1 . “Anxiety.” The very word invites discomfort. Its effects—shortness of breath, pounding heart, muscle tension—are outright upsetting. But, as a clinician, I find that we tend to miss out on many valuable opportunities presented by this human emotion. In and of itself, anxiety is not deadly, nor is it a disease. Quite the contrary: it is an indicator of brain and sensory health. Once we accept that it is a normal, though uncomfortable, part of life, we can use it to help us.

We all know working out at the gym is hard. By nature, a “good workout” is uncomfortable, since it involves pushing our physical strength past what we can easily do. The sweet spot of exercise is always a somewhat challenging experience. Similarly, if you want to be emotionally stronger, you need to face some tension. For example, one effective treatment for fear is exposure therapy (疗法), which involves gradually encountering things that make one anxious, reducing fear over time.

Humans are social creatures. When my patients learn to open up to their partners about their anxieties, they almost always report a greater sense of emotional closeness. Also, as international relationship expert Sue Johnson teaches, when we express our need for connection during challenging moments (e.g., “I’m having a hard time right now and could really use your support”), it creates greater connection and turns our anxiety into love.

From time to time, we find ourselves at the end of our rope. Our responsibilities pile up, our resources break down, and we feel uncomfortably anxious—what we’re experiencing is called stress. Simply put, the demands placed upon us outweigh our available resources, just like a set of scales (天平) going out of balance. Focusing on work and pretending everything is OK only leads to disastrous results. Medical treatment for stress may function for a while, but it tends to make things worse in the long run. The only solution to deal with stress is to do the mathematics to balance the scales.

1. What does the author say about anxiety?

A．It is an invitation to diseases.

B．It indicates stable mental health.

C．It costs us many valuable chances.

D．It is a natural emotional expression.

2. Why does the author mention “good workout” in paragraph 2?

A．To prove how exercise influences emotions.

B．To suggest an effective way to challenge limits.

C．To explain how anxiety builds emotional strength.

D．To show a positive connection between mind and body.

3. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The key to closeness is partners’ support.

B．Sharing anxieties improves relationships.

C．Humans are defined by their social nature.

D．Expressing feelings keeps us off anxieties.

4. According to the last paragraph, how can we deal with stress?

A．Devote more energy to our work.

B．Increase resources available to us.

C．Seek professional medical treatment.

D．Master advanced mathematical skills.

2 . How to Be Less Emotional

Being overly emotional may mean reacting to feelings like anger, sadness and fear quickly instead of letting all of your intelligence weigh in. Chances are, if you feel overly emotional you are relating to your emotions in a way that isn't always constructive.     1    

Identify emotions. It's important to know what you feel so you can adequately address each emotion appropriately.     2     If you feel anger, for instance, you may start to notice your breathing quickening, your muscles tensing, or your skin feeling flushed. If you're happy, you may notice smiling or feelings of lightness in your body.

    3     They can help calm you down when you're experiencing overwhelming emotions. If you're feeling overwhelmed by emotional intensity, pause to focus on your breathing. Breathing techniques can help you manage your emotions more effectively and help you handle intense emotions better. You may notice that as you experience intense emotions, they bring you further from experiencing yourself and your body.

Monitor your expectations. Sometimes, the way you feel may be influenced by how you expect to feel.     4     If you notice yourself placing expectations on how you “should” feel, hold off on making that judgment until you've completed the situation. Or, you may consider which situations you want to enter into beforehand.

Adjust your routines to reduce stress. Think about what events trigger your strong emotions, and try to either avoid them or control your response. For instance, if you tend to get anxious because you often run late for work, adjust your morning routine so you are not rushing.     5    

A．Cope with your emotions.

B．Practice breathing techniques.

C．However, it's important to learn to regulate your emotions.

D．If you feel anxious, you may notice you burn a lot of emotional energy worrying.

E．Start to reflect on how your body feels when you notice an emotion coming through.

F．If there is a group of people that bring out lots of unpleasant emotions, decrease your time with them.

G．For instance, if you expect that watching a movie may make you sad, you may end up feeling sad.

3 . Women interpret emojis differently to men, research suggests. Scientists say this is because these small digital emojis, used to express an idea or emotion, can be ambiguous and be understood differently by different people.

The researchers recruited 523 adults (49% men and 51% women) to review 24 different emojis. Each emoji — taken from Apple, Windows, Android, and WeChat platforms — represented one of the six emotional states labelled by the team: happy, disgusted, fearful, sad, surprised, and angry.

