1 . No business would welcome being compared to gambling. Yet that is what is happening to makers of video games. For years parents have complained that their children are “addicted” to their video games and smartphones. Today, however, even more doctors are using the term. On January 1 this year, “gaming disorder” — in which games are played uncontrollably, despite causing harm — gained recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Are games really addictive? Psychologists have different opinions. Those who don’t think so say that this is just another moral panic. Similar warnings have been given about television, rock’n’roll, jazz, comic books, novels and even crossword puzzles, but it turns out that they are not as harmful as expected.

However, supporters argue that game developers have the motivation and the means to design their products to make them extremely attractive. For one thing, the business- model has changed: In the old days, games were bought once and for all. But these days, games are free and money is earned from purchases of in-game goods, which ties playtime directly to revenue (收益). For another, game-makers combine psychological theory and data, which helps them maximize the playtime. Smartphones and modern video game machines use their permanent Internet connections to send gameplay data back to developers. In this way products are constantly adjusted to encourage players’ spending. The biggest spenders are known as “whales”, a term that originated in casinos (赌场).

The gaming industry should realize that, in the real world, it has a problem, and that problem is growing. Now that gaming addiction comes with an official WHO recognition, diagnoses will become more common. Anyway, being put together with gambling in the public mind, fairly or not, will not do the industry any good.

2 . Last night I was driving from Harrisburg to Lewisburg, a ________ of about eighty miles. It was late and I was in a hurry. However, if anyone asked me how fast I was ________, I’d say I was not over-speeding. Several times I got________ behind a slow- moving truck on a narrow road, and I was holding my fists tightly with________.

At one point along an open highway, I________ crossroads with a traffic light. I was alone on the road by now, but as I ________ the light, it turned red and I braked to a stop. I looked left, right and behind me. Nothing. No cars, no suggestion of headlights, but there I sat, waiting for the light to ________, the only human being for at least a mile in any________.

I started________ why I refused to run the light. I was not afraid of being________, because there was obviously no police-man around, and there certainly would have been no________ in going through it.

Much later that night, after I________ a group of my friends in Lewisburg and climbed into bed near midnight, the question of why I’d stopped for that light________ me. I think I stopped because it’s part of a contract we all have with each other. It’s not only the________ but it’s an arrangement we have, and we trust each other to ________ it: we don’t go through red lights. Like most of us, I’m more likely to be________ from doing something bad by the social convention that________ it than by any law against it.

It’s amazing that we ever________ each other to do the right thing, isn’t it? And we do, too! Trust is our________ preference.

I was so ________ of myself for stopping for the red light that night.

5 . When evaluating people on various psychological tests, psychologists often distinguish between markers of absolute performance and relative performance. Absolute performance reflects the raw measurement of something, like the time it takes to run a mile. Relative performance is how a person rates in relation to their peers, as in what place a runner gets in a race.

The standards we use to evaluate ourselves are almost always relative, as we compare ourselves to our peers and the standards that are most familiar to us. Our conscious recognition of these peers and norms is what sets our expectations, shaping our self-image and happiness. What’s interesting about the relative comparisons that most of us make is that in whatever area of life we consider—for example, our highest level of education—it’s not how we fare in comparison to the rest of the world that seems to matter most, but rather how we compare to our closest peers.

For instance, in my private practice, I have one patient I will call “Omar” who is dependent on social services and makes less than $30,000 per year at his job. While this level of poverty would lead most people to wake up depressed each day, Omar is one of the most optimistic and appreciative individuals I know. Why? Because most of his closest peers—his siblings and friends from childhood—have lives far worse than his.

In contrast to. Omar, I have another patient, an adolescent I’ll call “Lena”, whose family has property over $5 million. Lena, however, lives in an upper-class neighborhood where her family is at the lower end of the income level. Though Lena’s family allows her to enjoy possessions and experiences that less than 1 percent of her peers across the world can share, she consistently feels “less than”. Why? Because Lena doesn’t compare herself to the rest of the world; This is too abstract an exercise for her, as it would be for most of us.

