1 . Most of us believe that we go to college in order to be educated, and be ________ to our society when we complete our studies. ________ this is true, but there is more to it than that. We go to college not only to learn knowledge, but to ________ ourselves for the real world, for college is a society in miniature (微型复制品). Thus, it teaches us how to ________ relationships between different kinds of people later. College life provides many opportunities, which can help us better ________ the real world. College education also ________ a student to develop a mind that is able to think clearly and critically

While we are at college, we should communicate with our ________ as possible. They are as human as we are but with a wider range of knowledge than we do, which can help ________ our secret little problems. As a result, they can help us in more ways than just teaching us school ________.

Some of us tend to go to extremes (极端). We are either too fond of studies and become bookworms or too ________ in after-school activities. The former kinds of students,________ are star pupils at college but not likely to be successful in their career because they ________ the knowledge of real human beings and their range of interests is too ________ . The latter.________ they lack the basic knowledge of science and humanities, are not likely to succeed, either. Thus we must follow the middle ________ between these two extremes.

3 . Inconvenient Truths

If doctors lie, it is surely inexcusable. One of the basic_________ the public have of doctors is honesty. But what would you think if I told you that research has shown that 70 per cent of doctors   _________ to lying to their patients? If I am honest, I have told lies to my patients.

Mrs Walton was in her eighties and _________ to see her husband. She would try to get up to find him, despite being at risk of falling. “He’s on his way, don’t worry,” the nurses would say this to calm her down. I said the same thing to her. But it was a lie. He died two years ago. The truth, if I can use that word, is that it is a _________ to lie sometimes.

Mrs Walton is one of the dementia (痴呆) sufferers, who lose their short-term memory and the memory of_________ events, but hold memories from the distant past. Sufferers are trapped forever in a confusing past that many realize bears little   _________ to the present, but are at a loss to explain. Those with dementia often feel upset, scared and confused that they are in a strange place, _________ by strange people, even when they are in their own homes with their family, because they have gone back to decades ago.

They look at their adult children   _________ and wonder who they could be because they think their children are still little kids. I have had countless families break down in tears, not knowing how to react as their loved one moves further away from them back into their distant past and they are   _________ in the present. And how, as the doctor or nurse caring for these patients, does one manage the anger and outbursts of distress that comes with having no   __________ of your life for the past ten or 20 years? The lies that doctors, nurses and families tell these patients are not big, elaborate lies — they are   __________ comforts intended to calm and allow the subject to be swiftly changed.

__________ with them about this false reality is not heartless or unprofessional — it is actually kind. That’s not to say that lying to patients with dementia__________ is right or defensible. But what kind-hearted person would put another human being through the unimaginable pain of learning, ________ again and again, that they have lost their beloved ones. It would be an unthinkable cruelness.

Sometimes honesty is __________ not the best policy.

4 . Research has shown that two-thirds of human conversation is taken up not with discussion of the cultural or political problems of the day, not heated debates about films we’ve just watched or books we’ve just finished reading, but plain and simple _________.

Language is our greatest treasure as a species, and what do we _________ do with it? We gossip. About others’ behaviour and private lives, such as who’s doing what with whom, who’s in and who’s out—and why; how to deal with difficult _________ situations involving children, lovers, and colleagues.

So why are we keen on gossiping? Are we just natural _________, of both time and words? Or do we talk a lot about nothing in particular simply to avoid facing up to the really important issues of life? It’s not the case according to Professor Robin Dunbar. In fact, in his latest book, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, the psychologist says gossip is one of these really _________ issues.

Dunbar _________ the traditional view that language was developed by the men at the early stage of social development in order to organize their manly hunting activities more effectively, or even to promote the exchange of poetic stories about their origins and the supernatural. Instead he suggests that language evolved among women. We don’t spend two-thirds of our time gossiping just because we can talk, argues Dunbar—_________, he goes on to say, language evolved specifically to allow us to gossip.

