1 . In our modern world, there are endless alternatives. Have you ever found yourself wondering whether you should quit or stay in your job, accept an offer or give it up for another? There is a simple and practical method that solves this problem.    1    When you understand the concept, you have the power to measure every alternative with precision and make the right decision.

In the field of economics, opportunity cost is the value that you have to give up when you choose an option over another good option.    2    Every time you choose something, you give up other alternatives together with their financial benefits. It is not all the other options, but the most valued one that is defined as the opportunity cost.

    3    Take the simple example of trying to decide whether to take public transportation for 80 minutes or to drive for 40 minutes. You might save on the cost of gas while riding the bus but double the trip length and miss out on other things you could have done during that time.    4    This is how you create priorities in your daily life.

Though useful in decision making, the biggest drawback of opportunity cost is that it’s often related to what’s hard to quantify.    5    After all, putting a number to your peaceful mind or happiness can be difficult.

Opportunity cost isn’t cut and dried. It varies from person to person. At the end of the day, you are in charge of what you own and what you want to gain.

A．It is about finding out the opportunity cost.

B．Weigh the losses and gains, and make your decision.

C．Opportunity cost matters not only in economics but also in real life.

D．This is especially true when the opportunity cost is of non-financial benefit.

E．The key principle underlying the idea is that there is no such thing as free lunch.

F．Most people overlook opportunity cost because the benefits are usually hidden from view.

G．It is the development of important skills that would help you move forward in your daily life.

2 . There is such a thing as a free lunch, it turns out, as long as you don’t mind too much what it is. Tamara Wilson found hers a few streets away from her west London home — and as well as picking up some unwanted bread and fruit that would otherwise be thrown away, she made a new friend.

Wilson is one of 3.4 million people around the world using an app designed to encourage people to give away rather than throw away surplus (剩余的) food. “It’s such a small thing, but it makes me feel good and my neighbour feel good. And a lot of small acts can end up making a big difference,” she said.

The last few years have seen an explosion in creative ways to tackle food waste by linking supermarkets, cafes, restaurants and individual households to local communities. Olio, the app used by Wilson, saw a fivefold increase in listings during 2022, and the signs are that this rapid growth is continuing into 2023, said Tessa Clarke, its CEO and co-founder.

About a third of all food produced globally is wasted, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Almost 1.4 billion hectares of land — close to 30% of the world’s agricultural land — is dedicated to producing food that is never eaten, and the carbon footprint of food wastage makes it the third contributor of CO2. Reducing food waste is one of the most effective ways of tackling the global climate crisis.

Olio, Clarke said, was an attempt to change this on a small, local scale. “The app connects people with others who have surplus food but don’t have anyone to give it to because so many people are disconnected from their communities.” Users of Olio post images of surplus food that others in the neighbourhood might want. Olio also has a network of 24,000 volunteers who collect surplus food from local supermarkets and stores for app users to claim.

Despite the success of the app, it was hard to make a difference to the huge scale of food waste, Clarke added. “Even though we’re doing well, we’ve only scratched the surface (触及表面). But if everyone makes small changes in the world, we’d dramatically reduce the amount of food that ends up in bins (垃圾桶).”

1. What does the author want to show by telling Wilson’s story?

A．People tend to use apps to order food.	B．People prefer to make friends on apps.
C．People find a high-tech fix to food waste.	D．People show more concern for each other.

2. What’s the consequence of food waste according to the text?

A．Global warming.

B．Loss of land.

C．World hunger.

D．Poverty and inequality.

3. What does Olio do to help tackle food waste?

A．It sells surplus food to those in need.	B．It allows volunteers to slay connected.
C．It provides a platform for people to promote food.	D．It fills the information gap between green communities.

4. What does Clarke think of the work on reducing food waste globally?

A．It is a great success.	B．It requires joint efforts.
C．It is beyond human power.	D．It has won public support.

3 . What a comedian can teach you about managing stress

We often accept stress as part of the cost of modern life, but it really doesn’t have to be. We all know that laughter is the best medicine.     1     People who can laugh at their own misfortunes bounce back faster and stronger. Here is what a comedian says about coping with stress.

You can try to find a different perspective.     2     Once a friend of mine fell asleep in the middle of a class. His teacher decided to make fun of him by inviting students to applaud, wondering whether my friend would applaud along when he woke up. He did and the whole class burst outlaughing. After learning everything, he was both embarrassed and ashamed of course but after a while, my friend laughed. “If this had happened to someone else, it would have been amusing. So it’s no less funny, just because it happened to me. “

    3     There’s no doubt that we all experience great stress now and then. We’ve all been personally affected, in some way. You might not have felt like laughing at the time But now, looking back, you could consider all of the strange aspects of the experience and all of the things you did to keep active or simply stay sane (神志正常的) .

