1 . Self-esteem is the ruling view you have of yourself. This includes your beliefs about your inner qualities and how you think others see you.     1     Someone can develop low self-esteem even when they are highly functional and greatly skilled. Understanding this mysterious emotional currency might be the key to unlocking your own self-worth.

People with healthy self-esteem don't need to boast about themselves to others. People with low self-esteem may tell you how much everyone loves them, what a great job they do at work, and how amazing they are at pretty everything under the sun even though they really wonder if it's true. People may see them as obnoxious or “full of themselves”.     2     They are not shy about sharing ideas, including constructive criticisms of others. They also take care of themselves without second-guessing or apologizing. They are the people who we say seem “sure of themselves”.

If you're starting to think you may have low self-esteem, you can work on the way you talk to yourself. When you turn off negative self-talk, you can open the floor to positive reinforcements and access the courage to show different sides of yourself. It isn't going to feel good at first, though. Keep going until it becomes less and less and maybe even a few awkward laughs in the mirror may help.     3    

However, in serious cases of low or even non-existent self-esteem, you may want to call in a professional or a specialist. Good mental health is important, and professionals doing psychotherapy do not pass judgement or give corrections.     4     It is the best way to get at the roots of your real self-esteem problems.

    5     It will take some work but your entire life — from your relationships to your body image to your work habits — will be touched with the kind of power that only comes from someone believing in themselves. This is the hardest part, and the greatest leap. With some changes and support, you can improve your self-esteem and see how everything else changes as a result.

A．Self-esteem is not always rooted in reality, though.

B．You have the power to shape a new self-perception.

C．This encourages you to speak openly without worry.

D．The real test of character is whether they can learn from their mistakes.

E．Self-esteem refers to a person's overall sense of his or her value or worth.

F．People with a healthy level of self-esteem present themselves with a casual confidence.

G．With some practice and persistence, you will win this internal struggle to see your self-worth.

2 . The Science of Recreational Fear

From peek-a-boo to Halloween haunted houses, research shows that recreational fear can teach us to face scary situations. The “paradox of horror” is that being scared, under the right circumstances, can be fun.     1    

Having fun with fear is an “extremely important tool for learning,” said Mathias Clasen, director of the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark. “We learn something about the dangers of the world. We learn something about our own responses: What does it feel like to be afraid? How much fear can I take?”

Horror movies have gotten more popular. And in one survey of more than 1,000 Americans, conducted by Clasen, 55% described themselves as horror fans.     2     Many people who would not consider themselves fans of fear enjoy true-crime podcasts and novels featuring violence and murder. Others may enjoy nature documentaries about top predators (捕食性动物) such as sharks and bears.

Even babies like being a little spooked (惊的). Peek-a-boo is “an infant jump scare,” Clasen said.     3     “I don’t think I’ve yet come across a person who did not enjoy some kind of recreational fear,” he said.

    4     It is a combination of an adrenaline (肾上腺素) rush and an opportunity to learn about dealing with scary situations in a safe environment, researchers say. When we are afraid, our endocrine system releases adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol to help prepare our body for physical action. We know the “Halloween” movie Michael Myers is not real, but our brain still responds as if he were a burning threat. One brain imaging study found that watching horror movies activates threat-response brain regions such as the amygdala (扁桃腺), prefrontal cortex and insula as if the danger were real.

After this rush, many people experience an uplifted mood. One study examined how 262 adults felt before and after they entered an extreme haunted house.     5     Brain recordings before and after showed that those whose mood improved had a smaller neural response to subsequent stressors, which is associated with the post-haunt high.

A．So why do we like it?

B．Fifty percent of people said they felt better after the visit.

C．And recreational fear, as it is rightly named, could benefit us, too.

D．Playing with fear helps us learn what our body does under pressure.

E．Horror, though, is not the only genre of what people find scary fun, he said.

F．We define recreational fear broadly as a mixed emotional experience of fear and enjoyment.

G．Classic childhood games of tag and hide-and-seek are just like the real scenes of predator vs. prey.

3 . 阅读下列短文，根据短文内容填空，在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

“Conventional wisdom tells us that we can feel happier if we smile or that we can get ourselves     1     a more serious mood if we scowl(怒视),” said Nicholas Coles, a PhD at Utah University. His team combined data from 138 studies testing more than 11,000 participants and found facial     2    (express) do have impact on feelings. For example, smiling makes people happier, scowling makes them feel angrier, and frowning makes them     3    (sad). These finding are exciting because they provide a clue about how the mind and body interact     4    (influence) our conscious experience of emotion.

