1 . There’s a useful concept from psychology that helps explain why good people do things that harm the environment: the false consensus effect. That’s where we overvalue how acceptable and prevalent (普遍的) our own behavior is in society. Put simply, if you’re doing something (even if you secretly know you probably shouldn’t), you’re more likely to think plenty of other people do it too. What’s more, you likely overestimate how much other people think that behavior is broadly OK.
This bias (偏见) allows people to justify socially unacceptable or illegal behaviors. Researchers have observed the false consensus effect in drug use and illegal hunting. More recently, conservationists are beginning to reveal how this effect contributes to environmental damage.
In Australia, people who admitted to poaching (偷猎) thought it was much more prevalent in society than it really was, and had higher estimates than fishers who obeyed the law. They also believed others viewed poaching as socially acceptable; however, in reality, more than 90% of fishers held the opposite view. The false consensus effect has also shown up in studies examining support for nuclear energy and offshore wind farms.
Just as concepts from psychology can help explain some forms of environmental damage, so too can they help address it. For example, research shows people are more likely to litter in areas where there’s already a-lot of trash scattered around; so making sure the ground around a bin is not covered in rubbish may help.
Factual information on how other people think and behave can be very powerful. Energy companies have substantially reduced energy consumption simply by showing people how their electricity use compares to their neighbors. Encouragingly, stimulating people’s natural desire for status has also been successful in getting people to “go green to be seen”, or to publicly buy eco-friendly products.
As the research evidence shows, social norms can be a powerful force in encouraging and popularizing environmentally friendly behaviors. Perhaps you can do your bit by sharing this article!
1. Which example best illustrates the false consensus effect?A.A student spends long hours surfing the internet. |
B.A blogger assumes many people dislike his posts. |
C.A driver frequently parks illegally in public places. |
D.A smoker believes people generally approve of smoking. |
A.It is unacceptable. | B.It is widespread. |
C.It is controversial. | D.It is complex. |
A.Embrace green habits for better health. |
B.Make green choices that others can perceive. |
C.Join green movements for personal fulfillment. |
D.Choose green items that are easy to spot in stores. |
A.Understate social norms. | B.Highlight personal responsibilities. |
C.Publicize sustainable practices. | D.Encourage technological innovations. |
We’ve all heard the advice to “get out of your comfort zone” by taking on a new challenge. A recent study goes a step further: Make discomfort a direct goal. That’s more likely to motivate you
In the first of five experiments, the researchers assigned several hundred students training at Second City Chicago
Experiments
Reframing anxiety as excitement has been proven a way to improve singing in front of strangers, and thinking of stress as
“When people reinterpret negative experiences as
3 . A speech in a play by Shakespeare can be as short as a word or as long as several hundred. But what is the most common length?
Staying away from Shakespeare himself for a moment, we can take Ben Jonson’s play Volpone (1606) and count the number of speeches and their lengths. The most common length is four words. The next most common length is five words. Of the other 16 Jonson’s plays, 12 also have a speech length mode (模式) of four. It was not just Jonson; it was everybody. After 1602, four-word speeches were the most common kind across all the early modern plays that survived.
The London theatre industry took off in the late 1580s and early 1590s and we see a concentration of speech length modes of nine or ten. After 1602, the mode of four predominated. If we look just at Shakespeare’s plays, we find him doing what everyone else did: changing from favoring nine-word speeches to favouring four-word speeches around 1597-1602 and never going back.
Our suggestion is that the playwrights (剧作家) learned progressively from one another how to represent more closely the speech lengths of everyday exchanges and found that audiences responded well to these. They started to focus less on strict writing rules and more on the liveliness of everyday speech.
Another way to think of this is offered by the Russian literary scholar Boris Yarkho. He put forward an “index (指数) of liveliness” — the ratio of the number of speeches to the total number of lines in a play. He researched the works of the 17th-century French playwright Pierre Corneille and found that his comedies have a higher index because of their shorter speeches. The move from a mode of nine words to a mode of four represents the shortened average speech, and thus a move to livelier drama in Yarkho’s terms.
Nevertheless, we have no record of any dramatist or playgoer reflecting on the shortening of average speech lengths; our only knowledge of it comes from counting the words in the plays for ourselves.
