1 . You’re running late for work and you can’t find your keys: What’s really annoying is that in your search, you pick up and move them without realizing. This may be because the brain systems involved in the task are working at different speeds, with the system responsible for perception(感知)unable to keep pace.

So says Grayden Solman and his colleagues at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. To investigate how we search, Solman’s team created a simple computer-based task that involved searching through a pile of colored shapes on a computer screen. Volunteers were instructed to find a specific shapes as quickly as possible, while the computer monitored their actions.“Between 10 and 20 percent of the time, they would miss the object,”says Solman, even though they picked it up.“We thought that was remarkably often.”

To find out why, the team developed a number of further experiments. To check whether volunteers were just forgetting their target, they gave a new group a list of items to memorize before the search task, which they had to recall afterwards.

The idea was to fill each volunteer’s“memory load”，so that they were unable to hold any other information in their short-term memory. Although this was expected to have a negative effect on their performance at the search task, the extra load made no difference to the percentage of mistakes volunteers made.

To check that the volunteers were paying enough attention to the items they were moving, Solman’s team created another task involving a pile of cards marked with shapes that only became visible while the card was being moved. Again, they were surprised to see the same level of error, says Solman. Finally, the team analyzed participants’ mouse movements as they were carrying out a similar search task. They discovered that volunteers’ movements were slower after they had moved and missed their target.

Solman’s team propose that the system in the brain that deals with movement is running too quickly for the visual system to keep up. While you are searching around a messy house to find your keys, you might not be giving your visual system enough time to work out what each object is. Since time can be costly, sacrificing accuracy on occasion for speed might be beneficial overall, Solman thinks.

The slowing of mouse movements suggests that at some level the volunteers were aware that they had missed their target, a theory that is backed up by other studies that show people tend to slow down their actions after they have made a mistake, even if they don’t consciously realize the mistake.

You still need a better reason to plant a tree?

Police aren’t cheap and neither are lawyers, judges, and all the other layers that make up the justice system. But trees and some grass, in comparison, are a real bargain, and they prove to be effective in lighting crimes.

Many cities used to launch programs to plant vegetation along roadways to help absorb rainwater. After tracking 14 types of crime in nearby areas, Michelle Kondo, a social scientist found that a variety of crimes including property crimes such as theft and burglary, and violent crimes such as armed fights and mayhem in those areas decreased to 27 percent, a stunning 18 percent fall. Kondo believed the appearance of city trucks and vans in the landscaped areas— for planting and maintenance— was enough to scare away potential criminals.

Kondo’s study also worked on the link between grassland care and decrease of the crime in downtown areas. It’s tempting to use income as the connection. After all, if you have the crime and money to water your lawn, you probably live in a neighborhood that sees less crime. But actually, people are less likely to hang in those areas where the streets are maintained or cleaned. “You will see less kids hanging on the corners.’’ Kondo said. He argued that caution of the local people implied by the organized greenery helped to frighten away ill-intentioned guys, by announcing to would-be criminals that there are “eyes on the street’’ that care for their neighborhood and would be more likely to report a crime.

We already know greenery is beautiful to look at and can help improve mood and health while reducing pollution. Now we can add crime-fighting to the list of vegetation’s many benefits. Therefore, are you ready to plant a tree?

5 . Most of us have no difficulty recognizing luck when it’s on apparent display, as when someone wins the lottery. But _________ often plays out in delicate ways and it’s easy to construct narratives that portray success as out of everything but luck. These misleading stories have surprising implications for human mindset, downplaying the power of chances.

Consider the history of the Mona Lisa. After having staved in the _________ for most of its early existence, the painting was pushed into the spotlight in 1911 when it was stolen from Louvre. The famous theft remained _________ for two years until a maintenance worker was arrested after trying to sell the painting. His arrest caused a second wave of _________, with the painting on everyone’s lips. As in the art world, it is so too in the world of work. Almost every career path consists of a sequence of steps, each of which depends on former ones. Inevitably, some of those _________ steps can be influenced by chance factors, which, as a result, are sure to affect the following process. So it is reasonable to conclude that _________ all successful careers involve at least a certain degree of luck.

