1 . Albert Einstein’s 1915 masterpiece “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” is the first and still the best introduction to the subject, and I recommend it as such to students. But it probably wouldn’t be publishable in a scientific journal today.
Why not? After all, it would pass with flying colours the tests of correctness and significance. And while popular belief holds that the paper was incomprehensible to its first readers, in fact many papers in theoretical physics are much more difficult.
As the physicist Richard Feynman wrote, “There was a time when the newspapers said that only 12 men understood the theory of relativity. I do believe there might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than 12.”
No, the problem is its style. It starts with a leisurely philosophical discussion of space and time and then continues with an exposition of known mathematics. Those two sections, which would be considered extraneous today, take up half the paper. Worse, there are zero citations of previous scientists’ work, nor are there any graphics. Those features might make a paper not even get past the first editors.
A similar process of professionalization has transformed other parts of the scientific landscape. Requests for research time at major observatories or national laboratories are more rigidly structured. And anything involving work with human subjects, or putting instruments in space, involves piles of paperwork.
We see it also in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Nobel Prize of high school science competitions. In the early decades of its 78-year history, the winning projects were usually the sort of clever but naive, amateurish efforts one might expect of talented beginners working on their own. Today, polished work coming out of internships(实习) at established laboratories is the norm.
These professionalizing tendencies are a natural consequence of the explosive growth of modern science. Standardization and system make it easier to manage the rapid flow of papers, applications and people. But there are serious downsides. A lot of unproductive effort goes into jumping through bureaucratic hoops(繁文缛节), and outsiders face entry barriers at every turn.
Of course, Einstein would have found his way to meeting modern standards and publishing his results. Its scientific core wouldn’t have changed, but the paper might not be the same taste to read.
1. According to Richard Feynman, Einstein’s 1915 paper ________.| A．was a classic in theoretical physics |
| B．turned out to be comprehensible |
| C．needed further improvement |
| D．attracted few professionals |
| A．Unrealistic. | B．Irrelevant. |
| C．Unattractive. | D．Imprecise. |
| A．The application of research findings. |
| B．The principle of scientific research. |
| C．The selection of young talents. |
| D．The evaluation of laboratories. |
| A．What makes Einstein great? |
| B．Will science be professionalized? |
| C．Could Einstein get published today? |
| D．How will modern science make advances? |
2 . I was given a voice. That’s what people said about me I trained my voice, because it would be a shame to waste such a gift. I pictured this voice as a greenhouse plant and made sure it was provided with the right temperature, the right amount of water. I relieved its fears. I told it not to tremble. I nursed it, I trained it, and I watched it climb up inside my neck
My voice bloomed. People said I had grown into my voice. Invitations to perform flooded over us. All the best places wanted us. I was sought after, or rather my voice was. We went everywhere together and gave performances. Bouquets （花束）were thrown to it. Money was presented to it. Men fell on their knees before it. Applause flew around it.
Then my voice began to shrivel. People said my voice would bloom only for a certain term: finally it would drop off and gone with it would be all the fame and wealth. I have noticed it so far. Fear has entered me since my voice has used up most of my life. I’ve given it all my love. But my voice is still as greedy as ever. It wants more: more and more, more of everything it has had so far.
Now it’s evening: the bright lights come on, and excitement quickens in the streets. We sit in this hotel room. Soon it will be time for us to go out. We have to attend a grand occasion. The two of us chained together as always. I have to put on its favourite dress, its favourite necklace and wind a fur around it. Then I have to go out: shining like ice: my voice attached to my throat like an invisible vampire （吸血鬼）.
1. Why did the author compare her voice to a greenhouse plant?| A．To introduce her way to grow a plant. |
| B．To stress her hard efforts to train her voice. |
| C．To express her determination to show her gift. |
| D．To indicate her strong desire to improve her skill. |
| A．go up | B．die away |
| C．grow more pleasant | D．become less attractive |
| A．The author totally ruined her fame. |
| B．The author gradually lost her freedom. |
| C．The author eventually accepted her voice. |
| D．The author greatly enjoyed her performances. |
3 . Great work is work that makes a difference in people’s lives, writes David Sturt, Executive Vice President of the O.C. Tanner Institute, in his book Great Work: How to Make a Difference People Love. Sturt insists, however, that great work is not just for surgeons or special-needs educators or the founders of organizations trying to eliminate poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The central theme of Great Work, according to Sturt, is that anyone can make a difference in any job. It’s not the nature of the job, but what you do with the job that counts. As proof, Sturt tells the story of a remarkable hospital cleaner named Moses.
