1 . High school life, especially in the senior year, is a rollercoaster of emotions filled with challenges and pressures. The constant demand for academic excellence, combined with the expections of college applications, and managing extracurricular (课外的) activities can lead even the best students to feel the weight of stress. However, it’s not only possible but essential to find moments of joy and strategies to reduce the pressure efficiently.

Understanding the nature of stress is the primary step. Stress isn’t just a state of mental unrest; it’s a physiological response.     1     The body notices any form of demand, challenge, or threat and reacts by preparing for a “fight-or-flight” response. This is an ancient survival process that equips us to deal with threats, whether they’re a challenging exam or a physical danger.

Interestingly, not all stress is harmful. We often overlook the distinction of different stress. Acute (急性的) stress, in contrast to the chronic (长期的), can act as a force.     2     It pushes us to our limits, motivates us to meet deadlines, and often results in that rewarding feeling of accomplishment.

However, long exposure to stress leads to chronic stress. This kind of stress, if left unchecked, can cause various health issues ranging from mental health problems like anxiety and depression to physical ailments like high blood pressure and even heart diseases.

To reduce the effects of stress, mindfulness and meditation have proven effective. Even on a busy day, sparing just a few moments to focus on one’s breathing or practicing guided meditation can significantly reduce stress levels.     3     These practices help in grounding an individual, bringing a momentary escape from the chaos (混乱).

Pursuing hobbies or activities that one is passionate about can also be a good way. Whether it’s painting, reading, playing a musical instrument, or engaging in sports, these activities not only divert the mind but also release endorphins, the body’s natural mood lifters.

Another aspect is communication.     4     Sharing burdens, discussing worries, or just talking about one’s day can offer a fresh perspective and often lightens the load. Schools offer services, and there are numerous helplines available to assist students in distress.

So, with the weight of expectations, deadlines, and too many responsibilities, remember to prioritize mental well-being.     5     Every individual deserves moments of relaxation and happiness.

2 . In the annals of human history, few subjects have generated as much excitement, debate, and guess as artificial intelligence (AI). This revolutionary technology, which enables machines to perform tasks that once required human intelligence, has the potential to transform every part of our society, from healthcare and finance to transportation and entertainment.

At its heart, AI is all about data. Massive amounts of data are fed into algorithms that learn from this data, allowing them to make predictions, recognize patterns, and even make decisions. This “machine learning” is the driving force behind many of the AI applications we see today, from virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa to more advanced systems like IBM’s Watson, which can analyze vast amounts of information to assist doctors in diagnosing diseases.

The transformative potential of AI is undeniable. In the medical field, for instance, AI can assist in early detection of diseases, predict patient outcomes, and even suggest treatment options. In finance, algorithms can predict stock market trends, and provide personalized financial advice. In transportation, self-driving cars equipped with AI systems promise to reduce accidents, ease traffic jams, and transform urban landscapes.

However, with great potential comes great responsibility. The rise of AI has caused debates about is ethical implications (道德含义). The machines are only as good as the data they are fed, and there’s a growing concern about biases (偏见) being built into AI systems. For instance, facial recognition technologies, used in everything from unlocking phones to police monitoring cameras, have come under check for misidentifying individuals based on race or gender.

Moreover, the widespread adoption of AI could lead to significant job displacement. While new roles and industries might emerge as a result of AI, it is not sure that these will pay off the jobs lost. This could increase income inequalities and causes difficulties to social systems.

Another major concern is the “black box” nature of AI. Many AI systems operate in ways that even their creators don’t fully understand. This can be problematic, especially in critical applications like healthcare or criminal justice where understanding the logic behind a decision is important.

Then there’s the potential for AI to be weaponized. In the hands of evil actors, AI could be used to spread misinformation, control public opinion, or even engage in internet warfare. The global community must come together to set standards and regulations to prevent such misuse.

On the brighter side, many experts believe that by setting the right frameworks and investing in education and retraining, we can use the power of AI for the greater good. By fostering (促进) a culture of continuous learning and staying abreast (并排的，并肩的) of technological advancements, society can benefit from the promise of AI while avoiding its potential dangers.

In conclusion, artificial intelligence stands as one of the most profound inventions of our time. While it offers vast opportunities, it also poses significant challenges that we, as a society, must welcome. As we stand at this technological crossroads, our choices will determine whether AI serves as a benefit or a harm for humanity.

3 . Supermarkets have long been suffering as one of the thinnest-margined businesses in existence and one of the least-looked-forward-to places to work or visit. For more than a decade, they have been under attack from e-commerce giants, blamed for making Americans fat, and accused of contributing to climate change.

Supermarkets can technically be defined as giants housing 15,000 to 60,000 different products. The revolutionary idea of a self-service grocery, where people could hunt and gather food from aisles rather than asking a clerk to fetch items from behind a counter, first came about in America. There is some debate about which was the very first, but over the years a consensus has built around King Kullen Supermarket, founded in New York in 1930.