1. What happened in English plays around the 1600s?A.Their storylines were about famous writers. | B.They were influenced by a poetic writing style. |
C.They featured different storytelling techniques. | D.Their speeches were generally shorter in length. |
A.Remained unique. | B.Took the leading position. |
C.Disappeared slowly. | D.Played an educational role. |
A.To challenge traditional writing rules. | B.To stand out by applying their unique style. |
C.To avoid being affected by social values. | D.To create realistic and acceptable speeches. |
A.It saved actors the trouble of memorizing their lines. |
B.It reflected people's preference for serious dialogues. |
C.It helped present dramas in an active and pleasant way. |
D.It made the characters express their feelings effectively. |
I will share the kind act that I met with all of you. We had dozens of restaurant options within a short distance, so we often took advantage of this luxury. On one occasion, I ran out to get some food. I saw the clouds in the distance and decided I could make it there and come back in time, but I was wrong. I was about to leave the restaurant when the rain just poured. The street was flooded within minutes.
But I had my little girl and husband waiting for me back at home, and they were hungry, so I knew I had to make a run for it. The owner of the restaurant tried to encourage me to wait inside, but I insisted that I should go. At this point, he grabbed his umbrella and said, “Okay, let’s go.” Of course I tried to convince him that it wasn’t necessary for him to walk me home, but I knew I wouldn’t prevent him from doing so. So off we went. We quickly realized that the umbrella wouldn’t help much in keeping us dry. He walked me all the way to my apartment building, where he said goodbye and ran back to the restaurant.
Again I encountered this act of kindness when I was making my way to the bus. As I waited at the crosswalk (人行道), it began to rain lightly. Nothing was too bad, but a young guy nearby felt like it was heavy enough to make him step next to me and hold his umbrella above both of us. After a while, the lights turned green. I thanked him and walked across the street.
Getting around the city when you are six months pregnant (怀孕的) and have a two-year-old kid can be challenging sometimes. One spring afternoon, I realized I needed something from the store to finish preparing for dinner. The weather seemed a bit questionable but the store was around the corner so I decided to risk it.
注意:1. 续写词数应为 150 左右;
2. 续写部分分为两段,每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:
It wasn’t raining when we left so we didn’t carry my umbrella.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph2:
As we crossed the street the woman offered me her umbrella.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I’ve always had a love for basketball, so when it came time to continue my basketball journey at Columbia High School, I resolved to make it onto the school’s varsity (校队) basketball team. Any time I wasn’t studying, I was putting on my sports shoes and hitting the school stadium. Just before bed, I’d look up videos of LeBron James and Kevin Durant, trying to learn from the professionals. Day and night, all I could think about was how to get better and how to improve.
After months and months of practice and playing on the junior varsity team, Coach Moore finally told me one day that I was going to be playing for our school’s varsity basketball team going into my junior year. Success! Time for the big league! What I didn’t know, however, was that I was going to face a pretty big challenge in the form of a new transfer student: Chet Harrison.
Harrison had just transferred from another school, Westmoreland High School, where he had already been playing for the varsity team. There were rumors floating around that he was nearly guaranteed a spot playing in the National Collegiate Athletic Association and maybe even the National Basketball League someday.
I’ll admit, the kid was a natural talent when it came to playing basketball. But Harrison’s biggest weakness was his personality. He seemed selfish and sometimes acted like a bully, always seeking attention and showing off after scoring goals. Despite his loyal following of fans, I couldn’t stand him. But after Coach Moore said that Harrison and I would be playing together, I decided to accept it and make peace with the situation.
After months of putting up with Harrison’s attitude, I nearly had enough. Just before the winter break, however, we played a home match against Harrison’s old school Westmoreland and we lost. Harrison in particular felt utterly embarrassed.
注意:1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I found Harrison struggling to fight off tears in a corner of the boys’ locker room.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After months of working together, we found ourselves again facing Westmoreland on the basketball court for the finals.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 . Willful ignorance exists in large amount in daily life. People regularly look the other way rather than examining the consequences of their actions. Despite plenty of scientific evidence for climate change, for instance, many people still avoid engaging with facts about global warming.
We wanted to understand how common willful ignorance is and why people engage in it. After collecting data from multiple research projects that involved more than 6,000 individuals, we discovered that willful ignorance is common and harmful, with 40 percent of people choosing “not to know” the consequences of their actions to free themselves of guilt while maximizing their own gains. But we also found that about 40 percent of people are unselfish: rather than avoiding information about the consequences of their actions, they seek it out to increase the benefits to others.
In the experiments, the decisions were made in one of two settings. In the transparent (透明的) setting, decision-makers had information about how their choice would affect themselves and their partner. In an ambiguous (模糊的) setting, decision-makers knew how their choice would matter for themselves but not for their teammate — although they could request that insight.