In a building filled with doctors and nurses doing great life-saving work, Moses the cleaner makes a difference. Whenever he enters a room, especially a room with a sick child, he engages both patients and parents with his optimism and calm, introducing himself to the child and, Sturt writes, speaking “little comments about light and sunshine and making things clean.” He comments on any progress he sees day by day (“you’re sitting up today, that’s good.”) Moses is no doctor and doesn’t pretend to be, but he has witnessed hundreds of sick children recovering from painful surgery, and parents take comfort from his encouraging words. For Matt and Mindi, whose son McKay was born with only half of a heart, Moses became a close friend. As Sturt explains, “Moses took his innate (与生俱来的) talents (his sensitivity) and his practical wisdom (from years of hospital experience) and combined them into a powerful form of patient and family support that changed the critical-care experience for Mindi, Matt and little McKay.”
How do people like Moses do great work when so many people just work? That was the central question raised by Sturt and his team at the O.C. Tanner Institute, a consulting company specialized in employee recognition and rewards system.
O.C. Tanner launched an exhaustive Great Work study that included surveys to 200 senior executives, a further set of surveys to 1,000 managers and employees working on projects, an in-depth qualitative study of 1.7 million accounts of award-winning work (in the form of nominations (提名) for awards from corporations around the world), and one-on-one interviews with 200 difference makers. The results of the study revealed that those who do great work refuse to be defeated by the constraints of their jobs and are especially able to reframe their jobs: they don’t view their jobs as a list of tasks and responsibilities but see their jobs as opportunities to make a difference. No matter, as Moses so ably exemplifies (例证), what that job may be.
1. According to Sturt, which of the following is TRUE?| A．It’s not the nature of the job, but what you do that makes a difference. |
| B．Anyone in the world is responsible to delete poverty and change the world. |
| C．Anyone can make a difference in people’s lives no matter what kind of job he does. |
| D．Surgeons, special-needs educators and founders of organizations can succeed more easily. |
| A．By keeping optimistic and calm when facing patients and their parents at hospital. |
| B．By showing his special gift and working experience when working at hospital. |
| C．By showing his sympathy and kindness to patients when entering their rooms. |
| D．By pretending to be a doctor or nurse when entering a room with a sick child. |
| A．demands | B．advantages | C．disadvantages | D．limitations |
| A．Great work is work that makes a difference in people’s lives no matter what you do. |
| B．If a boss has trouble recognizing his employees, he can ask O. C. Tanner for advice. |
| C．Moses makes a difference through his sensitivity and his practical wisdom. |
| D．Those who do great work are never defeated by others or their jobs themselves. |
4 . Modern medicine’s ability to keep us alive makes it tempting to think human evolution may have stopped. But if we look at the rate of our DNA’s evolution, we can see that human evolution hasn’t stopped – it may even be happening faster than before.
Evolution is a gradual change to the DNA of a species over many generations. It can occur by natural selection, when certain traits created by genetic changes help an organism survive or reproduce. Such genes are thus more likely to be passed on to the next generation, so they increase in frequency in a population. Gradually, these changes and their associated traits become more common among the whole group.
By looking at global studies of our DNA, we can see evidence that natural selection has recently made changes and continues to do so. Though modern healthcare disrupts a key driving force of evolution by keeping some people alive longer, in countries without access to good healthcare, populations are continuing to evolve. Survivors of infectious disease outbreaks drive natural selection by giving their genetic resistance to offspring. Our DNA shows evidence for recent selection for resistance of killer diseases like Lassa fever and malaria. Selection in response to malaria remains in regions where the disease remains common.
