你是否认同下列说法：Playing a game is fun only when you win. 请结合生活中的实例来说明你的观点。
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What We Should Know about Honey
The process that produces honey may have helped form humans too. Scientists believe that wild hives full of honey provided the calories that early humans such as Homo erectus (直立人), walking in Africa , needed to develop their brains into those of modern humans. That puts honey in a class with fire, tool use, and hunting as a key ingredient in the evolution of human beings.
With time, those evolved brains learned to domesticate bees to produce honey in a farmed setting. Today’s beekeepers support large-scale industrial farms, which would be unable to grow their crops without hiring traveling groups of bees to come pollinate (授粉) their vast, single-species fields. The bees will endlessly fill the towers of combs put onto their hives by the beekeeper, who then collects the extra honey for human consumption while still leaving the bees all they need to eat.
Today, the average American consumes nearly a pound and a half of honey every year, in tea, on toast, and beyond. Honey is a timeless treasure. Literally—it never goes bad. Samples nearly 3,000 years old found in the Egyptian pyramids are as eatable as the day they were entombed. Its anti-microbial nature also makes honey an excellent cure for wounds, keeping infection out while holding in the moisture that skin needs to heal.
However, bees’ good health is not guaranteed. U.S. beekeepers lose about 40 percent of their hives annually to colony collapse disorder. The problem lies in the growth of industrial agriculture and pesticide use, as well as changes in weather patterns, all of which reduce the number of flowers bees have to visit. If bees continue to die, apples and peaches (along with any crop that relies on their pollination) will become scarcer and pricier. As will honey.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Picture this: you’re out to dinner with a friend who you know makes a lot more money than you do. When you open the menu, your heart sinks. There’s not a dish in sight that is less than $35, and even a soup is going to run you $18. You probably vow (发誓) to stick to dollar pizza slices the rest of the month to balance out this dinner. However, this time, what if you just turned to your friend, closed the menu, and said, “Sorry, I have to be honest. I can’t afford this. Let’s go somewhere else?” That’s the idea behind “loud budgeting”, a trend that could not only relieve you of the financial burden, but help you deal with these sorts of stressful situations both mentally and emotionally.
The term was first introduced by TikTok (抖音) comedian Lukas Battle. Battle explained his concept in an interview: simply put, loud budgeting is being honest about what you do and don’t want to spend money on.
It’s not just a TikTok thing though. Even those in the financial services industry are on board with the trend. Nikolina Cuca, a financial advisor, says that she’s seen social media add pressure to her clients, causing them to spend beyond their means on luxury items. “There should be no shame about trying to match your spending to your means. This trend helps young people moderate spending by normalizing the idea of living within budgets.”
Beyond just saving money, loud budgeting is also bringing people closer. Honest money talks lead to greater respect among friends and family. By openly discussing money goals, people are creating stronger bonds based on mutual understanding for each other’s financial situations.
As more people adopt this approach, it is likely to stay a big part of how we handle money in the future.
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Before you head out to a run event where there will be many people, you should be aware of the dangers of a crowd crush.
Though the risk of crowd crush is rare, it can be deadly when it happens. Crowd crush occurs when many people are packed together and begin to fall over one another. In the past, such instances have caused horrible injury and even death. To avoid such a fate, it’s best to escape the crush before it happens.
Before attending a crowded event, look up a map of the venue. This will give you an idea of the surroundings - pay special attention to any exits. Once you arrive, choosing the right spot can be crucial. Avoid the middle or front; instead, pick the back or edges of a crowd. It’s also important to trust your feelings. Stay aware to see if you feel packed in at any point. The more crowded the event becomes, the sooner you may need to retreat to a safe place.
If you do end up in a crush, here’s how you can stay safe. The most important thing you can do is stay on your feet. To do this, spread your feet apart and bend your knees a little. Also make sure to move with the flow of the crowd. Trying to move against a crowd of people will only end in disaster.
Helping others is another great way to keep everyone safe. Once one person falls down, more people tend to fall over them. So if your neighbor in the crowd falls to the ground, help them up.
A common cause of death in a crowd crush isn’t being crushed but rather losing air. It’s best to hold out your arms in front of your chest. This allows space between you and the person in front of you. It also protects your chest and lungs from being crushed on the ground should you fall.
There is usually fun where the crowds are, so enjoy yourself. But remember to stay alert!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Why Willing to Wait?
First it was the fried chicken. Then a variety of fancy milkshakes. No matter what time it is or how bad the streets smell, there are plenty of people waiting in line for hours to get their hands on the food that everyone’s talking about. If you are not the type of person crazy for trendy foods, you probably wonder why someone would like to wait in a long line just to get a taste of a popular cream tea. There is a bit of psychology behind the craze of waiting before getting one’s chopsticks on a trendy food.
People are born curiosity hunters, especially for fresh ideas, according to some experts. At the sight of a long waiting line, they just can’t help having a try. And when the trendy foods are novel in looks and favors, even innovative in their sales environment, the desire for them is upgraded. All those stimulate people to investigate more—to deal with their curiosity.
