1 . Walking in the city is very different from walking in the park. A small psychology study suggests urban(城市的) environments can slow your step and possibly increase your mental load. A walk through nature, on the other hand, appears to ease your mind and quicken your pace. The findings show that natural settings may potentially reduce cognitive (认知的)tiredness and improve reaction times straight away. The study, which includes two experiments with two different approaches, was conducted among 65 university students in the lab.
The first of the two experiments in the new study focused on people’s way of walking and cognitive load. During this trial, participants were fitted with sensors and a dozen motion control cameras were set up to watch them repeatedly walk down a 15-metre room at their natural speed. The wall opposite them showed an image of either a nature scene or a city scene. After each walk, participants were asked to rate their feelings of discomfort in the visual environment. On the whole, when walking in city settings, people reported more discomfort and they walked at a slower pace, indicating a higher cognitive load.
The second experiment dug into some of the higher-level cognitive processes that might be at play. In the trial, participants were asked to distinguish between basic visual shapes on the computer while also in the presence of a natural or urban image(the same ones from the first experiment). Measuring reaction times in both natural and urban settings, the team found results to support their idea. In urban environments, participants were slower in distinguishing between simple shapes. The authors think this is because urban environments are more distracting(令人分心的) for our brains and take longer to process, but more research is needed to prove that idea.
1. How were the experiments conducted mainly?| A．By comparing. | B．By giving data. |
| C．By giving examples. | D．By explaining facts. |
| A．It can make us feel relaxed and react quickly. | B．It can activate our thinking and speed up our step. |
| C．It can make us less tired and improve our memory. | D．It can make us become more focused and creative. |
| A．They had a lower cognitive load. | B．They had to slow down their pace. |
| C．They couldn’t concentrate properly. | D．They felt uncomfortable after walking. |
| A．Urban environment makes us more concentrated. | B．People’s feelings are decided by their pace of walking. |
| C．The result of the experiments is widely appreciated. | D．People tend to get tired more easily walking in the city. |
2 . For people who just can’t seem to pass up the candy in a supermarket checkout line, perhaps grocery shopping online could help reduce these impulse (冲动) purchases, a new study finds. The study suggests that online grocery shopping could help people stick to a healthy diet, said lead study author Jaime Coffino, a public health researcher at the University at Albany, State University of New York.
Previous research shows that people who are more impulsive may be less healthy than less impulsive people, Coffino told Live Science. In a grocery store, that impulsiveness could lead to a shopping cart (购物车) filled with food with little nutritional value.
The new study looked at 60 college students who filled out questionnaires (调查问卷) that assessed their levels of impulsiveness as well as how they respond to the presence of food. The students were then told they had $48.50 for grocery shopping, and were asked to fill an online shopping cart with “nutritious, affordable and tasty” foods. When Coffino calculated the nutritional value of all the foods in each person’s online shopping cart, she found that there was no link between the foods a person chose and how impulsive the person was. “It didn’t matter how impulsive a person was,” Coffino said. “The nutritional outcomes didn’t vary.”
The new University at Albany study dismisses previous suggestions by Britain’s top doctor that buying groceries online is bad for our health. Last June Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, urged people to keep making trips to the supermarket to boost health. She cited a lack of exercise as a pressing health problem, with many adults failing to meet recommended daily guidelines for staying active.
Often, when people buy groceries online, they need to search for each item they want, as opposed to strolling (闲逛) through a store and saying, for example, “Oh, those cakes look good.” Online, more planning and thought is needed. In addition, online grocery shopping makes people more aware of how much money they’re spending, which could prevent them from adding impulsive picks to their carts, Coffino said.
1. What is the conclusion of previous research?| A．Food displayed near checkout areas is more likely to be bought. |
| B．In-store grocery shopping leads to unaffordable purchases. |
| C．Impulsive people tend to follow a poor diet. |
| D．Grocery shopping patterns vary little among people. |
| A．They focused more on taste than nutrition. |
| B．They made similar food choices to one another. |
| C．They made a few impulse purchases. |
| D．They shifted their shopping habits. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Unclear. | C．Favorable. | D．Tolerant. |
| A．Making trips to the supermarket boosts health |
| B．Adding impulsive picks to your shopping cart is up to you |
| C．Online grocery shopping makes you more financially aware |
| D．Doing food shop online could be healthier |
3 . The Bay Area is among the most diverse places in the country, a wonderful place filled with people of every background. Each of them brings something different to the mix, and takes it from their own experience. Their stories are the focus of Status Update, an exhibition ( 展览会) of 14 projects offered by Rian Dundon and former WIRED contributor Pete Brook. The show at SOMArts uses personal tales to show the Bay Area’s culture.