Humans are also adapting to their environment. Gene change allowing humans to live at high altitudes have become more common in populations in Tibet, Ethiopia, and the Andes. The spread of genetic changes in Tibet is possibly the fastest evolutionary change in humans, occurring over the past 3,000 years. This rapid increase in frequency of a mutated gene that increases blood oxygen content gives locals a survival advantage in higher altitudes, resulting in more surviving children.
Diet is another source for adaptations. Studies show that natural selection favoring a change allowing adults to produce lactase – the enzyme (酶) that breaks down milk sugars – is why some groups of people can digest milk. Over 80 per cent of northwest Europeans can, but in parts of East Asia, where milk is much less commonly drunk, an inability to digest lactose is the norm. Like high altitude adaptation, selection to digest milk has evolved more than once in humans and may be the strongest kind of recent selection.
Yet, despite these changes, natural selection only affects about 8 per cent of our genome. But scientists can’t explain why some genes are evolving much faster than others. We measure the speed of gene evolution by comparing human DNA with that of other species. One fast-evolving gene is human accelerated region 1 (HAR1), which is needed during brain development. A random section of human DNA is on average more than 98 per cent identical to the chimp comparator, but HAR1 is so fast evolving that it’s only around 85 per cent similar. Though scientists can see these changes are happening – and how quickly – we still don’t fully understand why fast evolution happens to some genes but not others.
1. Which of the following statements may the author agree with?| A．Evolution occurs among several people overnight. |
| B．Genes may change and some are beneficial to people’s lives. |
| C．Evolution is done when the whole population possesses a certain gene. |
| D．The changed genes leading to higher survival rates are chosen deliberately. |
| A．explains | B．causes | C．upsets | D．heals |
| A．some people can resist infectious diseases like malaria |
| B．children in Tibet tolerate living environments with thin air |
| C．northwestern Europeans digest lactose better than East Asians |
| D．the human gene HAR1 resembles that of a chimp to a lesser extent |
| A．What Is Natural Selection? |
| B．Are Humans Still Evolving? |
| C．Why Will Certain Genes Evolve? |
| D．How Do Mutated Genes Function? |
5 . One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible insect. He lay on his armor-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
"What's happened to me?" he thought. It wasn't a dream. His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table—Samsa was a travelling salesman—and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur scarf who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff (暖手筒) that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the window, which made him feel quite sad. "How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense," he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn't get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn't have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.
He thought, "What a heavy career it is that I've chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them." He felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on his back towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; found where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little white spots which he didn't know what to make of; and when he tried to feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly back because as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold tremble.
He slid back into his former position. "Getting up early all the time," he thought, "it makes you stupid. You've got to get enough sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance, whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning to copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss; I'd get kicked out on the spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your inferiors from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. Well, there's still some hope; once I've got the money together to pay off my parents' debt to him—another five or six years I suppose—that's definitely what I'll do. That's when I'll make the big change. First of all though, I've got to get up, my train leaves at five."
1. According to the passage, Gregor initially believes his transformation is a ?| A．curse | B．disease | C．nightmare | D．fraud |
| A．struggling | B．painful | C．pitiful | D．trembling |
| A．remind the reader that Gregor has already turned into an insect |
| B．stress the disconnection between Gregors' thoughts and his actual situation |
| C．present important details about what Gregor's new body looks like |
| D．show that Gregor's thoughts are focused on the changes to his body |
| A．provide a solution to the conflict Gregor faces |
| B．foretell the conflict between Gregor and his boss |
| C．illustrate Gregor's flexibility and ability to move on |
| D．emphasize Gregor's extreme sense of duty |
6 . To learn to think is to learn to question. Those who don't question never truly think for themselves. These are simple rules that have governed the advancement of science and human thought since the beginning of time. Advancements are made when thinkers question theories and introduce new ones. Unfortunately, it is often the great and respected thinkers who end up slowing the progress of human thought. Aristotle was a brilliant philosopher whose theories explained much of the natural world, often incorrectly. He was so esteemed by the scientific community that even 1，200 years after his death, scientists were still trying to build upon his mistakes rather than correct them!
Brilliant minds can intimidate upandcoming thinkers who are not confident of their abilities. They often believe they are inferior to the minds of giants such as Aristotle, leading many to accept current paradigms instead of questioning them.
