1 . We often find ourselves struggling to control our thoughts, but why is it so hard to stop our minds wandering（漫游）? Research found our thoughts are less focused and under less control than we realize. In a 1996 study, participants reported more than 4,000 thoughts daily, each lasting no more than five seconds. In a 1987 study, people took 22% of their thoughts as strange, unacceptable or wrong. Then, is it possible to avoid unwanted thoughts, whether it’s an upcoming exam or an unpleasant conversation? The answer is: maybe.
In a 2022 study, the researchers showed paid volunteers a series of slides（幻灯片）showing different nouns（名词）. Each noun was repeated on five different slides. As they viewed the slides, the participants wrote down a word they associated（联想）with each given noun—for example, “road” in response to “car.” Only the experimental group were told they wouldn’t get paid for repeated words. With this method, the researchers wanted to create a situation when someone experiences unwanted thoughts.
When the experimental group saw each noun for a second time, they took longer than the control group to come up with a new association, suggesting their first response popped into their mind before they replaced it. However, they got quicker each time they viewed the same slide, indicating that their association between the given word and their first response—the thought they were trying to avoid—was weakening.
“We didn’t find evidence that people can entirely avoid unwanted thoughts,” said research leader Isaac Fradkin. “But the results suggest that practice can help people get better.”
Not everyone agrees that a slideshow of random（任意的）words can tell how people stop emotional thoughts. Other research suggests that avoiding thoughts can backfire. When we do it, we’re sending our brains a message. This effort labels them as something to be feared, making them more powerful.
In the end, it might make more sense to take a mindful approach. “We can allow these thoughts to just be in our minds, not holding onto them too tightly and not trying to fight them,” said Fradkin.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．Almost all our thoughts are valueless. | B．We tend to focus more on negative thoughts. |
| C．We can’t keep our thoughts for over five seconds. | D．Our thoughts can appear and disappear easily. |
| A．The result of the research. | B．The participants of the research. |
| C．The design of the research. | D．The problems of the research. |
| A．Have an opposite effect. | B．Take back the wrong message. |
| C．Reveal hidden problems. | D．Cause a mental breakdown. |
| A．Let’s stop our minds from wandering. | B．Unwanted thoughts: Leave them alone. |
| C．Hold onto the uncontrollable thoughts. | D．Emotional thoughts: Avoid them or fear them. |
2 . 
Have you ever recorded information about your everyday activities by means of a smartphone? Perhaps you’ve tracked（追踪）how many kilometers you’ve run, how many hours you’ve slept or how many calories you’ve burned in a day.
If so, you’ve taken part in a movement called the “Quantified Self Movement”, also called self-tracking. The idea is to take information about your everyday activities and analyze them to help form a healthier lifestyle.
Tracking daily activities isn’t a new idea. In past years, athletes and their coaches kept notes detailing nutrition, training and sleep patterns in order to achieve an athletic goal. Similarly（过敏）, headaches and other health problems. However, it wasn’t until 2007 that magazine editors Gary Wolf and Kim Kelly, invented the term “Quantified Self”. Wolf says that self-tracking will change our sense of self with the purpose of making us more effective in the world.
Self-tracking is becoming a lot more popular these days, as it becomes easier for people to use modern technology tools to track what they’re doing and share it with others. Recently, tools such as smartphones, along with newly published wearable things can help record personal data including sleeping hours, stress levels, mood and soon. With these tools, self-tracking can help us recall our behavior with greater accuracy（精确）.
Although people benefit a lot from self-tracking, Dennis Nash, president of Data Speaks Health Solutions, says self-tracking has its drawbacks. Once people start tracking their daily activities, it can become an addition people like to do often. Also, they might begin to worry too much about their health.
While self-tracking doesn’t guarantee（保证）that one’s quality of life will improve, it can stress the importance of eating well and exercising daily. After all, the Quantified Self Movement’s focus is motivating（激励）people to apply enough energy to make healthier choices.