4 . If you are of the “no regrets” school of life, you might think that all this regret is a recipe for unhappiness. But that isn’t the case. True, letting yourself be overwhelmed by regret is indeed bad for you. But going to the other extreme may be even worse. To extinguish your regrets doesn’t free you from shame or sorrow; it consigns you to make the same mistakes again and again. To truly get over our guilt requires that we put regret in its proper place.

As uncomfortable as it is, regret is an amazing cognitive feat. It requires that you go back to a past scenario, imagine that you acted differently to change it, and with that new scenario in mind, arrive at a different present — and then, compare that fictional present with the one you are experiencing in reality.     1     You would remember your own pettiness and irritability, and then imagine yourself showing more patience, being kind instead of hurtful at key moments. Then you would fast-forward to today and see how your relationship could be flourishing instead of languishing.

    2     Pink says they come in four basic varieties, and an instance of regret may involve just one or a combination. Wishing you’d been kinder to your partner is an example of a connection regret, in which you lament behavior that harmed an important relationship, such as spoiling a romance or neglecting your bond with relatives before they died.

Many connection regrets overlap with moral regrets, which can come about after you violate your own values. For example, you may pride yourself on being a loving person, and thus regret not living up to this image in the relationship you harmed. Moral regrets can also involve just yourself.     3    

Pink’s other two categories of regrets involve life choices. Foundation regrets are those in which you did something that affected the course of your life in a way you don’t like. A classic example is wishing you had stayed in school.     4    . They are all about inaction and forgone opportunities. This is what you feel when you kick yourself for not taking a chance, as in wishing you had just gone up to that attractive person and introduced yourself.

    5     Regret is implicated in depression and anxiety, and excessive regret can adversely affect your hormones and immune system. In 2013, researchers asked one group of participants in an experiment to describe “your most burdensome regret” right before going to bed; this group took 61 percent longer to get to sleep than a group told to think about a typical day.

But regret doesn’t have to be left unmanaged. The trick is not to remove the bad feeling; it’s to acknowledge it and use it for learning and improvement. Instead of letting the specter of your failed relationship make you miserable, by simply wishing it had tuned out differently you can be honest with yourself about what went wrong and use that knowledge to enjoy better relationships in the future.

A．Not all regrets are the same of course.

B．Meanwhile, boldness regrets are the opposite.

C．Regret may hurt, but obsessing over them is destructive.

D．Your regret can teach you to become smarter and more successful — if you let it.

E．Unanalyzed and unmanaged, any variety of regret can be poison for your well-being.

F．Maybe you regret not living up to your commitment to your health when you ate a whole pizza or skipped the gym.

G．For example, if today your relationship with your partner has soured, your regret might mentally take you back to last year.

5 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Crying is a natural response to emotions. Regardless of     1     causes the tears to flow, the physical reaction is usually the same with puffy cheeks and tight eyes     2     (lead) to streaming tears down one’s face. Despite its stigma (污名), crying can be an act     3     relieves tension and clears feelings of negativity and sadness. Crying can communicate our emotions to others and foster greater understanding and compassion. Ultimately, crying is a powerful tool we ought to use to free ourselves     4     negativity.

6 . How We Talk about Fear Matters

Lately, there seems to be plenty to fear in the world. How we talk about what we fear might offer clues to how we perceive that emotion socially and culturally.

Get the root of fear.

    1    . In Anglo Saxon times, “fear” primarily referred to sudden danger. The root of the word dates back to “pēr” from Indo-European about 6,000 years ago. This root suggests that fear developed from a sudden (frightening) experience you passed through.

Figure out the emotional meaning of fear.

Whether emotions are viewed positively or negatively varies from culture to culture.    2     . For instance, in English, the word “anxious” can be used to mean “worried” or “eager”. But the word meaning “anxious” just means “regret” in Dargwa. Therefore, many English speakers may not view anxiety as negatively as Dargwa speakers.

Find out a fearful pattern.

In looking at such patterns across the major language families, researchers found that the word “fear” was often associated with anxiety, envy and grief in Indo-European languages. But in Austronesian languages, “fear” more often was associated with surprise.     3     .

