1 . High school life, especially in the senior year, is a rollercoaster of emotions filled with challenges and pressures. The constant demand for academic excellence, combined with the expections of college applications, and managing extracurricular (课外的) activities can lead even the best students to feel the weight of stress. However, it’s not only possible but essential to find moments of joy and strategies to reduce the pressure efficiently.

Understanding the nature of stress is the primary step. Stress isn’t just a state of mental unrest; it’s a physiological response.     1     The body notices any form of demand, challenge, or threat and reacts by preparing for a “fight-or-flight” response. This is an ancient survival process that equips us to deal with threats, whether they’re a challenging exam or a physical danger.

Interestingly, not all stress is harmful. We often overlook the distinction of different stress. Acute (急性的) stress, in contrast to the chronic (长期的), can act as a force.     2     It pushes us to our limits, motivates us to meet deadlines, and often results in that rewarding feeling of accomplishment.

However, long exposure to stress leads to chronic stress. This kind of stress, if left unchecked, can cause various health issues ranging from mental health problems like anxiety and depression to physical ailments like high blood pressure and even heart diseases.

To reduce the effects of stress, mindfulness and meditation have proven effective. Even on a busy day, sparing just a few moments to focus on one’s breathing or practicing guided meditation can significantly reduce stress levels.     3     These practices help in grounding an individual, bringing a momentary escape from the chaos (混乱).

Pursuing hobbies or activities that one is passionate about can also be a good way. Whether it’s painting, reading, playing a musical instrument, or engaging in sports, these activities not only divert the mind but also release endorphins, the body’s natural mood lifters.

Another aspect is communication.     4     Sharing burdens, discussing worries, or just talking about one’s day can offer a fresh perspective and often lightens the load. Schools offer services, and there are numerous helplines available to assist students in distress.

So, with the weight of expectations, deadlines, and too many responsibilities, remember to prioritize mental well-being.     5     Every individual deserves moments of relaxation and happiness.

A．When channeled correctly, stress can be our friend.

B．This response is a swift, automatic sequence designed for survival.

C．Prioritizing self-care isn’t a luxury (奢侈品); it’s a necessity.

D．Every challenge, it approached with a positive mindset, can be an opportunity for growth.

E．Seeding external help or just talking to a friend can be incredibly therapeutic.

F．They attach us to the present, clearing the mental disorder and lifting the spirit.

G．These parts often provide processes adjusted to individual needs.

2 . 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

3 . 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.

4 . 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