I, like many thinkers of the past, once believed in my mental inferiority. I was certain that my parents, my teachers-adults in general-were always right. They were like a textbook to me; I didn't question what was written on those pages. I respected them, and accepted whatever they told me. But that attitude soon changed. My mind's independence was first stimulated in the classroom.
A stern, 65yearold elementaryschool science teacher once told me that light is a type of wave. I confidently went through years of school believing that light is a wave. One day，however I heard the German exchange student mention that light could be made up of particles. As the others laughed at his statement, I started to question my beliefs.
Maybe the teachers and textbooks hadn't given me the whole story. I went to the library, did some research and learned of the lightasawave versus lightasaparticle debate. I read about Einstein's discovery of the dual nature of light and learned the facts of a paradox(悖论) that puzzles the world's greatest thinkers to this day. Light behaves as both a particle and a wave, it is both at once. I realized I had gone through life accepting only half of the story as the whole truth.
Each new year brought more new facts, and I formulated even more questions. I found myself in the library after school, trying to find my own answers to gain a more complete understanding of what I thought I already knew. I discovered that my parents and teachers are incredible tools in my quest for knowledge, but they are never the final word. Even textbooks can be challenged. I learned to question my sources, I learned to be a thinker. I once believed that everything I learned at home and at school was certain, but I have now discovered to reexamine when necessary.
Questions are said to be the path to knowledge and truth, and I plan to continue questioning. How many things do we know for sure today that we will question in the future? At this moment, I know that our sun will burn for another five billion years, and I know nothing can escape the gravity of a black hole. This knowledge, however, may change in the next 20 years-maybe even in the next two. The one thing we can control now is our openness to discovery. Questions are the tools of open minds, and open minds are the key to intellectual advancement.
1. In the first paragraph, Aristotle is taken as an example to show that ______.| A．he is the greatest and respected philosopher of all time |
| B．huge influence of great thinkers may block human thought |
| C．advancements are made when thinkers question theories |
| D．great thinkers often make mistakes and then correct them |
| A．Frighten. | B．Encourage. | C．Strength. | D．Persuade. |
| A．what he learned from textbooks before turned out to be wrong |
| B．he was inspired by the different ideas from an exchange student |
| C．he was laughed at by other students for his unacceptable statement |
| D．he was not satisfied with his life and desperate to achieve success |
| A．looks down upon great thinkers all the time |
| B．never doubts what he has learned in the textbook |
| C．always throws himself into the laboratory |
| D．determines to be a thinker and questioner |
| A．the author is not quite sure about his future |
| B．we human beings don't dare to predict future |
| C．theory of black holes will change in two years |
| D．questioning is necessary to promote advancement |
| A．Following rules. | B．Challenging yourself. |
| C．Questioning giants. | D．Predicting future. |
7 . The most thoroughly studied intellectuals in the history of the new world are the ministers and political leaders of seventeenth-century New England. According to the standard history of American philosophy, nowhere else in colonial American was “so much important attached to intellectual pursuits.” According to many books and articles, New England’s leaders established the basic themes and preoccupations of an unfolding, dominant Puritan tradition in American intellectual life.
To take this approach to the New Englanders normally mean to start with the Puritans’ theological（神学的）innovations and their distinctive ideas about the church --- important subjects that we may not neglect. But in keeping with our examination of southern intellectual life, we may consider the original Puritans as carriers of European culture, adjusting to New would circumstances. The New England colonies were the scenes of important episodes in the pursuit of widely understood ideals of civility and virtuosity.
The early settlers of Massachusetts Bay included men of impressive education and influence in England. Besides the ninety or so learned ministers who came to Massachusetts church in the decade after 1629, there were political leaders like John Winthrop, an educated gentleman, lawyer, and official of the Crown before he journeyed to Boston. These men wrote and published extensively, reaching both New World and Old World audiences, and giving New English an atmosphere of intellectual earnestness.