For some 300 years, Americans had fed themselves from small stores and public markets. Shopping for food involved mud, noisy chickens, clouds of flies, nasty smells, bargaining, and getting short-changed. The supermarket imitated the Fordist factory, with its emphasis on efficiency and standardization, and reimagined it as a place to buy food. Supermarkets may not feel cutting-edge now, but they were a revolution in distribution at the time. They were such strange marvels that, on her first official state visit to the United States in 1957, Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ insisted on an impromptu (即兴的) tour of a suburban-Maryland Giant Food.

The typical supermarket layout has barely changed over the past 90 years. Most stores open with flowers, fruit and vegetables at the front as a breath of freshness to arouse our appetite. Meanwhile, they keep the milk, eggs, and other daily basics all the way back so you’ll travel through as much of the store as possible, and be tempted along the way.

In the early days, as the supermarket multiplied, so did our suspicion of it. We have long feared that this “revolution in distribution” uses corporate black magic on our appetite. The book The Hidden Persuaders, published in 1957, warned that supermarkets were putting women in a “hypnoidal trance (催眠恍惚状态),” causing them to wander aisles, bumping into boxes and “picking things off shelves at random.”

Do you have trouble finishing your work within a given time? Do you find yourself having to scramble (艰难完成) through your work because time is running out? It is important to manage your time properly.

First, you should write down your tasks on paper. This is to make sure that you do not miss any of them. Having them written down somewhere ensures that you will get the task completed even if you forget about it. Of course, you need to make sure that the task list is always within your sight. Make sure you have a clear view of your tasks. You can write them down in a diary.

After you have written down your tasks, it is time to plan your action. Which tasks need not be completed as urgently How much time are you going to give each task? I suggest that you complete the urgent tasks first, but at the same time, be sure to include some time to take breaks in between. The breaks ensure that you have a moment to run away from stress until you return to continue from where you left off.

Above all, however, don’t procrastinate because it is your number one enemy. Procrastination can also mean that you will not be focused when you do your work. Time is valuable, so do not waste it by procrastinating. Focus on completing the task and get it over once and for all.

5 . Automation (自动化) was a hot topic. Nearly everyone agreed that people would be working less once computers and other kinds of automatic machinery became widespread. For optimists, this was a promise of liberation: At last humanity would be freed from constant toil, and we could all devote our days to more refined pursuits. But others saw a threat: Millions of people would be thrown out of work, and desperate masses would roam the streets. Looking back from 50 years hence, the controversy over automation seems a quaint and curious episode. The dispute was never resolved.

A. J. Hayes, a leader (and no relation to me), wrote in 1964: Automation is not just a new kind of mechanization but a revolutionary force capable of overturning our social order. Whereas mechanization made workers more efficient — and thus more valuable — automation threatens to make them superfluous (过剩的) — and thus without value. The opinions I have cited here represent extreme positions, and there were also many milder views. But I think it’s fair to say that most early students of automation, including both critics and enthusiasts, believed the new technology would lead us into a world where people worked much less.

As for economic consequences, worries about unemployment have certainly not gone away — not with job losses in the current recession approaching 2 million workers in our country alone. But recent job losses are commonly attributed to causes other than automation, such as competition from overseas or a roller-coaster financial system. In any case, the vision of a world where machines do all the work and people stand idly by has simply not come to pass.

The spread of automation outside of the factory has altered its social and economic impact in some curious ways. In many cases, the net effect of automation is not that machines are doing work that people used to do. Instead we’ve dispensed with the people who used to be paid to run the machines, and we’ve learned to run them ourselves. These trends contradict almost all the expectations of early writers on automation, both optimists and pessimists. So far, automation has neither liberated us from the need to work nor deprived (剥夺) us of the opportunity to work. Instead, we’re working more than ever.

What about trades closer to my own vital interests? Will science be automated? Technology already has a central role in many areas of research; for example, genome sequences could not be read by traditional lab-bench methods. Replacing the scientist will presumably be a little harder than replacing the lab technician, but when a machine exhibits enough curiosity and tenacity, I think we’ll just have to welcome it as a companion in zealous research. And if the scientist is elbowed aside by an automaton, then surely the science writer can’t hold out either. I’m ready for my 15-hour workweek.

After 15 years of working to raise climate urgency, I’ve concluded     1     the public and world leaders underestimate how rapid, serious climate and ecological breakdown will be if humanity fails     2    (organize). There may only be five years     3    (leave) before humanity expends the remaining “carbon budget” to stay under 1.5℃ of     4    (globe) heating. And there may only be five years before the Amazon rainforest and a large Antarctic ice sheet pass irreversible points.