One’s date of birth _________, for example. According to a study, most children born in the summer tend to be among the youngest members of their class, which explains why they are less likely to hold _________ positions during high school and thus, less likely to land good jobs later in life.

To acknowledge the power of chance events is not to suggest that success is independent of _________. Charlie Munger has said. “The safest way to get what you want is to __________ what you want.”

Of course, luck counts too. Being born in a good education system is a kind of luck we can control— that is, at least we can decide how lucky our children will be. But in America, we’ve been doing a bad job as the budget for education has __________. The human tendency to __________ luck’s role has caused this troubling state by unwillingness to invest in education, the strong system of which can produce __________ for the next generation.

Luckily, there is a solution. Guiding people to __________ their good fortune tends to make them more willing to contribute to the __________, according to a study. So try to engage your successful friends in reviews about their experiences with luck. In the process, the next generation’s odds of success may well increase and meanwhile, all the social members are more likely to enjoy the improved public service.

6 . You take it for granted that you are a unique person, different from everyboy else on Earth, and you understand that everybody else is also unique. Identical (完全一样的) twins are fascinating because they______this idea: they are unique people, of course, not only in terms of appearance. They often share opinions, mannerisms and personality trails.

Identical twins are ______ occuring in about three out of every 1000 births. Although there may be tiny differences in physical appeaances between two identical twins, which allow family and close friends to ______ , they do have exactly the same DNA.

For scientists, the non- ______ similarities between identical twins are the most interesting: are they the result of growing up together in the same home, or are they the result of their identical DNA? By studying identical twins who have not grown up ______, researchers can see which similarities remain and which disappear. In other words, they can learn which aspects of a person’s ______ are determined by genes and which are influenced by the environment.

Identical twins Jim Lewis and Jim Springer were only four weeks old when they were ______: each infant was taken in by a different adoptive family. At age five, Lewis learned that he had a twin, but he said that the ideas never ______ “soaked in” until he was 38 years old. Springer learned of his twin at age eight, but both he and his adoptive parents believed the brother had died. The two Jims were finally reunited at age 39.

The ______ the twins shared not only amazed one another, but also amazed researchers at the University of Minnesota. The very fact that both twins were given the same name was a big ______. But there’s more.

As youngsters, each Jim had a dog named “Toy”.

One Jim had named his son James Allan and the other Jim had named his son James Alan

Both were fingernail biters and suffered from migraine headaches.

…

While not as mysteriously similar as the Jim twins, many more ______ of strange likenesses can be found among twins who were raised apart. For example, identical twins Tom Patterson and Steve Tazuni had very different ______ . Raised in a Christian family in rural Kansas, Tom still managed to choose the same ______ as his brother. Steve, who lives in Philadelphia, was raised in a Buddhist household. Both men own body-building gyms.

It’s obvious from these twins’ stories that ______ are a major factor in shaping who we are. This means that our personalities as adults are largely determined before we are born — and there is very little that we, or anybody else, can do to ______ them.

7 . Teachers and parents usually call attention to the pictures when reading storybooks to preschool children. But a new study suggests that calling attention to print – the words and letters on the page may lead to _________readers.

The two-year study_________children aged 3 to 5 who were divided into two groups.The teachers helped each group to read in two different ways. Over three hundred students were considered to be likely to_________reading problems in future life, and they were_________ in a classroom setting. After reviewing the recorded lessons, the researchers found that those students whose teachers most often_________the print showed clearly higher skills in reading, spelling and understanding.

Professor Shayne Piasta, the study's author, says most teachers would find this method_________because it needs only a small change in the way they teach. They already read storybooks in class. The only_________ in the new method would be increased attention to the print.

Ms.Piasta says if adults can_________children in the stories and get them to pay attention to letters and words, it is certain that they will do better at_________recognition.But few parents and teachers do this in a(n)__________way by starting first with letters, then__________moving to words, sentences and paragraphs.__________,they habitually turn to the attractive pictures first, thus misleading the children.

Teachers and parents can point to a letter and outline its shape with a finger. They can point to a word and__________"This is 'dog'". They can discuss the meaning of the print to find how the words are combined to tell the story. And they can talk about the__________of the print, for example, how words are written from left to right. By__________ training in this way, the teachers will definitely raise the students’ ability to read.