1. According to the passage, Gary Wolf thinks self-tracking can _________.| A．change our personal data |
| B．improve living conditions |
| C．help people make choices |
| D．lead to self-improvements |
| A． what self-tracking is |
| B．why self-tracking is popular |
| C．who started self-tracking |
| D．how self-tracking has developed |
| A．disadvantages | B．experiments | C．challenges | D．differences |
| A．self-tracking can increase people’s self-sense towards a healthier life |
| B．people need as many tools as possible to track their daily activities |
| C．people can achieve a better standard of life from self-tracking |
| D．too much self-tracking may bring people health problems |
3 . If you’re reaching for the last piece of pizza at a party, and meanwhile see another hand going for it, your next move probably depends on how you feel and whom the hand belongs to. Your little sister—you might just grab the pizza. Your boss—you probably will give up. But if you’re hungry and feeling particularly confident, you might go for it.
Now researchers have made progress in understanding how mammals’ brain encodes social rank and uses this information to shape behaviours—such as whether to fight for that last pizza slice. They discovered that an area of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex(mPFC) was responsible for representing social rank in mammals; changes to a mouse’s mPFC affect its dominance(支配) behaviour. But it was unknown how the mPFC represented this information and which neurons(神经元) were involved in changing dominance behaviour.
In the new study, Professor Kay Tye let groups of four mice share a cage, allowing a social hierarchy(等级) to naturally develop—some mice became more dominant and others more subordinate(从属的). As soon as the mice were paired up, he discovered, the activity of their mPFC neurons could predict—with 90 percent certainty—the rank of their opponent.
“We expected animals might only signal rank when they are in a competition,” says co-researcher Nancy. “But it turns out animals walk around with this representation of social rank all the time.”
When the researchers next asked whether the activity of the mPFC neurons was associated with behavior, they found something surprising. The brain activity patterns were linked with slight changes in behavior, such as how fast a mouse moved, and they also could predict—a full 30 seconds before the competition started— which mouse would win the food reward.
The winner was not always the more dominant, but the one engaged in a “winning mindset”. Just as you might sometimes be in a more competitive mood and be more likely to snatch that pizza slice before your boss, a subordinate mouse might be in a more “winning mindset” than a more dominant mouse and end up winning.
The areas of the mPFC associated with social rank and “winning mindset” are next to one another and highly connected. Signals on social rank impact the state of the brain involved in “winning mindset”. In other words, a subordinate mouse’s confidence and “winning mindset” may partially decrease when faced with a dominant one.
“This is further evidence to suggest that we are in different brain states when we are with others compared to when we’re alone,”says Tye. “Regardless of who you’re with, if you’re aware of other people around you, your brain is using different neurons.”
1. The author writes Paragraph 1 in order to ___________.| A．tell an interesting story | B．present a typical example |
| C．introduce a major topic | D．provide a convincing proof |
| A．The mPFC neurons. | B．The researchers. |
| C．The brain activity patterns. | D．The changes in behaviour. |
| A．mPFC neurons change dominance behavior. |
| B．Brain activities can influence social hierarchy. |
| C．Dominant opponents make “winning mindset” better. |
| D．Social rank and “winning mindset” affect behavior. |
| A．A subordinate mouse can never be a winner. | B．When alone, we are more confident. |
| C．Social rank guides competitive behavior. | D．“Winning mindset” establishes dominance. |
So, it’s test time again. Have you done enough work to get good scores? Sleeping with the textbook under the pillow doesn’t work.
The best way is to space your practice out, not to put it all together. Just as a scientist called Tom Stafford advises, if you organize (组织) five hours of study into one hour a day, you will remember more than if you study for five hours on one day.
Don’t depend on memory alone. Get pens and paper and start working! By testing themselves earlier, students will be better at getting back the knowledge (知识) from the memory and keep it in the long run. John Dunlosky, a researcher in the US, suggests that “you start by reading a textbook with your favorite pens and colors, and then write down the important ideas on small cards. While doing so, you try to test yourselves on them in fact.”
Going over what you have learned carefully should give you confidence, but if you are still worried, it’s not harmful to follow some special customs (习俗). For example, it seems to be a tradition for Japanese students to eat Katsudon before a test. This is a bowl of rice with egg and meat pieces. The name of the dish makes people think of the word “katsu”, meaning “winning”. For some students in South Korea, the key to success is not washing their hair before a test, because they believe they could wash all the knowledge out of their heads.