In addition, having access to something that is sought out but hard to possess equips people with a feeling that improves their self-definitions. When someone is envied due to something he gained with efforts, his self-worth gets enhanced. Although it is yet to be determined whether the number of likes he receives on the photos of foods he’s posted online is connected with the level of envy from on-lookers, that feeling automatically becomes stronger.
Even more, “mob psychology” comes into play: when many people are doing something—waiting in line for the sought-after milkshakes, for instance —others are eager to be part of the group and share such a type of social familiarity, kind of like the natural pursuit of a sense of belonging. Tasting the same wait-worthy food has something in common.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Microplastics: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?
People joke that someone suffering from paranoia (妄想症) sees danger everywhere, thinking someone is out to get him. In the case of microplastics, you don’t need to have paranoia to be worried about them being everywhere, because they basically are!
What exactly are microplastics? They are particles (颗粒) of any type of plastic that are less than 5 millimeters in diameter (直径). They have resulted from the plastic pollution widespread in the world today.
When plastic is exposed to environmental forces, it breaks down into these tiny particles, which, in turn, do not disappear but continue to exist for hundreds or even thousands of years. Every piece of plastic that has ever been made is still on Earth today, except for what has been burned. Often mistaken for food, plastics and microplastics in oceans and on beaches are often consumed by marine animals, which is harmful. Research has linked microplastics to cancer and other problems in animals.
Whatever you think about these particles, taking them in is easier than you think. When you heat food in a plastic dish in the microwave, microplastics get into your food. The water from a plastic water bottle contains the particles as well. After taking surveys of microplastics in air, water and seafood, scientists estimate that people may easily be eating 5 grams of plastic a week. Researchers don’t know yet if or how this will affect humans. Microplastics have been found in human tissue samples, and no one yet knows how long they stay in the human body or what problems may arise.
Not until the amount of plastic waste in the world is reduced will microplastics decrease. So, while the evidence is still missing of the effect microplastics have on people’s health, reusing and recycling plastic is a no-brainer.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Why Ear-worms Get Stuck in Your Head
We all get a sensation when a song, for no apparent reason, refuses to leave your head — in fact we’re no strangers to the dreaded “ear-worm.” But a new study published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts reveals a fascinating insight into ear-worms, and why some songs are better than others in sticking in our heads by investigating the actual elements of the song that make it catchy in the first place.
To do this, most frequent ear-worms of the participants were entered into a database and compared to songs that had never been reported as an ear-worm at all. The melodic features of the tunes were then analyzed, revealing that ear-worm tunes were typically those songs that have overall melodic shapes common in Western pop music. A classic example of a common contour (音调的升降曲线) pattern is heard in Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, where the first phrase rises in pitch and the second falls. This makes the tune easy to remember and has been exploited in many other nursery rhymes, but also in pop music.
In addition to the melodic shape, the other ingredient to the ear-worm formula is the unusual interval structure. The aim of this is to surpass the listener’s expectations of an average pop song, showing unexpected leaps or more repeated notes than usual. “Our findings show that you can, to some extent, predict which songs are going to get stuck in people’s heads based on the song’s melodic content,” says one of the researchers, “This could help song-writers or advertisers write a jingle (短歌) everyone will remember for days or months afterwards.”
The authors conclude that studies of ear-worms can help explain how the brain works, and improve our understanding in how perception, emotions, memory and spontaneous thoughts behave in different people.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________假设你是明启中学的学生吴磊，你在英语一考中取得了118分的成绩，现在你正面临着是否参加6月份二考的选择，请谈谈你的想法。内容需包括：
1）说明你的选择；
2）阐述你的理由。
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The ingredients of love
In modern times, finding love seems more central to people’s lives. Then, researchers wonder, can love, a highly valued emotional state, be created?
To help determine the ingredients of attraction, one research paired 164 college classmates and had them talk for 3, 6 or 10 minutes to get a sense of each other’s individuality. Then students were asked to predict what kind of relationship they might build with their partners. After nine weeks, they reported what happened. Reports showed their initial judgments often held true. All these students seemed to distinguish at an early stage who would best fit into their lives.
Scientists have also turned to nonhumans to increase understanding of attraction. Many animals give off pheromones — natural chemicals that can be detected by, and then can produce a response in, other animals of the same species. Pheromones can signal that an animal is either ready to fight or is feeling open to partnerships. In contrast, humans do not seem to be as gifted as other animals at detecting such chemicals. Smell, however, does seem to play a part in human attraction. Although we may not be aware of chemicals like pheromones consciously, we give and receive loads of information through smell in every interaction with other people.
Being fond of someone seems to have a number of factors, including seeing something we find attractive. Researchers had people judge faces for attractiveness. The participants had 0.013 seconds to view each face, yet somehow they generally considered the images the same as people who had more time to study the same faces. The way we assess attractiveness seems to be somewhat automatic. When shown an attractive face and then words with good or bad associations, people responded to positive words faster after viewing an attractive face. Seeing something attractive seems to cause happy thinking.
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