1 . Some personal characteristics play an important role in the development of one’s intelligence. But people fail to realize the importance of training these factors in young people.
The so-called ‘non-intelligence factors’ include one’s feelings, will, motivation, interests and habits. After a 30-year study, American psychologists
Some parents are greatly worried when their children fail to do well in their studies. They blame either genetic factors, or laziness, but they never take into
It is clear that the lack of cultivation of non-intelligence factors has been a main
If we don’t start now to
| A．came out | B．found out | C．made out | D．worked out |
| A．in itself | B．by itself | C．itself | D．on its own |
| A．Though | B．Nevertheless | C．However | D．Moreover |
| A．believing | B．studying | C．cultivating | D．developing |
| A．effect | B．comment | C．consideration | D．preparations |
| A．poorly | B．properly | C．successfully | D．dependently |
| A．ever | B．even | C．still | D．more |
| A．put | B．get | C．handle | D．give |
| A．afraid | B．ahead | C．aware | D．ashamed |
| A．difficulty | B．question | C．threat | D．obstacle |
| A．intelligent | B．characteristic | C．psychological | D．physical |
| A．practise | B．regulate | C．strengthen | D．urge |
| A．intelligence | B．diligence | C．cultivation | D．performance |
| A．projects | B．warnings | C．suggestions | D．decision |
| A．fully | B．greatly | C．very | D．highly |
The idea that kindness can boost happiness is hardly new. Studies have shown that prosocial behavior — basically, voluntarily helping others — can help lower people’s daily stress levels, and that simple acts of connection, like texting a friend, mean more than many of us realize.
“I have found that kindness can be a really hard sell,” said Tara Cousineau, a clinical psychologist, “People desire kindness yet often feel troubled by the thought of being kind.”
If you are not already in the habit of performing random kind acts, or if it does not come naturally to you, start by thinking about what you like to do. It’s not about you being like, ‘Oh man, now I have to learn how to bake cookies in order to be nice’. It’s about:
| A．What skills and talents do you already have? |
| B．Stress can also keep people from being kind to others. |
| C．Why are recipients less likely to appreciate a random act of kindness? |
| D．But an act of kindness is unlikely to fail, and in some instances it can create even more kindness. |
| E．People who perform a random act of kindness tend to underestimate how much the recipient will appreciate it. |
| F．But researchers who study kindness and friendship say they hope the new findings strengthen the scientific case for making these types of gestures more often. |
3 . Searching Venus’ sky
From the moon to Mars, scientists have been hunting for alien life in the solar system for decades.
However, Venus was not regarded as an ideal place because of its hot temperature and dry atmosphere.
But a recent discovery of traces of a gas in the clouds of Venus has excited astronomers, as it may serve as a potential sign of life.
On Sept 14, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada announced that scientists have detected phosphine(磷化氢) in the clouds of Venus. Phosphine is a colorless, toxic(有毒的)gas that has an odor of garlic. Though toxic, it is viewed as a possible sign of life because on Earth the gas is made by microorganisms that live in oxygen-free environments.
“I was very surprised - stunned, in fact,” astronomer Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in Wales and lead author of the research, told MSN. “There is a chance that we have detected some kind of living organism in the clouds of Venus.”
This layer of clouds is about 48 kilometers above the Venus surface, with its temperature ranging from 30 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit (about -1 to 93℃). Scientists have speculated that if life exists on Venus, this cloud deck(云盖)is likely the only place where it would survive.
Scientists went through every possibility that could have led to the formation of phosphine gas in Venus’ clouds, including volcanoes, lightning strikes, small meteorites(陨石)falling into the atmosphere. But they ruled all of them out. It was concluded that there is no explanation for the existence of this gas in Venus’ clouds, other than the presence of life, USA Today reported.
Although the detection of phosphine is not robust(强有力的)evidence for life, this finding is great enough to change scientists’ view on Venus, which is thought to be a completely inhospitable planet.
What signs of life we looking for?
1. Liquid water: It can dissolve a huge range of molecules needed for life and facilitate their chemical reactions.
2. Mild temperatures: Temperatures higher than 122 C will destroy most complex organic molecules, and make it almost impossible for carbon-based life to form.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．A newly detected gas may indicate possible existence of life on Venus. |
| B．Scientists found the most hospitable place on Venus. |
| C．The environment on Venue changed in favor of life. |
| D．Phosphine formed on Venus means alien life is present. |
| A．It has no smell at all. | B．It only exists on Venus. |
| C．It can be produced by microorganisms. | D．It is a sign of the existence of oxygen. |
| A．Various living organisms have been detected on Venus. |
| B．The higher the cloud is above Venus, the warmer it is. |
| C．The cloud deck is rich in phosphine. |
| D．If life exists on Venus, it is likely in the cloud deck. |
| A．It could be formed as a result of the falling of meteorites. |
| B．It could be a sign that there is life in Venus’ clouds. |
| C．It could be caused by volcanoes and lighting strikes. |
| D．It proves that Venus is another hospitable planet. |
4 . Intentions matter
When my daughter was very young, she broke my favorite cup. She was moving it aside, and it slipped from her hand and broke on the floor. I loved that cup and was really disappointed, but
I can’t help but feel that our modern world does not
There are
A friend of mine says, “It’s not how the message is intended; it’s how it’s received.” He means that we need to be
We all at times express ourselves poorly, make errors of judgment or have a moment of
The internet is full of people seeking to make things worse.