The bottom line is that you need to study, eat a good meal, sleep well at night before the test, and believe that what you have tried to do will bring you success. Good luck in your test!
1. Does sleeping with the textbook under the pillow help to get good scores?2. What is the best way to get good scores according to the passage?
3. How will students be better at getting back the knowledge from the memory?
4. Who eats Katsudon before a test as a tradition?
5. What will you do if you want to get good scores?
5 . "You expect your friends to see you in a positive manner, but they also are observers of the personalities that could cause you an early death," said Joshua Jackson, an assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences.
Published in the journal Psychological Science, the study shows that your personality at an early age can predict how long you will live across 75 years and that close friends are usually better than you at recognizing these traits. “Our study shows that people are able to observe and evaluate（评价）a friend's personality exactly enough to predict early death years down the road,” Jackson said. “It suggests that people are able to see important characteristics related to health even when their friends were, for the most part, healthy and many years from death."
While other studies have shown that a person's view of his or her own personality can be helpful in evaluating death risks, there has been little research on whether a close friend's personality evaluation might also predict the chances of a long life.
To explore this question, Jackson and colleagues analyzed data（数据）from a longitudinal(纵向的) study that in the 1930s began following a group of young people in their mid-20s.The study included wide-ranging data on participant（参与者）personalities, both self-reported and as reported by close friends.
Using information from follow-up studies and searches of death certificates, Jackson and colleagues were able to record dates of death for all but a few study participants. Peer evaluations of personality were stronger predictors of death risks than were self-evaluations of personality.
"There are two possible reasons for the advantage of peer evaluations over self-evaluations, “Jackson said. “first, friends may see something that you miss; they may have some insight that you do not. Second, because people have several friends, we are able to average the characteristics of any one friend to get a more trustworthy evaluation of personality. With self-reports, people may miss certain sides of themselves and we are not able to counteract（抵抗）that because there is only one you, only one self-report."
The study also shows some gender differences in self-evaluation: Men's self-evaluations of personality were somewhat useful in predicting their lifespans（寿命）, whereas the self-reports of women had little predictive value.
"This is one of the longest studies in psychology, “Jackson said. “It shows how important personality is in influencing important life outcomes like health, and that information from friends can play a critical role in understanding a person's health issues.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?| A．People's health is related to their friends. |
| B．Friends can predict lifespans better than us. |
| C．An early personality evaluation helps us live longer. |
| D．The study shows most people can live across 75 years. |
| A．advice | B．influence | C．imagination | D．understanding |
| A．People with more close friends have better personalities. |
| B．Self-evaluations have advantages over peer evaluations. |
| C．Men predict their lifespans more exactly than women. |
| D．The findings are based on participants' disease data. |
| A．Friends' personality evaluations can help recognize health risks. |
| B．Best friends play an important role in treating certain diseases. |
| C．Psychology studies may influence personality development. |
| D．Personality has little important effect on people's health. |
6 . Playing for Peace
John Hunter, a primary school teacher, created the World Peace Game as a way for his students to think about big world problems.
The World Peace Game is played on a cube （立方体）of four layers. In the game, there are four countries with 50 interconnected problems to solve. The students play a role in developing solutions to the problems of their assigned （指定的）country. The goal of the game is to save each country from dangerous conditions. When all 50 problems are solved, the game is over, which means the world is in peace.
You might think that the task of solving real-world problems would be daunting to world leaders, let alone fourth graders. Julianne Swope, one of Hunter's students, agrees. "Sometimes the World Peace Game feels like, you know? The weight of the world on your shoulders: This is firing over there and this is a big earthquake, she says. "But I say to myself, I need to fix this." The game shows that young children have the desire to make the world a better, more peaceful place.
The game encourages students to work together and communicate with one another. Students think about questions that have no clear answers, which often leads to long discussions. They consider deep questions in the process and think about the possible results of their decisions. They try to develop creative solutions that lead to a satisfactory decision.
It is no surprise that both Hunter and the World Peace Game are becoming well known. Hunter now spends part of his time teaching the World Peace Game to other teachers. Schools in other countries have started their own versions （版本）of the game as well.
