| C．The Highland Widow. | D．The Lay of the Last Minstrel. |
【推荐2】Have you ever had the pleasure of popping the small air-filled bubbles that make up a sheet of bubble wrap (气泡膜包装)? If so, you know there’s something highly satisfying about it. Have you ever wondered why people like bubble wrap so much?
It turns out that there is some science behind the human connection to bubble wrap. Some experts believe it’s similar to the need to fidget (坐立不安). Do you click a pen or bounce your leg while you’re listening? Maybe you like to draw aimlessly in the corners of your notes or squeeze a stress ball. These small actions are all types of fidgeting.
While some people think fidgeting is distracting, it’s actually been shown to increase attention span. It also helps with the memory of information. Similarly, a study revealed that people report feeling more alert after popping bubble wrap.
The results also showed that people who popped bubble wrap were calmer afterward than those who did not. So, like fidgeting, popping bubble wrap may increase people’s ability to pay attention and remember what they learn.
Experts also say the enjoyment of bubble wrap may be tied to human evolution. In other words, your brain is wired to enjoy it! Early humans had to be on their toes all the time. They needed to be ready to run from a predator (捕食者) at a moment’s notice.
Today, people spend a lot of time sitting, especially at school and at work. As a result, the body may build a lot of muscle tension from lack of movement.
Popping bubble wrap helps relax that muscle tension. It reduces stress and anxiety. In fact, studies have shown that, sometimes, the human brain receives feel-good chemicals like dopamine after popping bubble wrap. So that may be why it feels so satisfying!
1. According to Paragraph 2, while feeling nervous or bored people probably _________.| A．Sit still | B．Keep silent | C．Bounce the leg | D．Chat with others |
| A．mindful | B．concentrated | C．considerate | D．aggressive |
| A．It reduces pressure and anxiety. | B．It makes people calm and alert. |
| C．It increases concentration ability. | D．It strengthens people’s muscles. |
| A．A medical report. | B．A science magazine. | C．A chemistry paper. | D．A fashion magazine. |
【推荐3】One of Britain' s most outstanding scientists says the growth in the use of electronic tablets and smart phones is causing people to spend so much time indoors that they need to take regular vitamin D supplements to make up for the lack of sunlight they receive naturally.
Geneticist Steve Jones said he himself was a follower to the cause and urged others to follow. “I never thought I would be a person who would take vitamin supplements；I always thought it was absolute nonsense. But now I take vitamin D every day. Today, because I knew the sun wasn't going to shine, I took an extra one,” he said.
Exposure to the sun is the major source of vitamin D. However, people are spending less and less time outdoors in many areas. The problem is particularly serious in Scotland. "The Scots are the whitest people in the world because their entire body systems are crying out for vitamin D," he said, adding that life expectancy in Scotland is two years shorter than in England or Wales. Multiple sclerosis (多发性硬化症), a medical condition which is often seen in northern Europe, is also higher in Scotland than in England.
Vitamin D helps with the absorption of Ca, which helps keep bones strong. And Jones said the fact that rickets (佝偻病) was making a comeback in Britain after nearly 50 years was another sign of how changing behavior patterns were bringing physical harm.
Jones admitted that concerns over the damaging effects on skin of long-time exposure to the sun were reasonable, but said sunlight was healthy and necessary for the human body, and could help in lowering blood pressure. "If you lie on the beach for an hour, you will drop your blood pressure by about 10 points, because it relaxes your blood vessels (血管). So, get out in the sun while we still can," he said.
1. How are people affected by the rise of technology according to the text?| A．They are more sensitive to sunlight |
| B．They take more vitamin D supplements. |
| C．They get less vitamin D than before. |
| D．They become addicted to electronic games. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Cautious. |
| C．Worried. | D．Supportive. |
| A．Because they are in great need of sunlight. |
| B．Because their blood pressure is very low. |
| C．Because they enjoy a short period of sunshine. |
| D．Because they are easy to get multiple sclerosis. |
| A．Get out and gain more Vitamin D |
| B．Keep away from tablets and phones |
| C．Pay attention to the importance of sunlight |
| D．Take vitamin D supplements to keep healthy |