I get that there is much to be angry about. The world is full of injustice. The actions and words of other people can cause harm;
But intention has to matter too, for us to make sense of the world, and for us to effect change.
On a more practical level, understanding intention can help us respond to people with
Did the person throw the cup, or did it slip from their hands? Now, more than ever, I think the answer matters.
1.| A．of course | B．after all | C．above all | D．for example |
| A．choose | B．happen | C．mean | D．expect |
| A．learn from | B．object to | C．come across | D．care for |
| A．business | B．intentions | C．emotions | D．relationships |
| A．endless | B．unique | C．golden | D．ideal |
| A．hopeful | B．careful | C．cheerful | D．helpful |
| A．misinterpreted | B．reported | C．explained | D．commented |
| A．weakness | B．madness | C．carelessness | D．hopelessness |
| A．So | B．But | C．Or | D．And |
| A．purposefully | B．generally | C．hardly | D．occasionally |
| A．however | B．besides | C．therefore | D．although |
| A．Expressing | B．Understanding | C．Indicating | D．Returning |
| A．sadness | B．kindness | C．happiness | D．illness |
| A．make use of | B．look forward to | C．talk about | D．shut down |
| A．rarely | B．specially | C．suddenly | D．simply |
5 . In The Debunking (揭穿真相) Handbook, a short guide published in 2011, John Cook, at George Mason University, and Stephan Lewandowsky, at the University of Bristol, looked at the world-view backfire effect, the idea that if a correction of a false claim disagrees with your world view, it strengthens the
What’s more, although some later studies have seen similar results, many haven’t seen the effect at all. This suggests it is much
But whatever you do, don’t point this out, or turn to
The good news is that social events are
The bad news is that even with all this in mind, you are still unlikely to
So why even
And always
Indeed, Cook thinks there is little chance of changing the minds of, say, the 7 per cent of people in the US who are very
| A．association | B．offensiveness | C．probability | D．misconception |
| A．harder | B．rarer | C．more diverse | D．more important |
| A．reactions | B．judgements | C．forecasts | D．reasons |
| A．reveal | B．avoid | C．define | D．link |
| A．frustrating | B．excellent | C．familiar | D．occasional |
| A．widespread | B．deliberate | C．inevitable | D．effective |
| A．in person | B．in detail | C．on purpose | D．on business |
| A．encourage | B．impress | C．surprise | D．convince |
| A．try | B．stop | C．move | D．wait |
| A．Validating | B．Investigating | C．Questioning | D．Understanding |
| A．support | B．locate | C．interview | D．consider |
| A．aware | B．happy | C．sure | D．disappointed |
| A．make up | B．look up to | C．focus on | D．set out on |
| A．For instance | B．What’s more | C．As a result | D．On the contrary |
| A．surprised at | B．doubtful of | C．curious of | D．annoyed at |
| A. appear B. faded C. immediately D. ordinary E. overlooked F. pairings G. progressively H. signals I. translate J. underwent K. unexpected |
Mixing senses: synaesthesia taught to adults
Brain training for synaesthesia — where you mix up sensory information — may be just around the corner. People have been taught to experience a form of synaesthesia where letters
By the end of the nine-week course, most of the volunteers were seeing text in the real world take on particular colours, on road signs, for example. “The colour
Synaesthesia is thought to result from people’s brains developing in such a way that their sensory
Two years ago researchers made some aspects of the condition by getting people to read books where some of the letters were printed in certain colours. This improved their scores on tests but didn’t
What if people
The training had a(n)
Why we choose scrolling over sleeping
Imagine cozying up in your bed after a long day. You scroll through your favorite social media apps for what feels like ten minutes, but then you realize hours have passed. It’s now 2:30 am, and you know you need to get some sleep to wake up refreshed for work. But you just can’t get yourself to stop scrolling and turn in for the night. You promise yourself just five more minutes -- then it’s 3:00 am.
If you can relate to this scenario, you’re not alone. Now called “revenge bedtime procrastination,” the Sleep Foundation describes this phenomenon as the tendency “to sacrifice sleep for leisure time that is driven by a daily schedule lacking in free time.”
People who spend most of their waking hours experience a severe lack of “me time” in which they can be free of responsibilities. Nowadays, some people feel guilty even for resting, so there is a strong desire for uninterrupted personal time.
Daphne Lee, the journalist whose viral tweet popularized the term, describes revenge bedtime procrastination as an attempt to regain control of our lives. If you are spending most of the day working for someone else, following someone else’s orders, and disciplining yourself into doing what you’re “supposed” to do, it is only natural to desire freedom — at least for the few quiet hours around midnight.