Hunter hopes that by playing for peace, students learn "how to make people not experience so much pain. " He adds, "I think I now hope the game helps people be kinder. " One of his former students, Irene Newman, is now studying peace in her university. She believes the world will be more peaceful if young people are to solve its problems.
1. How is the World Peace Game played?| A．Students team up to play the game online. |
| B．Students answer 50 questions during the game. |
| C．Students come up with solutions to 50 problems. |
| D．Students list the dangerous conditions of four countries. |
| A．frightening | B．surprising | C．attractive | D．simple |
| A．The design of this game needs to be improved. |
| B．John Hunter educates his students through this game. |
| C．John Hunter limits this game to students in his school. |
| D．This game helps students easily become leaders in the future. |
7 . Free Apps （应用软件） for Learning English
SpeakingPal
Speaking English is important. SpeakingPal is one of the best Apps for English learners to practice speaking. It allows users to chat （聊天） with thousands of native （本国的） English speakers. In short, Learn English, Speak English.
Spell Checker
Speaking English is easy, but writing it is often much more difficult. If you start to learn it, I bet that you would get a lot of words misspelled. If you don't want this to happen, we suggest that you should try it and correct your English spelling easily.
Learn English Video
In Learn English Video, you'll find 2 thousand best videos offered on topics such as UK food and culture, everyday life and famous stories and poems. It can improve your English listening skills quickly.
Kobo reading
The free top-popular Kobo Reading App gives you right to Kobo's eBook store with 4 million eBooks and magazines. Join millions of readers worldwide and read conveniently on your mobile phone or computer.
1. In SpeakingPal, you can chat with _______.| A．native English speakers | B．personal computers |
| C．happy readers | D．new smart phones |
| A．SpeakingPal | B．Spell Checker |
| C．Learn English Video | D．Kobo Reading |
| A．speaking skills | B．writing skills |
| C．listening skills | D．reading skills |
8 . Fear and its companion pain are two of the most useful things that men and animals possess if they are properly used. If fire did not hurt when it burnt, children would play it until their hands were burnt away. Similarly, if pain existed but fear did not, a child would burn itself again and again, because fear would not warn the child to keep away from the fire that had burnt him or her before. A really fearless soldier—and some do exist—is not a good soldier because he is soon killed; and a dead soldier is of no use to his army. Fear and pain are therefore two guards without which men and animals might soon die out.
In our first sentence we suggested that fear ought to be properly used. If, for example, you never go out of your house because of the danger of being knocked down and killed in the street by a car, you are letting fear rule you too much. Even in your house you are not absolutely safe: a plane may crash on your house, or ants may eat away some of the wood in your roof , and they later may fall on you , or you may get cancer!
The important thing is not to let fear rule you , but instead to use fear as your servant and guide. Fear will warn you of dangers; then you have to decide what action to take.
In many cases, you can take quick and successful action to avoid the danger. For example, you see a car coming straight towards you; fear warns you, you jump out of the way, and all is OK.
In some cases, however, you decide that there is nothing that you can do to avoid the danger. For example, you cannot prevent a plane from crashing into your house, and you may not want to go and live in a desert where there are no plants. In this case , fear has given you its warning; you have examined it and decided on your course of action, so fear of this particular danger is no longer of any use to you , and you have to try to overcome it.
1. Children would play with fire until their hands were burnt away if ________.| A．they were given no warning beforehand | B．they didn't have any sense of pain at all |
| C．they had never burnt themselves | D．they felt afraid of the fire |
| A．is of a little use to his army | B．is not afraid of battles at all |
| C．is nothing but a dead soldier | D．is easy to get killed in a battle |
| A．they are warned of the danger and take quick action |
| B．they are quick both in mind and in action |
| C．they are calm in face of danger |
| D．they have gained much experience |
| A．fear is always something helpful |
| B．too much fear is harmful |
| C．fear should be used as a servant and guide |
| D．fear is something strange and particular |
9 . Learning Colour Words
In the first few years of their lives, children brought up in English-speaking homes successfully master the use of hundreds of words, including those for objects, actions, emotions, and many other aspects of the physical world. However, when it comes to learning colour words, the same children perform very badly. If shown a blue cup and asked about its colour, typical two-year-olds seem as likely to come up with “red” as “blue”.