We should not forget, however, that most New Englanders were less will educated. While few craftsmen or farmers, let alone dependents and servants, left literary compositions to be analyzed. Their thinking often had a traditional superstitions quality. A tailor named John Dane, who emigrated in the late 1630s, left an account of his reasons for leaving England that is filled with signs. Sexual confusion, economic frustrations, and religious hope --- all came together in a decisive moment when he opened the Bible, told his father the first line he saw would settle his fate, and read the magical words: “come out from among them, touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God and you shall be my people.” One wonders what Dane thought of the careful sermons explaining the Bible that he heard in Puritan churches.
Meanwhile, any settlers had slighter religious commitments than Dane’s, as one clergyman learned in confronting folk along the coast who mocked that they had not come to the New World for religion. “Our main end was to catch fish.”
1. The author notes that in the seventeenth-century New England______.| A．Puritan tradition dominated political life. |
| B．intellectual interests were encouraged. |
| C．Politics benefited much from intellectual endeavors. |
| D．intellectual pursuits enjoyed a liberal environment. |
| A．a virtue | B．an intelligent mind |
| C．a taste for fine arts | D．a nice character |
| A．experienced a comparatively peaceful early history. |
| B．brought with them the culture of the Old World |
| C．paid little attention to southern intellectual life |
| D．were obsessed with religious innovations |
| A．were famous in the New World for their writings |
| B．gained increasing importance in religious affairs |
| C．abandoned high positions before coming to the New World |
| D．created a new intellectual atmosphere in New England |
| A．influenced by superstitions |
| B．troubled with religious beliefs |
| C．puzzled by church sermons |
| D．frustrated with family earnings |
8 . The next time a giant Big Mac or Coke flashes into your mind when you’re walking home from the pub, you may not simply have the snacks. And that picture of the model putting on Chanel — no, you’re not daydreaming.
A British startup has created a new advertising system that uses lasers to project images up to 200 metres tall from the sides of tall buildings, enabling advertisers to reach people from virtual billboards（广告牌）in the sky. Passers-by will see each image for only between one tenth and quarter of a second, as their eye eye catches the light from certain angles.
Advertising agencies and big businesses have already signalled their interest, but Skyline campaigners have branded the technology “greedy” and said that it could fill our skies with showy and tasteless brands.
The Echo system, from Lightvert, uses a high laser projector to bounce light off a narrow reflective strip fixed to the side of a building, visible up to 1km away. This creates large-scale images that are captured briefly in the viewer’s eye as a result of the “persistence of vision” effect: the same effect that leaves an imprint of a light source on your vision after you’ve turned away.
Daniel Siden, the technology’s inventor, explained: People often think this could be subversive, but it’s not subliminal advertising（隐性广告）as the imagery registers on the conscious level. It’s actually less invasive and more fun than traditional advertising. Mr.Siden said that planning experts have indicated that planning permission should not be a problem outside of conservation area. He said that the system was safe because of the distance between the projector and passers by. And images would be above the line of sight of drivers and cyclists
and below the field of vision of airline pilot. The images have been tested and shown not to cause epileptic seizures（癫痫发作）.
Because it uses only one strip of reflected light, the system needs a small amount of the power, about one-twentieth of a standard 96-sheet digital outdoor display for an image of the same height.
The owners of high-rise properties could use the system to make large returns from installing the laser projector and reflective strip. The company puts the cost of a unit measuring 100 metres at under ￡750,000, based on the present design, anticipating that costs will drop.
Still, some Skyline campaigners dislike the technology and believe it delivers subliminal advertising. Barbara Weiss of the Skyline Campaign, said: “It’s actually offensive. London’s latest tall buildings are not particularly well-built or well designed, but unfortunately people are forced to look at them. Adding stupid advertising that’s invasive in its nature will only make it worse.”
1. Why does the writer cite the example of Big Mac, Coke and Chanel in paragraph 1?| A．Because he attempts to promote these products to potential consumers. |
| B．Because he studies the association between products and images in advertising. |
| C．Because he tries to illustrate the effectiveness of flashing images of advertised goods. |
| D．Because he wants to introduce a new advertising technology to readers. |
| A．Pedestrians can see the flashing images on one side of the building from specific angles. |
| B．The system is composed of a laser projector, a reflective strip and a physical billboard. |
| C．The image lasts between one tenth and quarter of a second in vision even if you turn away. |
| D．It’s a new advertising system developed by a time-honored British company. |
| A．Subconscious | B．trouble making |
| C．harmless | D．imaginative |
| A．Environmentalists worried about energy consumption. |
| B．Drivers, cyclists and pilots whose sight might be affected. |
| C．The Skyline Campaign regarding the image as flashy. |
| D．The patients who suffer from epileptic seizures. |
9 . Feeling achy and feverish? Your misery has plenty of company. By the end of December, the tally (计数器) of flu-like illnesses in the state exceeded the peaks in the two previous seasons, when the biggest number of cases occurred in February and March. This time, the flu virus seems to be hitting even harder.