The overall balance tipped toward selfishness when participants had the option to avoid information. Only 39 percent of people in the ambiguous setting made the choice that ultimately benefited their partner — a significant drop from 55 percent in the transparent condition.
If we can avoid putting a strong moral emphasis on decisions, it may make people feel less threatened and, as a result, be less willfully ignorant. Other research groups have found promising ways to do this. For instance, we could encourage people to think more positively about good deeds rather than guilt-trip them for what they have failed to do. Highlighting recent global achievements, such as healing the ozone (臭氧) layer, can inspire people to keep up the good work rather than feeling like the battle is lost and that the situation is hopeless.
In short, we can encourage one another and ourselves toward more selfless and generous actions.
1. Why do some people choose not to know the consequences of their actions?A.To make easier choices to be a good person. |
B.To increase their own benefits more than others’. |
C.To avoid the influence of consequences on actions. |
D.To get the most benefits without a sense of shame. |
A.By focusing less on its morality. | B.By stressing its potential threat. |
C.By being more positive about oneself. | D.By getting people aware of their actions. |
A.Culture. | B.Environment. | C.Psychology. | D.Biology. |
A.The reason for willful ignorance. |
B.The results of willful ignorance. |
C.The harmful effects of willful ignorance. |
D.The influence of willful ignorance on environment. |
7 . Late last year, in the days before the Dosakian election, a video featuring a well-known journalist and a key candidate circulated on social networks. However, it was absolutely fake (虚假的). The International Press Institute has called this episode in Dosakia the first time that AI deepfakes — fake images, or videos generated by artificial intelligence — have influenced a national election greatly.
Security experts consider misinformation the biggest global risk recently — more dangerous than war, and extreme weather events. A constant stream of people is wrestling with this issue. Now even economists are joining in.
Economist Iyan Smith, and others conduct a real-world experiment to see whether simple, low-cost nudges, or interventions, can be effective. Instead of focusing on the supply side of misinformation like social media platforms, they pay attention to the demand side: increasing our capacity to identify the fake information.
The economists split participants randomly into four different groups. One group was shown a video demonstrating a convincing journey of two people from two different social groups who, before interacting, express negative stereotypes (刻板印象) about the other’s group, overcoming their differences and ultimately regretting unthinkingly using stereotypes to dehumanize one another. Another group completed a personality test that shows them their cognitive traits (认知特点) causing prejudice, hoping to increase their self-awareness, and decrease their demand for misinformation. A third group did both while a control group did neither.
The economists find the simple intervention of showing the video makes the participants over 30 percent less likely to “consider fake news reliable”. But the personality test has little effect. As for participants doing both, they were about 31 percent less likely to view true headlines as reliable. In other words, they became so skeptical that even the truth became suspect.
Smith and his colleagues are far from the first scholars to fight misinformation by helping people to think more critically. University of Weymouth psychologist Lisa Kindle also advocates similar ways to help reject misinformation in the wild.
1. What does the author intend to do in the first two paragraphs?A.Highlight the risk of AI deepfakes. | B.Discuss the global threat landscape. |
C.Describe Dosakia’s election outcome. | D.Introduce the concept of misinformation. |
A.The cognitive trait. | B.The short video. |
C.The personality test. | D.The negative stereotype. |
A.Videos reduce misinformation. | B.Deepfakes may discredit truth. |
C.Misinformation causes dehumanization. | D.Personality tests sharpen thinking skills. |
A.Battling Fake News | B.Deepfakes in Elections |
C.The Spread of Misinformation | D.Expanding Thinking Capacity |
Pot On Happy Face
Sarai was attempting to halter (给……套上缰绳) her bay (棕红色) horse, Amadore, when an unfamiliar voice caught her attention. “I know what your problem is.” said a boy from the stall doorway.
Sarai threw a look over her shoulder but her focus remained on the horse in front of her.
Holding out a hand to her horse. Sarai said. “You heard what Dad said yesterday. If I can’t get this halter on you by tomorrow, we’ll have to send you back to the rescue ranch. I don’t want to send you back.”
“I know what your problem is.” the boy persisted, introducing himself as Cody.
Sarai sighed, propped her hands on her hips, and turned enough to see the boy but keep Amadore in her sight as well.
“I haven’t seen you here before,” said Sarai, frowning. “If you don't know me or my horse, how can you know what my problem is?”
“I just do,” Cody smiled again.
Sarai rolled her eyes and turned her back on Cody. Despite Sarai’s skepticism and her insistence on working alone, he offered to stay around in case she needed help.