Cognitive (认知) scientists at Stanford University in California supposed that children's inability at colour-word learning may be directly linked to the way these words are used in English. They are used mostly in pre-nominal position (e. g. “blue cup”), in contrast to post-nominal position (e. g. “The cup is blue. ”). The difficulty children have may simply come down to the challenge of having to make predictions from colour words to the objects they refer to, rather than from the objects to the colour words.
To explore this idea further, the research team recruited (招募) 40 English children aged between 23 and 29 months and carried out a three-period experiment. It included a pre-test, followed by training in the use of colour words, and finally a post-test that was the same to the pre-test. The pre- and post- test materials contained six objects that were unfamiliar to the children. There were three examples of each object in each of three colours-red, yellow and blue. The objects were presented on trays (托盘), and in both tests, the children were asked to pick out objects in response to requests in which the colour word was either a pre-nominal ( “Which is the red one?”) or a post-nominal ( “Which one is red?”).
In the training, the children were introduced to five sets of familiar items (balls, cups, crayons, glasses,and toy bears) in each of the three colours. Half the children were presented with the items one by one and heard them labeled with colour words used pre-nominally, while the other half were introduced to the same items described with a post-nominal colour word. After the training, the children repeated the selection task on the novel items in the post-test. Correct choices on items that were consistent (一致的) across the pre-and post-tests were used to measure children's colour knowledge.
According to the assessment, children's performance was consistent when they were both trained and tested on post-nominal adjectives, and worst when trained on pre-nominal adjectives and tested on post-nominal adjectives. Comparing the pre-and post-test scores across each condition showed a significant decline in performance when children were both pre-and post-tested with questions that placed the colour words pre-nominally.
1. What is the purpose of Paragraph 2?| A．To present a phenomenon. | B．To make a contrast. |
| C．To give a possible explanation. | D．To provide an example. |
| A．The children had to place the pre-and post-test objects onto coloured trays. |
| B．The children were presented with the same objects in the pre-and post-tests. |
| C．Pre-nominal questions were less used than post-nominal questions in the training. |
| D．The researchers aimed to look for consistencies in children's knowledge of word order. |
| A．children are unable to accurately sort objects by colour. |
| B．children trained on pre-nominal adjectives perform well. |
| C．children learn colour words rapidly in post-nominal position. |
| D．children can make predictions from the objects to the colour words. |
When an animal helps another animal, it usually gets something valuable (有价值的) in return. For a long time, many scientists thought that only people could act generously (慷慨地) just because it feels good.
However, a new study in Germany suggests that chimpanzees (an animal like a large monkey without a tail) also do good things for no real reason. And so do children who are as young as 18 months of age. Maybe it is because humans and chimpanzees share an ancestor about 6 million years ago.
People and chimpanzees appear to develop such features without any other training, says Warneken, a scientist in Germany.
Warneken and his partners worked on adult chimpanzees that live on an island in the African country of Uganda. They also worked with 18-month-old children in Germany. The researchers performed three experiments on the adult chimpanzees and two experiments on the kids. In the first animal experiment, a person tried to reach his arm into a cage to get a stick, but he couldn't reach it. A chimpanzee was in the cage, and it could reach the stick if it wanted to.
Thirty-six chimpanzees took part in this experiment one by one, and no chimpanzee saw what the other chimpanzees had done. Even though the animals hadn't met the person before, they usually took the stick and gave it to the person. What's more, they did this whether or not the person gave them bananas as a reward (奖励).
In a similar experiment, 36 children acted in a similar way. They helped the person reach the stick, whether or not they were given toys for their help.
Researchers did other experiments on chimpanzees and babies. No rewards were given in either experiment. And still, both the chimpanzees and children went out of their way to help.
1. What did many scientists think for a long time?2. Where did they do the experiments?
3. How many chimpanzees took part in this experiment?
4. Did children act in a similar way as chimpanzees in the experiment?