Flu is unique among human diseases. It circulates constantly in cool and dry areas. Because it spreads from person to person and can be picked up easily, nearly everyone is exposed. While it’s unclear whether the annual flu epidemic (流行病) will worsen this year, or just arrived earlier, fears have been increased by the severity of flu in Australia during its most recent season and the fact that the vaccine may protect against the predominant (盛行的) kind of the flu only 30 percent of the time.
Despite the worries, doctors and public health officials say there is no evidence that people are getting sicker than usual. Flu cases in Massachusetts started rising around Thanksgiving and increased steadily, with an especially steep climb in the last week of the year. “This is a bad flu season but not a horrible one,” said Dr. Andrew G. Villanueva, a lung specialist and chief quality officer at the Lahey Hospital & Medieal Centre in Burlington.
The flu season, while clearly in full swing, doesn’t “feel different” from previous years, Villanueva said. “We’re not seeing a lot of people being hospitalized because of flu,” he said. “Most people with the flu recover on their own without medical care.”
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?| A．A lead-in. | B．A comment. | C．A summary. | D．A background. |
| A．The outbreak of the flu is terrible. |
| B．The flu has arrived earlier than before. |
| C．The vaccine against the nu is highly effective. |
| D．Everyone feels horrible at the mention of the flu. |
| A．Crowded | B．Changeable | C．Permanent | D．Active |
| A．To explain what flu is. |
| B．To rid people of flu panic. |
| C．To warn readers of how serious the flu is. |
| D．To inform readers how to prevent the flu. |
10 . Your circle of friends may help you get a better reading on your overall health and wellness rather than just using wearable devices such as a Fitbit, according to researchers.
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed what the structure of social networks says about the state of health, happiness and stress.
"We were interested in the topololgy (拓扑学) of the social network — what does my position within my social network predict about my health and well-being said Nitesh V. Chawla, a professor at the University of Notre Dame in the US.
“What we found was the social network structure provides a significant improvement in predictability of wellness states of an individual over just using the data obtained from wearables, like the number of steps or heart rate,” Chawla said.
For the study, participants wore a Fitbit to capture health behavior data about walking, sleeping, heart rate and overall activity level. They also completed surveys and self-assessments of their stress, happiness and positivity.
Cbawla and his team then analyzed the data with a machine learning model, alongside the connections and characteristics of an individual's social network.
The study showed a strong correlation (相关性) between social network structures, heart rate, number of steps and level of activity.
Social network structure provided significant improvement in predicting one's health and well-being compared to just looking at health behavior data from the Fitbit alone.
For example, when social network structure is combined with the data from wearables, the machine learning model achieved a 65 percent improvement in predicting happiness.
The model also achieved a 54 percent improvement in predicting one's self-assessed health prediction, a 55 percent improvement in predicting positive attitude and a 38 percent improvement in predicting success.
This study asserts (断言) that without social network information, we only have an incomplete view of an individual's wellness state, and to be fully predictive or to be able to obtain interventions (干扰). It is critical to be aware of the social network, Chawla said.
1. What did the study find?| A．How people choose their friend circles. |
| B．What factors decide your friend circles. |
| C．How your circle of friends influences you |
| D．What your circle of friends says about your health. |
| A．By comparing data. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By analyzing cause and effect | D．By describing personal experiences. |
| A．Easy. | B．Common. |
| C．Important. | D．Challenging. |
| A．How fitness devices can connect your circle of friends |
| B．That a person's social network is part of his health picture. |
| C．The best ways to make friends and keep a healthy social circle |
| D．That wearable devices are not useful for understanding someone's health. |