The following morning, Sarai’s efforts were met with the same resistance from Amadore. Seeing him push himself back into the corner even further when she approached with breakfast, she frowned again, feeling frustrated and broken-hearted.
Realizing she might need assistance after all, she sought out Cody, who was now grooming a horse named Monty, preparing him for the Great Mustang Challenge.
“How's it going with Amadore?” Cody asked.
The words stuck in her throat, “Well…I need your help. Yesterday you said you knew what my problem was.” “It’s your face,” said Cody. “Horses can read a person’s facial features and determine what might happen because of the look on the face.”
Noticing Sarai’s struggle, Cody explained that her frown, likely a result of concentration, could be misinterpreted by the horse.
“That's silly,” said Sarai skeptically.
注意:1. 续写词数应为 150 左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
“I can prove it,” Cody smiled with a camera in his hand.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________With a quick pace, Sarai went back to her own horse.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Dora Kellert was the school’s spelling bee champion, winner of the reading contest at the public library three summers in a row and the playground grand champion in chess. She was a straight-A student.
Though Dora was talented, she was no good at sports. She could not figure out in which direction to kick the soccer ball. She was no good at baseball or basketball either. It wasn’t until last year, when she was eleven years old, that she learned how to ride a bike. And even then she had to use training wheels.
“I’ll never be good at sports,” she thought one day as she lay on her bed staring at the shelf her father had made to hold her trophies (奖杯). “How I wish I could win something, anything, even marbles (弹珠).”
At the word “marbles,” she sat up, “That’s it. Maybe I could be good at playing marbles.” She jumped out of bed and found a can full of her brother’s marbles. “Yes,” she thought. “I could play marbles, and marbles is a sport.” At that moment she realized that she had only three weeks to practice. The playground championship was coming up. She had a lot to do.
To strengthen her wrists (腕关节), she decided to do twenty push-ups on her fingertips, five at a time. By the end of the first set she was breathing hard. She did one more set and decided that was enough push-ups for the first day. She squeezed (握) a rubber eraser one hundred times, hoping it would strengthen her thumb (大拇指). This seemed to work because the next day her thumb was painful. She could hardly hold a marble in her hand, so Dora rested that day and listened to her brother’s tips on how to shoot.
After school the next day she practiced three hours straight. After practice, she squeezed the eraser for an hour. Practice, practice, practice. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Dora got better and even beat her brother for the first time.
注意:1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
Time flew and soon came the big day.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Dancing home, she placed the trophy on the middle of the shelf.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________10 . Binge-watching (刷剧) is when a person watches more than one episode of a show in a row. With developments in the speed and connectivity of the Internet, increases in technology and the rise of on-demand entertainment companies, people can now have their favorite shows stream (流播) directly to their television at their convenience.
This behavior is nothing new. In fact, binge-watching has been officially listed in dictionaries since 2015. The entertainment companies recognize this behavior and many take steps to encourage it. Often, instead of releasing each episode on a week-by-week basis, an entire series will become available concurrently. Once the episode finishes, many platforms will display pop-ups with “you might like” suggestions, or will automatically play the next episode.
However, recent research suggests that out of the more than half of British adults who watch more than one episode of a show back-to-back (一集接一集地), almost a third have admitted missing sleep or becoming tired as a result; and 25% have neglected their household chores (家务活). Next we’ll be missing work!
Bingeing has other connections — binge eating, binge drinking and binge smoking. All of them are often associated with a lack of control and a possible route to addiction. Lindsey Fussell, consumer group director, said, “The days of waiting a week for the next episode are largely gone, with people finding it hard to resist (抗拒) watching multiple episodes around the house or on the move.” If people find binge-watching hard to resist, are we witnessing the birth of a new type of addiction?
The countless number of information and entertainment that television and online media can bring us is, many would say, a good thing. However, when the activity begins to bleed into other areas, causing us to stop functioning, then it becomes a problem. So, what’s the answer? Moderation! Neither a tiny amount, nor too much. After all, as the old proverb says, “A little of what you fancy does you good.”
1. How did the writer develop the first paragraph?A.By giving a definition. | B.By telling a story. |
C.By listing some examples. | D.By analyzing the cause and effect. |
A.For convenience. | B.At the same time. |
C.In detail. | D.Free of charge. |
A.people can’t control their feelings | B.people can’t resist the temptation of Bingeing |
C.people have no patience to do work | D.people are addicted to waiting for a new episode |
A.To keep online media from stopping functioning. |
B.To enjoy entertainment as much as possible. |
C.To learn life lessons from the episodes. |
D.To watch episodes in a moderate way. |