    4    

How we talk about fear changes how we react to it. When we talk about what frightens us, it may be useful to disrupt associated meanings. In addition, how our language categorizes an emotion seems to impact whether we perceive those emotions negatively or positively.

In conclusion, fear is something that can be changed by cultural and linguistic experience.    5     . Perhaps Roosevelt was right when he in famously said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

A．Talk more about fears

B．Change our perception of fear

C．The word fear has a long history in English

D．There seemed a fearful pattern across the major language families

E．This is based on what people have learned to associate with emotion words

F．It opens the door to potential ways to change how we talk about and react to it

G．This makes speakers of the latter languages associate this emotion with a less negative sense

7 . Expressive writing or journaling is one way to help you heal from trauma (创伤).    1    . It can help you process what you’ve been through and assist you as you envision a path forward.

Why does a writing intervention work?    2    In fact, narrating the story of an ongoing anxiety “frees up” cognitive resources. When you write down the emotions associated with a traumatic experience, you may be changing the way it is organized in the brain. You are then able to detach from the emotion, making it easier for you to talk about and process the event.

However, for most people, the thought of acknowledging emotions and admitting that there’s something wrong with us is difficult. This is because expressing emotions can bring up feelings of guilt and shame.    3    That is what sets journaling apart. This is between you and your journal — you don’t have to share it with anyone unless, of course, you choose to.

If you’re interested in trying out writing as a tool for healing, start your writing by setting a timer for ten minutes.    4    Think of one object in your home that signifies a moment for you. See it in full color. Feel the weight of it. Use all your senses. Now, write about that object and see how large its meaning can become.

    5    How you heal from trauma can be different from person to person as well. It all depends on what works best for you. Remember, one size does not fit all. Writing may not work for everyone, but you won’t know if you don’t try.

A．Despite that, expressive writing remains an accessible tool.

B．Of course, expressive writing is hardly a panacea (灵丹妙药).

C．Also, seeking help for emotional stress is often seen as a sign of weakness.

D．It may seem abnormal that writing about negative experiences has a positive effect.

E．Once you have a better handle on your problems, you can move forward and get on with life.

F．It is writing from your heart and mind and about the emotion associated with a certain event.

G．Let your mind go to the detailed, specific moments to get to the feelings and truth of your experience.

8 . Finland was known as a rather quiet country. Since 2008, the Country Brand Delegation (国家品牌代表团) has been looking for a national brand that would make some noise to market the country as a world-famous tourist destination. In 2010, the Delegation issued a “Country Brand Report,” which highlighted a host of marketable themes, including Finland’s famous educational system. One key theme was brand new: silence. As the report explained, modern society often seems intolerably loud and busy. “Silence is a resource,” it said.

Silence first appeared in scientific research as a control or baseline, against which scientists compare the effects of noise or music. Researchers have mainly studied it by accident, as physician Luciano Bernardi did in his study of the physiological (生理学) effects of music. “We didn’t think about the effect of silence,” he said. Bernardi observed two dozen test subjects while they listened to six musical tracks. He found that the impacts of music could be read directly in the bloodstream, via changes in blood pressure, carbon dioxide, and circulation in the brain. “During almost all sorts of music, there was a physiological change with a condition of arousal (兴奋),” he explained.

This effect made sense, given that active listening requires attention. But the more striking finding appeared between musical tracks. Bernardi and his colleagues discovered that randomly added stretches of silence also had a great effect, but in the opposite direction. In fact, two-minute silent pauses proved far more relaxing than either “relaxing” music or a longer silence played before the experiment started. The blank pauses that Bernardi had considered irrelevant, in other words, became the most interesting object of study. Silence seemed to be heightened by contrasts, maybe because it gave test subjects a release from careful attention. “Perhaps the arousal is something that concentrates the mind in one direction, so that when there is nothing more arousing, then you have deeper relaxation,” he said.

This finding is reinforced by neurological (神经系统的) research. Relevant research shows when our brains rest quietly, they integrate external and internal information into “a conscious (意识的) workspace.” Freedom from noise and goal-directed tasks, it appears, unites the quiet without and within, allowing our conscious workspace to do its thing to discover where we fit in.