Dunbar arrived at his cheery theory by studying the _________ of the higher primates(灵长类动物) like monkeys. By means of grooming—cleaning the fur by brushing it, monkeys form groups with other individuals on whom they can rely for support in the event of some kind of conflict within the group or _________ from outside it.

As we human beings evolve from a particular branch of the primate family, Dunbar __________ that at one time in our history we did much the same. Grouping together made sense because the bigger the group, the greater the __________ it provided; on the other hand, the bigger the group, the greater the stresses of living close to others. Grooming helped to __________ the pressure and calm everybody down.

But as the groups got bigger and bigger, the amount of time spent in grooming activities also had to be __________ to maintain its effectiveness. Clearly, a more __________ kind of grooming was needed, and thus language evolved as a kind of vocal grooming which allowed humans to develop relationship with ever-larger groups by exchanging information over a wider network of individuals than would be possible by one-to-one __________ contact.

6 . Warning: Don’t make big decisions from high elevations

You definitely don’t want to have your head in the clouds when making a crucial financial decision. But who could have thought our decisions are literally influenced by altitude?

As in, what floor you happen to be on when considering something. If it’s a high elevation, like the top floor of an office tower, chances are you’ll embrace ______ a little more than you would on the ground floor, according to researchers from Miami University. The study, published this month in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, suggests you may want a(n) ______ advisor to work from a ground-floor office rather than the top floor. And it gives new, literal ______ to the idea that you should stay grounded when making big decisions. “When you increase elevation, there is a(n) ______ effect on the sense of power,” lead author Sina Esteky, PhD, noted in a release. “This heighted feeling of power ______ in more risk-seeking behavior.”

For the study, Esteky’s team interviewed people as they were ascending and descending in the glass elevator of a tall building. They found the ______ of the elevator strongly influenced the level of risk-aversion among participants. They were more likely, ______, to take more gambles on the way to the 74th floor—but their decisions became far more grounded as they neared, well, the ground.

Another experiment ______ people who were either on the ground floor or the third floor of a university building. Each group was asked to make 10 decisions of ______ risk levels. Guess which group made the most risky decisions? What was it about higher elevations that made the participants feel braver? Researchers theorized it could have something to do with the perception that elevation gives people a(n) ______ of power and authority.

Risk seems a lot smaller when seen from above — literally. That idea seemed to hold ______ in further experiments. When participants were told their decisions were being influenced by elevation, the effect ______ disappeared. Likewise, “elevation effect” wasn’t a factor for people mired in cubicles (困在隔间里) who couldn’t see how high up they were.

“The important lesson is that when people become aware of the ______ impact of elevation, it doesn’t happen anymore,” Esteky says. ‘The brain is very sensitive to subtle ______ factors, but also really good at correcting for such effects, so ______ can help us be more rational in our decisions.”

8 . What’s so bad about processed foods?

Processed foods like chips, soda and frozen pizzas are full of salt, sugar and fat. Now scientists are trying to understand if there is something else about such foods that may be bad for humans. Already, the spread of cheap, _________ foods has been linked to rising obesity rates around the world. Three recent studies offer more _________ on how our increaingly industrialized food supply may be affecting our health.

The researchers came up with a system that groups foods into four categories. The system says highly processed foods are made _________ of industrialized ingredients and additives. Sodas, instant noodles and chicken nuggets are some examples of highly processed foods. But also included are products that can _________ beneficial to health, such as morning cereals, energy bars and some kinds of yogurt.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health conducted a four-week study involving 20 people. They found that people eat about 500 more calories a day when _________ mostly processed food. That is compared with when the same people were given _________ processed foods. The researchers permitted the 20 participants to eat as much or as little as they wanted. They were taken to a medical center so their health and behavior could be _________.

In another study, researchers in France found people who ate more processed foods were more likely to have heart disease. A similar study in Spain linked eating more processed foods to a higher risk of death _________.

