1 . While socializing comes naturally for some, it can be a struggle for others. Shyness is a normal, common personality trait (特征).
Get Excited About A New Adventure
You may have been shy most of your life.
Pay Attention To Your Words
Practice Mindfulness (正念)
Mindfulness involves drawing your attention to the present and being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings.
Take Small Steps
Getting started can be the hardest part of learning how to be more social for those who are shy.
A.If so, that’s a part of you that you’re used to |
B.Sometimes the best path toward addressing a fear is exposure |
C.Mindfulness can help reduce symptoms of social anxiety disorder |
D.Taking time to tend to your appearance can make a big difference |
E.How we communicate and characterize ourselves can be powerful |
F.However, shyness can make it hard for people to connect with others and achieve their goals |
G.But engaging with people doesn’t have to be practiced as an important work presentation |
2 . 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. |
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. |
A.doubtful | B.supportive | C.disapproving | D.unconcerned |
A.Silence: A Limited Resource | B.Silence: A Misunderstood Tool |
C.Silence: The Unexpected Power | D.Silence: The Value by Contrasts |
3 . Procrastination is the act of putting off tasks until the last minute, or past their deadline.
For many students, getting a task that is due in two months is a great thing. They have two months to slowly work on the task, making necessary improvements all along the way.
What is at the root of all of this procrastination? Some might say that it is laziness, but it is really just a problem with mindset (心态).
It is difficult to stop this terrible habit.
A.That is how it is supposed to be done. |
B.For many people, it has become a habit. |
C.It takes a long time to truly change your ways. |
D.Procrastination is a problem that usually affects students. |
E.Procrastination can be found in the working world as well. |
F.If it does, you probably have a problem with procrastination. |
G.Many people don’t even consider hypnosis as a treatment option. |