Noora Vikman, a consultant on silence for Finland’s marketers, knows silence well. Living in a remote and quiet place in Finland, she discovers thoughts and feelings that aren’t detectable in her busy daily life. “If you want to know yourself, you have to be with yourself, and discuss with yourself, and be able to talk with yourself.”

1. Why does the author mention the Country Brand Report in Paragraph 1?

A．To present how Finland viewed silence.

B．To highlight the need of noise in Finland.

C．To explain why Finland issued the brands.

D．To indicate the authority of the Delegation.

2. What can be inferred about Luciano Bernardi’s discovery?

A．It challenged the calming effect of music.

B．It emphasized the role of silence between sounds.

C．It illustrated the loss of attentiveness after silence.

D．It stated brains’ information processing in the quiet.

3. As for Noora Vikman’s attitude to silence, the author is ________.

A．doubtful

B．supportive

C．disapproving

D．unconcerned

4. Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．Silence: A Limited Resource	B．Silence: A Misunderstood Tool
C．Silence: The Unexpected Power	D．Silence: The Value by Contrasts

9 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写 1 个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Gratitude is more than just saying “thank you”. Gratitude is a deeper appreciation for someone or something. Expressing gratitude makes us feel a positive emotion. Over the past thirty years, there    1     (be) many studies showing that writing a gratitude letter to another person offers us an opportunity    2     (escape) from negative emotions. Even if we don’t share our writing with anyone, the act of completing the exercise alone makes us happier and    3     (satisfied) with life. The more we express gratitude, the more positive we feel.

10 . Have you ever bought a new car and started noticing the exact color and model of car everywhere? Has that type of car just become popular in your city? Were they there before? Or are you just going crazy?

You’re not going crazy. The reason you are now just noticing them is what psychologists call “priming”. Basically, the cars were always there. You just didn’t recognize them consciously. However, when that certain model of car becomes part of your conscious thinking, you start “automatically” recognizing all of the other cars that are the same, because you are already “primed” to do so.

The priming effect takes many forms. In one study, students were asked to walk around a room for 5 minutes at a rate of 30 steps per minute, which was about one-third their normal pace. After this brief experience, the participants were much quicker to recognize words related to old age, such as forgetful, old, and lonely. Reciprocal priming effects tend to produce a coherent reaction: if you are primed to think of old age, you would tend to act old, and acting old would reinforce the thought of old age. This research shows that the way we think influences the way we act, and the way we act influences the way we think.

A similar conclusion was reached by the American psychologist William James a century ago, but he emphasized the effect on feeling. “Actions seem to follow feeling, but really actions and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Thus the path to cheerfulness, should our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.”

So, that’s it. If you want to be happy, just sit up and act happy. Based on these scientific findings, we can adopt certain priming effects to help make ourselves consistently happier.

One thing we have in common is our ability to think, and thus feel. Pleasant thoughts have been proven to produce the chemicals that make us feel happy, particularly thoughts and feelings of gratitude. When we purposefully go through and think about the things we’re grateful for and deliberately feel as much gratitude as we can, we are flooding our mind with the “happy chemicals”. Furthermore, by consciously thinking, feeling and expressing gratitude, we will not only be happier in the moment, we will be “primed” to recognize the things in our life to appreciate. Each time this happens, the “happy chemicals” will be produced. Do this every day and we will become consistently happier. This makes up for the momentary happiness we gain from eating chocolate or buying new clothes. More than that, combining thoughts of gratitude with happy acts like smiling and laughing will have a supplementary positive effect on our state of mind.

1. Which of the following is an example of the priming effect?

A．Walking much faster after attending a lecture about old age.

B．Donating money to the poor after seeing pictures of cute cats.

C．Learning about various types of cars after purchasing the first car.

D．Completing SO_P as SOUP rather than SOAP after seeing the word EAT.

2. What does the underlined word “reciprocal” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Related.

B．Two-way.

C．Well-rounded.

D．Opposite.

3. What will the author probably agree with?

A．Eating or shopping leads to consistent feelings of happiness.

B．Our will has greater control over emotions than over actions.

C．Happy chemicals make us think about the things we’re grateful for.

D．Practicing gratitude frequently prepares us for long-term happiness.

4. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A．Prime Yourself to Be Happier

B．Share Happiness to Enhance Wellbeing

C．Why Gratitude Is Important in Psychology

D．How Happy Chemicals Affect People’s Thoughts