They found women were able to more accurately interpret happy, fearful, sad and angry emoji labels compared to men. No gender differences were observed for surprised or disgusted emoji, the team said. Dr Ruth Filik, associate professor in the School of Psychology at The University of Nottingham, said: “What I found most interesting and surprising is that there are so many individual differences in how people interpret these emojis.

“It is important to note that the results reflect how often participants labelled the emoji in the same way as the researchers. So, we should think of the results in terms of there being differences across people in how they interpret emojis, rather than some people being better at it than others. We should keep these differences in mind when using emojis in our messages.”

The researchers said that those emojis can add both slight differences as well as potential ambiguity to messages sent via texts, emails or even social media. To understand more about how emojis are interpreted, the team recruited 270 people from the UK and 253 from China, who were aged between 18 to 84 years old.

Each emoji was assigned an emotion label by the researchers, which they say may not correspond exactly with the emoji as used in real life. In addition to gender, the team also found age to play a role in how emoji are interpreted, with younger adults faring better than the older ones in matching the emoji with their assigned labels. Those in the UK were also better at labelling the emoji in the same way as the researchers compared to their Chinese counterparts.

The researchers say ambiguity of emojis is worth further research, “especially when communicating across gender, age, or cultures.”

1. Which aspect of the team’s research is NOT mentioned in paragraph 2 and 3?

A．Its participants.

B．Its samples.

C．Its conclusion.

D．Its significance.

2. What lesson did researchers learn from their findings?

A．Researchers are not better at labelling emojis than participants.

B．Females are better at perceiving the meanings of emojis than males.

C．Proper caution is necessary when sending emojis to different people.

D．Males and females have different understandings of disgusted emojis.

3. What is the value of the research involving 523 people from UK and China?

A．To make ambiguous emojis have concrete and clear meanings.

B．To explore how emojis are interpreted by extending research angles.

C．To figure out how young adults do well in matching emojis with labels.

D．To prove that Britons are better at labelling emojis than Chinese people.

4. What is the suitable title of the passage?

A．Ambiguity of emojis deserves further research.

B．Age and culture play a role in how emojis are perceived.

C．Secrets behind different understandings towards emojis.

D．Pay attention to differences of emojis when sending messages.

4 . Recent studies have found that good things really do come to those who wait. Some, of these science-backed benefits are detailed below, along with three ways to develop more patience in your life.

    1    . This finding is probably easy to believe if you call to mind the typical impatient person: face red, head steaming. Patient people tend to experience less depression and negative emotions, perhaps because they can deal better with upsetting or stressful situations.

Patient people are better friends and neighbors.     2    . Think of the best friend who comforts you night atter night over the heartache that just won’t go away, or the grandchild who smiles through the story she has heard her grandfather tell countless times.

Patience helps us achieve our goals. The road to achievement is a long one, and those without patience may not be willing to walk it. Patient people make more effort and progress toward their goals.     3    .

Patience is linked to good health. Patient people are less likely to report health problems like headaches and pneumonia.     4    . If patience can reduce our daily stress, it’s reasonable to infer that it could also protect us against stress’s damaging effects.

And how to develop patience? Reframe the situation. Patience is linked to self-control, and consciously trying to regulate our emotions can help us train our self-control muscles.

Practice mindfulness. Taking a deep breath and noticing your feelings of anger or overload can help your respond with more patience.

    5    . If we’re thankful for what we have today, we’re not desperate for more stuff or better circumstances immediately.

A．Practice gratefulness

B．Patience is a form of kindness

C．Patience can be achieved through training

D．As virtues go, patience is a quiet one

E．Patient people enjoy better mental health

F．They are also more satisfied when they realize them

G．But impatient people have more health complaints and worse sleep

5 . The Power of Insensitivity

Highly sensitive(敏感的)person, or HSP, is a term invented by psychologist Elaine Aron. HSPs can come with many challenges. They may find it hard to adapt to new surroundings, and easily become uncomfortable in response to certain feelings or others’ opinions.     1    

The power of insensitivity can be explained as “slow power”. Usually, people connect “insensitivity” with something bad, but indeed, it stresses the ability to keep doing something difficult without complaining.     2     It is not a weakness but an approach to winning a better life.

    3     Knowing yourself is difficult, and knowing yourself correctly is undoubtedly an excellent ability. The successful people clearly know where their strengths are, what they can do and what direction to go.

There are some ways to practice “insensitivity”: Don’t pay too much attention to the ups and downs of life at the moment.     4     Don’t get involved in other people’s lives and don’t let others affect yours. Regarding relationships, learn to view problems as two parts: One part is what you need to face and solve. The other part is the responsibility of others, which is not your business.