Revenge bedtime procrastination is experienced differently by various groups, despite being motivated by the same reasons. Parents of young children spend most of their day trying to balance work and childcare, so there is a powerful desire to spend some time alone, free of all obligations. For many parents, this is only possible at night when work hours are over and the kids are asleep. Likewise, college students with a demanding class schedule and workers who put in a lot of overtime may be particularly susceptible to bedtime procrastination.
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8 . It’s late in the evening: time to close the book and turn off the computer. You’re done for the day. What you may not realize,
It might sound like science fiction, but researchers are increasingly
This shows that while our bodies are
In a 2010 study, researchers at Harvard Medical School reported that college students who dreamed about a computer maze(迷宫)task they had learned showed a 10-fold improvement in their
Robert Stick-gold, one of the Harvard researchers, suggests that studying right before bedtime or taking a nap following a study session in the afternoon might increase the
| A．therefore | B．otherwise | C．instead | D．however |
| A．focusing on | B．experimenting with | C．building up | D．inquiring about |
| A．conceal | B．generate | C．dissolve | D．remove |
| A．worsened | B．measured | C．improved | D．affected |
| A．maintaining | B．comprehending | C．questioning | D．sharing |
| A．working | B．sleeping | C．opening | D．waking |
| A．replay | B．pattern | C．reality | D．experience |
| A．normally | B．especially | C．infrequently | D．possibly |
| A．researchers | B．subjects | C．psychologists | D．walkers |
| A．reflected on | B．forgot about | C．engaged in | D．referred to |
| A．in peace | B．at rest | C．in operation | D．at work |
| A．store | B．majority | C．range | D．collection |
| A．willingness | B．ability | C．desire | D．tendency |
| A．benefits | B．risks | C．difficulties | D．potential |
| A．hits | B．imagines | C．leaves | D．punches |
Are People Unique?
A considerable number of people consider other species on earth are somehow inferior to us. Throughout the history, it has always been human beings’ pride
Zuberbuhler, a psychologist at St. Andrews University, and his colleagues recorded thousands of calls made by Diana’s monkeys and noticed that the monkeys adapted their calls to change the meaning
The researchers found that the same calls
Last year, that was topped by Alex Kacelnik, a professor of behavioral ecology at Oxford, who discovered that crows (G49) are capable of using tools on complex orders. This was the first time that such behaviour
All this is powerful evidence
10 . We are encountering real-world examples of how AI can harm human relations. As digital assistants such as Alexa or Siri become popular, we are becoming accustomed to talking to them as though they were alive; writing in these pages last year, Judith Shulevitz described how some of us are starting to treat them as friends and therapists. Shulevitz herself says she confesses things to Google Assistant that she wouldn’t tell her husband. If we grow more comfortable talking to our devices about our secrets, what happens to our human marriages and friendships? Designers and programmers typically create devices whose responses make us feel better—but may not help us be self-reflective or think over painful truths. As AI goes deeper into our lives, we must face the possibility that it will prevent our emotions and deep human connects.
Besides, we will fight with some other challenges. The age of driverless cars, after all, is upon us. These vehicles promise to substantially reduce the exhaustion and distraction that put human drivers in danger, thus preventing accidents. But what other effects might they have on people? Driving is a very modern kind of social interaction, requiring high levels of cooperation. I worry that driverless cars, by taking away from us an occasion to exercise this ability, could contribute to its decline.
Not only will these vehicles be programmed to take over driving duties and hence to remove from humans the power to make moral judgments (for example, about which pedestrian to hit when a crash is inevitable), they will also affect humans with whom they’ve had no direct contact. For instance, drivers who have steered awhile alongside an autonomous vehicle traveling at a steady, invariant speed might drive less attentively, thus increasing their likelihood of accidents once they’ve moved to a part of the highway occupied only by human drivers. Alternatively, experience may reveal that driving alongside autonomous vehicles travelling in perfect accordance with traffic laws actually improves human performance.
Either way, we should be careful to launch new forms of AI without first taking such social spillovers—or externalities, as they’re often called—into account. We must apply the same effort that we apply to the hardware and software that make self-driving cars possible to managing AI’s potential effects on those outside the car. After all, we install brake lights on the back of your car not just, or even primarily, for your benefit, but for the sake of the people behind you.
1. What can be inferred about human relationships from the first paragraph?| A．We will feel comfortable speaking to others online. |
| B．AI will lead to shallow inter-personal relationships. |
| C．AI will enable people to communicate more with others. |
| D．We will be more self-reflective in interaction thanks to AI. |
| A．drivers’ interaction with the cars |
| B．drivers’ exhaustion and distraction |
| C．our ability to cooperate with others while driving |
| D．our ability to deal with emergencies while driving |
| A．They may be better at making more judgments than human drivers. |
| B．They need to vary their speed to make contact with human drivers. |
| C．They may make human drivers in other cars drive more safely. |
| D．They need to force human drivers to concentrate in the car. |
| A．Brake lights on the back of our car are installed mainly to warn us of danger. |
| B．We should figure out how new technology affects people before developing it. |
| C．It is hard to say why social spillovers will work in terms of self-driving cars. |
| D．More effort should be made to advance the hardware and software of driverless cars. |