When you share stories with your friends, you can choose to share stories of trauma (创伤) and pain, or you can choose to lift their spirits with stories of hope and growth.     4     Take the exact same story and change the focus from “feel sorry for me” to “laugh with me”. Keep in mind that we’re all in this together, that we all share the same ridiculous experiences, and that we can laugh together at whatever life throws at us.     5    

A．Always share a good story.

B．Why not do what comedians do?

C．You can also look again and laugh.

D．But laughter does more than cheer you up.

E．Then you are able to make a simple choice.

F．In this way. you will say goodbye to stress forever.

G．If you have trouble seeing the funny side, you may find the following inspiring.

5 . Many people don’t treat themselves very well. They break promises to themselves, eat poorly, don’t get enough sleep, are self-critical or fail to take good care of their bodies.

A great technique for treating yourself better is by developing your Inner Nurturing Parent. Imagine you had a little child. You’d make every effort to keep her healthy and safe; to love and support her; to be forgiving her mistakes and her inevitable slips; and to let her know how precious and important she is.    1    Only, in this case, you’re the parent and the child.

    2    Tell yourself, “I love you and appreciate who you are.” When you do something well, give yourself a pat on the back. Say, “Great job! I’m so proud of you.” When you’re struggling or feeling low, be supportive by saying, “I’m here for you. You’re not alone,”

Take good care of yourself. A loving parent would make sure you eat right and get plenty of rest sleep, fresh air and exercise.     3     Practicing good self-care is an essential part of this process.

Set healthy boundaries with others. Let people know what you want and don’t want. Tell them what’s okay for you and what’s not. If you have a friend who’s always late and you end up waiting for her and feeling annoyed,   tell her how you feel.    4    

Be concerned about yourself.    5    You’re human and you’re going to make mistakes. Don’t punish or blame yourself.   Reassure yourself. Comfort yourself. Accept yourself unconditionally.

A．Cheer yourself up constantly.

B．A nurturing parent. wouldn’t let someone treat you badly.

C．Have sympathy for your humanity and your weaknesses.

D．That’s what a loving parent does.

E．You should always regard yourself as a child.

F．Send loving messages to yourself.

G．Keep yourself healthy and fit.

9 . Researchers have long known that the brain links kinds of new facts, related or not, when they are learned about the same time. For the first time, scientists have recorded routes in the brain of that kind of contextual memory, the frequent change of thoughts and emotions that surrounds every piece of newly learned information.

The recordings, taken from the brains of people awaiting surgery for epilepsy (癫痫), suggest that new memories of even abstract facts are encoded (编码) in a brain-cell order that also contains information about what else was happening during and just before the memory was formed.

In the new study, doctors from the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University took recordings from a small piece of metal implanted in the brains of 69 people with severe epilepsy. The implants allow doctors to pinpoint the location of the flash floods of brain activity that cause epileptic happening. The patients performed a simple memory task. They watched a series of nouns appear on a computer screen, and after a brief disturbance recalled as many of the words as they could, in any order. Repeated trials, with different lists of words, showed a predictable effect: The participants tended to remember the words in groups, beginning with one and recalling those that were just before or after.

This pattern, which scientists call the contiguity effect, is similar to what often happens in the card game concentration, in which players try to identify pairs in a row of cards lying face-down. Pairs overturned close are often remembered together. The way the process works, the researchers say, is something like reconstructing a night’s activities after a hangover: remembering a fact (a broken table) recalls a scene (dancing), which in turn brings to mind more facts, like the other people who were there.

Sure enough, the people in the study whose neural (神经) updating signals were strongest showed the most striking pattern of remembering words in groups. “When you activate one memory, you are reactivating a little bit of what was happening around the time the memory was formed, and this process is what gives you that feeling of time travel,” said Dr Michael J. Kahana.

1. What does “contextual memory” refer to according to the text?

A．Memories about the past facts.

B．Unrelated facts linked together.

C．Ideas and feelings around new facts.

D．New facts encoded into brain alone.

2. What is the purpose of studying patients with epilepsy?

A．To track the brain activity of contextual memory.

B．To find the brain activity causing epilepsy.

C．To show the formation of memory.

D．To test the new cure for epilepsy.

3. What do the underlined words “contiguity” mean in paragraph 4?

A．Implication.

B．Similarity.

C．Contrast.

D．Neighborhood.

4. What is paragraph 5 mainly about?

A．The feature of the research method.	B．The category of the research subjects.
C．A brief summary of the research process.	D．A further explanation of the research results.