Accordingly, whether a psychologist is psychodynamic or cognitive-behavioral, therapy (疗法) with individuals struggling with situation al or psychological depression aims to solve the problems associated with basing one’s self-worth on comparisons with others. Psychologists try to help people focus on personal growth around the achievement of concrete goals in line with their values independent of the achievement of others. For all of us, defining these goals, especially during Periods of emotional calm, can go a long way in helping us to avoid the trap of relativity that often leads to situational and psychological depression.

6 . Even though people have been paralyzed (瘫痪的) playing sports like rugby and football, extreme sports take the whole ordeal (磨难) to the next level. Sports like downhill cycling are very dangerous because one would be going downhill, over rocky or dirt zone, through forests, even at potentially deadly speeds. A slip up could be your downfall.

Nobody who gets into extreme sports goes with the desire to do harm to themselves. With that, athletes train for years and years before they attempt anything extreme. To most people, extreme sports are extreme simply because they take more skill than what an average person has. An athlete with skill and training makes an extreme thing become a daily routine, which does not wipe out the danger, but greatly reduces it.

Even when there is a lot of skill involved, things might not go the athlete’s way, not at all. Luck and circumstances have a lot to do with how things develop, whether above 8,000 meters or in a wood, going downhill. In some places, crossing the street is an extreme sport, considering how wild traffic can get.

Some view parkour, the sports of running, jumping and climbing under, around and through buildings, as an extreme sport, while it is more of a life philosophy, where the athlete does not have to do anything remotely dangerous. Free soloing, which means climbing a rock or ice face without safety gear, is absolutely deadly, where one slip means almost certain death, depending on the height, of course. Skateboarding is relatively safe, but if you constantly find ridiculous places to practice on, like the fence of a bridge, then things can get very complicated. The extreme part depends on the athlete.

To summarize, yes, extreme sports are dangerous, but the danger depends on the athlete, their choice of sport, direction in which they take it, as well as the circumstances. Some things are out of our control, while others we can influence through exercise and healthier risk choices.

When I told my father that I was moving to Des Moines, Iowa, he told me about the only time he had been there. It was in the 1930s, when he was an editor of the literary magazine of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas. He also worked as a professor at SMU, and there was a girl student in his class who suffered from a serious back disease. She couldn’t afford the operation because her family was poor.

Her mother ran a boarding house in Galveston, a seaside town near Houston, Texas. She was cleaning out the attic (阁楼) one day when she came across an old dusty manuscript (手稿). On its top page were the words, “By O. Henry”. It was a nice story, and she sent it to her daughter at SMU, who showed it to my father. My father had never read the story before, but it sounded like O. Henry, and he knew that O. Henry had once lived in Houston. So, it was possible that the famous author had gone to the beach and stayed in the Galveston boarding house, and had written the story there and left the manuscript behind by accident. My father visited an O. Henry expert at Columbia University in New York, who authenticated the story as O. Henry’s.

My father then set out to sell it. Eventually, he found himself in Des Moines, meeting with Gardner Cowles, a top editor at the Des Moines Register. Cowles loved the story and bought it on the spot. My father took the money to the girl. It was just enough for her to have the operation she so desperately needed.

My father never told me what the O. Henry story was about. But I doubt that it could have been better than his own story.

10 . An elementary school in Scotland gave its students a special present. Instead of being asked to do different kinds of homework or book reports, the children did acts of _________, which is a much more _________ lesson.

The children _________ Galsoil School in Clonty performed these kind acts in December and _________ their acts in writing or pictures in a Kindness diary.

In the project, the teachers _________ the students to do kind deeds for an elderly neighbor or a friend who is feeling _________, any act that helped to _________ someone’s day.

The students were also encouraged to write kind notes to each other that were read at a _________ every week and all the classes got together to discuss and _________ a school-wide project to help the community during the holiday season.

“We are __________ our pupils to think of the real __________ of New Year — kindness and giving,” vice principal said. “There is nobody in this world who wouldn’t __________ from an act of kindness, and __________ the joy of kindness is that it __________ nothing.

A student Andy said, “Kindness is about making people’s lives __________ by changing little things, or doing little nice things to make a __________ to people around.”

The children made a lot of __________ to their grandparents and to seniors in the community to __________ with them over the phone, relieving their loneliness. What the children have learned about kindness is far more __________ than reading, writing, and math. Even the youngest students have __________ much.