4 . A Way Out of Social Anxiety: Volunteering and Acts of Kindness
As a socially anxious introvert, I can attest(证明)to the benefits of serving others through volunteering in my community.
A volunteer job doesn’t need to require stepping into a busy room full of 100 people at a school or hospital.
Social scientists have an apt name for stressful social situations where we need to perform and would likely be judged or evaluated. The “social-evaluative threat” is particularly threatening for people with social anxiety as stress hormones rapidly increase. Any time we are in evaluative situations where we are judged by others, we face this social-evaluative threat and endure a sudden rush of stress hormones that increase anxiety.
“Kindness may help socially anxious people,” says Dr. Lynn Alden, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia.
| A．Some people are naturally reserved while others are rather outgoing. |
| B．In social anxiety disorder, fear and anxiety lead to avoidance which can disrupt our life. |
| C．Indeed, my own act of kindness has always been a sure bet to bring me out of my shell. |
| D．Instead, my volunteer service consists of quiet one-on-one visits with isolated older adults. |
| E．When I am giving my free time to help others, I feel truly liberated in my mission to serve. |
| F．High-performance events such as public speaking or job interviews can be really unbearable. |
| G．She and her colleagues conducted a study with 115 undergraduate students who had reported high levels of social anxiety. |
5 . In our information-driven society, shaping our worldview through the media is similar to forming an opinion about someone solely based on a picture of their foot. While the media might not deliberately deceive us, it often fails to provide a comprehensive view of reality.
Consequently, the question arises: Where, then, shall we get our information from if not from the media? Who can we trust? How about experts—people who devote their working lives to understanding their chosen slice of the world? However, even experts can fall prey to the allure of oversimplification, leading to the “single perspective instinct” that hampers(阻碍)our ability to grasp the intricacies of the world.
Simple ideas can be appealing because they offer a sense of understanding and certainty. And it is easy to take off down a slippery slope, from one attention-grabbing simple idea to a feeling that this idea beautifully explains, or is the beautiful solution for, lots of other things. The world becomes simple that way.
Yet, when we embrace a singular cause or solution for all problems, we risk oversimplifying complex issues. For instance, championing the concept of equality may lead us to view all problems through the lens of inequality and see resource distribution as the sole panacea. However, such rigidity prevents us from seeing the multidimensional nature of challenges and hinders true comprehension of reality. This “single perspective instinct” ultimately clouds our judgment and restricts our capacity to tackle complex issues effectively.
It saves a lot of time to think like this. You can have opinions and answers without having to learn about a problem from scratch and you can get on with using your brain for other tasks. But it’s not so useful if you like to understand the world. Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you would like to understand reality.
Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, consult people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world. I have been wrong about the world so many times. Sometimes, coming up against reality is what helps me see my mistakes, but often it is talking to, and trying to understand, someone with different ideas.
If this means you don’t have time to form so many opinions, so what? Wouldn’t you rather have few opinions that are right than many that are wrong?
1. What does the underlined word “allure” in Para.2 probably mean?| A．Temptation. | B．Tradition. | C．Convenience. | D．Consequence. |
| A．They meet people’s demand for high efficiency. |
| B．They generate a sense of complete understanding. |
| C．They are raised and supported by multiple experts. |
| D．They reflect the opinions of like-minded individuals. |
| A．Simplifying matters releases energy for human brains. |
| B．Constant tests on our ideas help make up for our weakness. |
| C．A well-founded opinion counts more than many shallow ones. |
| D．People who disagree with us often have comprehensive views. |
| A．Embracing Disagreement: Refusing Overcomplexity |
| B．Simplifying Information: Enhancing Comprehension |
| C．Understanding Differences: Establishing Relationships |
| D．Navigating Complexity: Challenging Oversimplification |
8 . It's March, 2050.
Frank and Mary Smith wake up in their comfortable house in the morning and switch on the bedroom computer to get the latest news. They used to read the Times, but changed to electronic newspapers many years ago.
There is the usual news about space: another space flight has returned from Mars and scientists have discovered a new planet. Then they turn to business news: the Us dollar has risen greatly in Shanghai, one of the world's leading business centres. Mary tells the computer to buy 5,000 dollars, and there is a quick response that it has been done. As they watch the screen, Mary orders one of the household robots to make coffee for them. Frank disappears into the study to join a video conference with his partners around the world. He is a computer engineer, working for several companies. This is his third job: he used to be in marketing and then television. Mary has a quick look at the shopping channels—the usual selection of electric cars, household robots and cheap travel offers-before picking up the video phone to talk to her assistant. She also has a job and she is doing medical research. Both she and Frank used to have an office desk in London, but in 2023 they decided to move to the seaside and work from home.
·Frank and Mary have one daughter, Louise, who also has her own workstation at home. She goes to school only one day a week, mainly to play with other students. Classrooms disappeared in 2030 because there was no longer any need for them: communications systems have made it much easier to learn at home. Louise, now thirteen, is studying Chinese at present, which has become a world language as important as English. Louise has many Chinese friends. They communicate by computer. According to the family doctor, Louise will live to at least 130. Her wish is to work for a few decades（十年）and then spend her time on music and painting.
1. Why do Frank and Mary switch on the bedroom computer in the morning?2. Who makes coffee for Mary and Frank?
3. How does Frank work with others from home?
4. What are the two world languages in 2050?
I was sitting in math class; my teacher, Mrs. Gratz, was trying to get the attention of everyone arriving before the bell that would start the fourth period. As most of my classmates sat down and waited for our teacher to begin the lesson, a student walked in right after the bell rang. He was a real troublemaker. It was painfully obvious to anyone who knew him that he didn’t care much about school or authority. He continued walking through the classroom, sat down next to one of his friends and began talking loudly with him. At this point our teacher had attempted to quiet everyone down several times, succeeding with just about everyone except for him. By him arguing with a teacher for seemingly no reason and causing a scene, I could see on my teacher’s face that she was getting more and more upset as time went on, because her class time was being wasted.
It’s important to present yourself in a positive way to people that can have an effect on your life. Parents, police officers, teachers. Those in positions such as these are the ones who should be respected most, even if you don’t think so. Watching a young man argue back and forth with a teacher, a person of authority, taught me a valuable lesson about how to act when in a situation like this. If you disagree with someone, you should find the proper time and place to deal with it. Truly, the time for wasting time is not during school hours and the place for disrupting (扰乱) a teacher’s lesson is not in school itself.
I try to respect all figures of authority, especially when they treat the people under them fairly and with equal respect. Back in this 7th grade, this event changed my life, and that’s the reason why I still remember and learn from it to this day. Sitting in class and listening to the teacher every day can get boring, but it is also worth quieting down for, because of what you can take away from the class, and what you can gain from just showing some respect.
1. Use one word to describe the student who walked in right after the bell rang? (不多于 1 个单词)2. What examples does the writer give to show who should be respected most? (不多于 4 个单词)
3. When should a student deal with a problem he/she has with a teacher? (不多于 4 个单词)
4. What is the main idea of the passage? (单词数不限)