When given less processed foods, people in the study __________ more of a hormones that suppressed appetite, and less of a hormone that causes hunger. The reason for the __________ is not clear. The scientists also found that people ate processed foods faster.

Kevin Hall is one of the researchers who led the study. He told the AP that processed foods __________ be softer and easier to chew and swallow. Hall noted the source of nutrients might __________. Fiber from whole fruits and vegetables, for instance, may be better for making people feel full than the types of fiber added to packaged foods such as energy bars and yogurt.

Limiting processed foods can be hard, especially for people with limited time and energy. “What __________ me is when the message is, ‘Change the way we eat,’ without thinking about why people eat the way they eat,” said Sarah Bowen, a professor who studies food and inequality.

Another challenge is the broad range of processed foods, and __________ which ones might be better or worse as companies continually re-engineer products to mislead consumers. So while the newest studies may give us more reasons to avoid industrialized foods, they also underlie the difficulty of coming up with solutions.

9 . Did you ever have to say “no” to somebody? Such as a classmate asking to have breakfast with you? New research suggests that, at least socially, a rejection shouldn’t include an —___________. In other words, saying you are sorry doesn’t make the person being rejected feel any better. ___________, it might make the rejected person feel worse. That is ___________.Many people consider it to be good manners to say they are sorry when they ___________ a request.

Gili Freedman is doing some related research at Dartmouth College. For her research, she asked over 1,000 people to respond to different ___________ of social rejection. In one instance, the researchers asked people for their ___________ after a person named Taylor asked to join a co-worker who went out to lunch every Friday. And Taylor was told “no”. But in some cases, the person rejecting Taylor ___________ an apology. In other cases, the people doing the rejection did not say they were ___________. People were asked how they would ___________ if they were being turned down, just as Taylor was. Most said they would be more ___________ by a rejection with an apology than a rejection without an apology.

Gili Freedman said the reason is that apologies make people feel like that the rejection was ___________ — even when they felt-like it was not okay. Rejection without an apology lets them express their feelings of ___________, hurt or anger more easily. Freedman also said that an apology often makes the person ___________ feel better — even as it makes the person being rejected feel worse.

However, her research deals only with ___________ communication. A business situation might be very ___________. “If a manager rejects a job interviewee or a boss must tell an employee that he or she is being fired from a job,” Freedman said, “reactions to apologies maybe another case.”

10 . Procrastination (拖延) is one of the world’s worst time: You have so much that you need to do, but when it comes to actually sitting down and getting it done, it seems basically _______. But what if I told you that the _______of procrastination, a phenomenon called pre-crastination, could be just as bad? A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania recently dealt with the topic of pre-crastination — and it turns out that it could be a huge problem for many of us.

If you’re wondering how the contrary of procrastination could be a _______ thing, it’s because it means we’re completing tasks just in order to_______ them. Pre-crastination refers to the desire to do things _______, but only to ease the anxiety over leaving a particular task undone.

_______, imagine that you have to respond to an email. In your _______ to get the email out of your inbox, you make a bunch of spelling and grammar errors in your response because you typed it out so quickly. That would be a situation of pre-crastination. I know that in my own life, I like to _______ the easy tasks on my to-do list first, since they can be checked off more quickly, making me feel a lot more accomplished in the process. I just thought I was _______, but I now know that this is an action of pre-crastinating the easy tasks so I could say I got them done, while at the same time procrastinating the more ________ tasks I left at the bottom of my list.

The discovery of pre-crastination leads to all kinds of questions about________ and productivity. Now it seems that we have to not only worry about ________ things unnecessarily, but also doing things too fast or completing easy tasks so that we can get them done.

The researchers mentioned this in their article, published in Scientific American, in which they advise ________ procrastination and pre-crastination by dividing your large tasks into smaller ones. That way, you can finish seemingly difficult tasks, but also avoid completing all of the simple ones________. I know that I’ll definitely be more careful when it comes to how I ________ my to-do list from now on.