1 . Procrastinators (拖延症患者)，take note: If you’ve tried building self-control and you’re still putting things off, maybe you need to try something different. One new approach: Check your mood.
Often, procrastinators attempt to avoid the anxiety or worry aroused by a tough task with activities aimed at repairing their mood, such as checking Facebook or taking a nap. But the pattern, which researchers call “giving in to feel good,” makes procrastinators feel worse later, when they face the consequences of missing a deadline or making a last-minute effort, says Timothy Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University.
Increasingly, psychologists and time-management consultants are focusing on a new strategy: helping procrastinators see how attempts at mood repair are destroying their efforts and learn to control their emotions in more productive ways.
The new approach is based on several studies in the past two years showing that negative emotions can damage attempts at self-control. It fills a gap among established time-management methods, which stress behavioral changes such as adopting a new organizing system or doing exercises to build willpower.
Researchers have come up with a playbook of strategies to help procrastinators turn mood repair to their advantage. Some are tried-and-true classics: Dr. Pychyl advises procrastinators to just get started, and make the doorstep for getting started quite low. “Procrastinators are more likely to put the technique to use when they understand how mood repair works,” says Dr. Pychyl, author of a 2013 book, “Solving the Procrastination Puzzle.” He adds,“A real motive power comes from doing what we intend to do—the things that are important to us.”
He also advises procrastinators to practice “time travel”—projecting themselves into the future to imagine the good feelings they will have after finishing a task, or the bad ones they will have if they don’t. This cures procrastinators’ tendency to get so stuck in present anxieties and worries that they fail to think about the future.
Another mood-repair strategy, self-forgiveness, is aimed at dismissing the self-blame. University freshmen who forgave themselves for procrastinating on studying for the first exam in a course procrastinated less on the next exam, according to a recent study led by Michael Wohl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton.
Thomas Flint learned about the technique by reading research on self-control, including studies by Dr. Sirois and Dr. Pychyl. He put it to use after his family moved recently to a new house. Instead of beating himself up for failing to unpack all the boxes gathered in his garage right away, Mr. Flint decided to forgive himself and start with a single step. I’d say, "OK, I’m going to take an hour, with a goal of getting the TV set up, and that's it, he says; then he watched a TV show as a reward. Allowing himself to do the task in stages, he says, is “a victory.”
1. What does Timothy Pychyl mean by mentioning the “giving in to feel good” practice in Paragraph 2?| A．It probably does more harm than good. |
| B．It prevents procrastinators from giving up. |
| C．It helps procrastinators meet the deadline. |
| D．It effectively drives away anxiety and worry. |
| A．Sticking to one’s intention. |
| B．Doing things that really matter. |
| C．Getting started from a low doorstep. |
| D．Learning important techniques of mood repair. |
| A．To make their future plan more practical. |
| B．To accelerate the speed of finishing the task. |
| C．To stop people from worrying about their travel. |
| D．To free people from the present negative emotions. |
| A．Self-blame prevents students from putting things off. |
| B．Procrastinators are still able to get good scores in exams. |
| C．University freshmen can get rid of procrastination easily. |
| D．Self-forgiveness is an effective way to cure procrastination. |
2 . Almost every family buys as least one copy of a newspaper every day. Some people subscribe to as many as two or three different newspapers. But why do people read newspapers?
Five hundred years ago, news of important happenings--battles lost and won, kings or rulers overthrown(推翻)or killed--took months and even years to travel from one country to another. The news passed by word of mouth and was never accurate. Today we can read in our newspapers of important events that occur in faraway countries on the same day they happen.
Apart from supplying news from all over the world, newspapers give us a lot of other useful information. There are weather reports, radio, television and film guides, book reviews, stories, and of course, advertisements. The bigger ones are put in by large companies to bring attention to their products. They pay the newspapers thousands of dollars for the advertising space, but it is worth the money for news of their products goes into almost every home in the country. For those who produce newspapers, advertisements are also very important. Money earned from advertisements makes it possible for them to sell their newspapers at a low price and still make a profit.
1. The phrase “subscribe to” in the first paragraph means“________”| A．go to the newspaper stand and buy | B．send their own news stories to |
| C．agree to buy for a specific period of time | D．become faithful readers of |
| A．bad news traveled quickly and good news slowly |
| B．few people cared about events that took place in faraway countries |
| C．kings and rulers were often overthrown or killed |
| D．news was passed from one person to another |
| A．wasted | B．not much |
| C．well spent | D．of no use to anyone |
| A．Five hundred years ago it took a long time for news to reach other countries. |
| B．Newspaper advertisements turn people’s attention away from their products. |
| C．The news that we read in newspapers is mainly about new products. |
| D．When newspapers are sold at a low price, the newspaper producers will lose money. |