Everyone can gain the ability to be insensitive.     5     And the world will also be a better one if we focus on major goals and stay insensitive to something else.

A．Insensitivity plays a significant role.

B．Rather, you should be looking forward.

C．That’s where the need to be insensitive comes from.

D．Once you slow down the pace, you will feel more comfortable.

E．Those not easily affected are the people who care less about others.

F．That is, calmly facing the downtime in life and moving towards one’s own direction.

G．One reason why insensitivity allows people to better survive is the strong self-awareness.

6 . Dear Crystal,

I’m sorry to hear that life is getting you down right now ... I’m not sure there’s any specific advice I can give to cheer you up. It’s sometimes quite annoying to be reminded how much people love you when you don’t love yourself that much.

I’ve found that it’s of some help to compare one’s moods(情绪)about the world to the weather.   Here are some obvious things about the weather:

It’s real.

If it’s dark and rainy, it really is.

It isn’t under one’s control as to when the rain stops, but it will stop one day.

You can’t change it by wishing it away.

It really is the same with one’s moods．The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions(幻想). Panic, anxiety and anger are as real as weather.

But they will pass; they really will.

In the same way that one has to accept the weather, one has to accept how one feels about life. “Today’s a bad day” is a perfect approach.“Hey-ho, it’s raining inside; it isn’t my mistake, and there’s nothing I can do about it. But when the sun comes out, I shall take full advantage.”

I don’t know if any of that is of any use... I just hope this brings you a little more pleasure and purpose in life.

Best wishes!

Yours,

Stephen Fry

1. How does Crystal feel according to the letter?

A．Ignored.

B．Ashamed.

C．Panicked.

D．Unhappy.

2. Stephen Fry writes to Crystal to________．

A．offer tips on making friends

B．teach skills of writing poems

C．share comfort and encouragement

D．explain ways of observing weather

3. In which column(专栏)of a school website will you find the text?

A．Literature.	B．Watch This.
C．Just Ask.	D．Science Forum.

7 . Anger has a bad reputation.     1     We temporarily lose our judgment, regaining it only after our anger dies down — often when it’s too late. It’s as if anger destroys us, overwhelming our best intentions.

But what if anger is a valuable-friend, not an adversary (对手) to be defeated?     2     It provides us with information about the world around us. Anger is an internal signal that identifies our unmet needs and presents us with opportunities for course correction, healing, and growth. It motivates us to act toward meeting our needs and reaching our goals.

Anger has one main purpose — to secure our safety and survival. We respond with anger when we are threatened or when our boundaries are violated (侵犯).     3    

What we need is a willingness to experience anger without suppressing it or discharging it immediately. When we have the courage to remain present with our anger, we can look directly at it. We can investigate and come to understand it, and we can extract its wisdom.

    4     Rather than identify with anger’s urge to act, or with its feelings of frustration and powerlessness, you now relate to its message of worth and efficacy. This change, in turn, frees you to grow through your anger.

Anger, like a fire, is a force. Left unchecked, it can be destructive.     5    

A．Uncovering the wisdom of anger begins with feeling it fully.

B．It gives us energy and power to overcome threatening situations.

C．Yet when it is used wisely, it can be powerful beneficial instrument.

D．When you come to see anger as a friend, you change your relationship with it.

E．While anger sometimes involves aggressive tendencies, it also carries great wisdom.

F．When we have the courage to remain present with our anger, we can look directly at it.

G．When it bursts out, it can take control of our body, our thoughts, our senses, and our actions.

8 . Higher levels of optimism (乐观主义) are related lo a longer lifetime. People with the highest levels of optimism have 11 % to 15% longer lifetime than those who practice little positive thinking. The optimists may live to age 85 or beyond.

Optimism doesn’t mean ignoring life’s stress. But when negative things happen, optimistic people are less likely to blame themselves.     1    . They also believe they can control their destiny and create opportunities for good things to happen in the future.

    2    . Research has found optimists have a 35% less chance of a heart disease. There’s a direct connection between optimists and healthier diet and exercise behaviors, as well as a stronger immune (免疫) system and better lung function.

Optimism can be improved by training. Studies have found only about 25% of our optimism is programmed by genes (基因).     3    . It turns out you can train your brain to be more positive. One of the most effective ways to increase optimism is called the “Best Possible Self” method. In this period, you imagine yourself in future, and you have achieved all your life aims and all of your problems have been solved.     4    . Another way is to keep a journal only to capture positive experiences you experienced that day.

It’s not easy to carry out optimism exercises. Like exercise, they will need to be practiced regularly to keep the brain positive.     5    . But isn’t a longer, happier, more positive life worth the effort?

A．It may also lengthen your life.

B．The rest is up to your attitude to life.

C．Being optimistic also improves your health.

D．The optimism exercises may be a hard process.

E．The focus on the positive can reshape your brain.

F．Practicing this daily can significantly improve your positive feelings.

G．They are more likely to see the barrier as a good chance to turn positive.

9 . Comparison is the thief of joy, which has become more pronounced with the rise of social media. In the past, you may have envied your neighbour when they bought a new car. Today, the rise of social media has had many benefits but also given rise to social media envy when users perceive the perfect lives of others.

Research has shown that social media users post carefully chosen information to present a better image of themselves and social media allows them to do so. This can lead to social comparison, which is where we think about information about other people in relation to ourselves. Our own lives are for the most part ordinary, but social media can make it appear that everyone else’s are not. This can make us feel different emotional responses.

These emotions can be positive or negative. For example, sometimes envy can lead to self-improvement. Researchers have found that students studied for longer, and their academic performance improved, when they were envious of their successful peers.This is referred to as benign envy. But some envy can lead to negative emotions. You might feel low and have negative thoughts towards the envied person who you perceive to be in a better position than you. This is referred to as malicious envy.

As envy is a natural response, it is important to allow yourself to feel the emotion. The real trick is making sure you stop malicious envy and harness benign envy. By accepting that you are envious of someone when you have viewed a post on social media, you have made the first step to adopt a healthier response. You can then make the decision to use this feeling to fuel self improvement.

Therefore, try to identify role models as well as people to avoid or unfollow. Role models can be anyone that encourages a sense of benign envy and promotes wanting to improve. This could be friends, family or a celebrity. Identifying those that you feel malicious envy towards is equally as important. Unfollowing these people may be beneficial.

1. How does the author introduce the topic?

A．By giving a definition.

B．By explaining a theory.

C．By making comparisons.

D．By justifying assumptions.

2. What does the underlined word “this” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Freedom of expression.

B．Selected information online.

C．Social media users' preference.

D．Widespread use of social media.

3. What should you do first in making right response to envy?

A．Post your envy online.

B．Acknowledge your envy.

C．Stop viewing harmful posts.

D．Reject this negative emotion.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．Comparison—the thief of joy

B．Stay away from social media

C．Envy—a barrier to progress

D．Get over social media envy

10 . I am an anxious traveller. I arrive at airports and train stations extra early. I double-check all of my documents, feeling a tightness in my jaw and a slight clench in my stomach until I’ve arrived where I’m going. I used to feel bad about it, seeing it as absurd and weak. However, I’ve learned to respect my tendency to be cautious.

Recently, I was driving along a rural road at the start of a long trip that would mainly be on a large motorway. I began feeling that something could go wrong. What if I run out of petrol? I worried, even though I still had plenty. So when I spied a petrol station just before the road I was going to take onto the motorway, I decided to fill up. Just in case. And that’s when I discovered that one of my front tyres was flat. If I’d overpowered my unease, talked down my anxiety, the tyre would have blown at speed on the motorway. My urge to plan ahead even though it wasn’t strictly necessary saved me from a potentially catastrophic scenario.

A growing number of psychologists and neuroscientists agree anxiety and other negative feelings have a role to play in our lives. Tracy Dennis Tiwary, who recently published Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You, thinks our culture goes overboard in demonising(妖魔化) difficult emotions. She knows what it’s like to get overwhelmed by anxiety. “I remember a period at work when there was a lot going on. Worries kept waking me up at 4 am. It was like a yucky cloud of free-floating anxiety,” she says.

Instead of trying to repress this uneasy feeling, however, Dennis Tiwary leaned into it. She recognized the niggling thing, gave it space and learned from it. Finally she wrote down two or three things she could do to address it. The next morning, she felt calmer.

1. What can we learn about the author from paragraph 1?

A．He carries the wrong documents carelessly.

B．He is anxious about missing his flights or trains.

C．He feels ashamed about his tendency to be too careful now.

D．He enjoys spending extra time at airports and train stations.

2. What did the author find when he decided to fill up?

A．The gas was used up.	B．His unease disappeared.
C．He was caught in a crash.	D．Something was wrong with his car.

3. What is Dennis Tiwary’s opinion about difficult emotions?

A．They should be ignored.	B．They are crucial to success.
C．They can be beneficial to our lives.	D．They are disturbing and evil.

4. How did Dennis Tiwary deal with her anxiety?

A．She sought professional help and solved her anxiety.

B．She rejected being anxious and focused on her work.

C．She embraced her anxiety and tried her best to face it.

D．She was immersed in pain and resigned to calm down.