The Bay Area is a microcosm of the national melting pot, a place where people of color comprise (组成) 58 percent of the overall population and are a majority in four of the region’s five counties. San Francisco in particular is the type of place where you can’t walk down the street without hearing another language. Yet the change is not all for the better. The gap between rich and poor is widening at a frightening pace (速度), and San Francisco is becoming less diverse as minorities escape the city for more affordable communities elsewhere in the region.
Status Update reflects these changes and the challenges they bring. Joseph Rodriguez’s Faces of Foreclosure features quiet images of people like Ethel Gist, a 68-year-old woman who lost her home in the East Bay suburb of Brentwood six years ago. Photographer Sam Wolson records Oakland resident Shannon Fulcher and his efforts to provide for his daughter. And Laura Morton documents millennials (千禧一代) hoping to make their way to the top in Silicon Valley in her series Wild West Tech. The mix of mediums, styles and subject matter within the exhibit stresses the region’s great diversity of experiences and how they shape each other.
Status Update starts a conversation about how the Bay Area is changing, and what people can do to build up a more just society. “I hope people walk away from this show with a little more humility (谦逊) and respect for our neighbors and communities and the ways we depend on one another,” Dundon says. “We’re all out here together.”
1. What are the artworks in Status Update mainly about?| A．Real people’s lives in the Bay Area. |
| B．Beautiful constructions of the Bay Area. |
| C．The friendliness of the people in the Bay Area. |
| D．The technological development of the Bay Area. |
| A．The region is facing a rapid economic slowdown. |
| B．The population in the region has been falling in recent years. |
| C．More and more local people tend to speak the same language. |
| D．It is getting harder and harder for minorities to make ends meet. |
| A．The successful experiences in the Bay Area. |
| B．The long and rich history of the Bay Area. |
| C．The Bay Area’s diversity and rapid change. |
| D．The Bay Area’s past, present and future. |
| A．They can know more about themselves. |
| B．They can open their heart to other people. |
| C．They can respect the people around them. |
| D．They can develop an interest in diverse cultures. |
4 . Every festival has its own meaning. Labor Day, for example, celebrates the value of hard work. Thanksgiving is about showing thanks to people around you. And Valentines’ Day is a time when you express love to your loved ones. But somehow it now seems that all festivals we just care about one thing — shopping. And that can be a big problem.
“In a way, over-consumption (过度消费) is the mother of all our environmental problems,” Kalle Lasn once told CNN. Lasn is the organizer of Buy Nothing Day, a day set up in Canada in 1992 to fight against unhealthy spending habits, and has now become an international event. It’s held on the day, which is known as Black Friday — a famous shopping day in the US and Canada.
You can see the irony (讽刺) here.
Even though the idea of Buy Nothing Day was brought up 26 years ago, we seem to need it now more than ever. It’s just as Lasn said, all the different kinds of pollution in our lives today — bad air quality, the reduction of forest area, endangered animal species, and plastic bags found in the ocean — seem to be the same cause: over-consumption.
The latest example is the Singles’ Day shopping craze of Nov 11, which saw a new sales record. But as Nie Li, a campaigner at Greenpeace, told Reuters, “Record-setting over-consumption means record-setting waste.” And it was reported that last year the Singles’ Day packages left more than 160,000 tons of waste, including plastic and cardboard. The Collins Dictionary has also just named “single-use” its Word of the Year, pointing out the problem that there’re too many things we tow out after only using them once.
So, Buy Nothing Day might only be here for one day a year, but it’s not just to remind us to the a break from shopping on that day, but to change our lifestyle completely, focusing on fun “with people we care about” rather than wasting money on useless things.
1. What’s the authors purpose of writing the first paragraph?| A．To express the people’s love for all festivals. |
| B．To talk about the meaning of the festivals. |
| C．To appreciate the value of the festivals. |
| D．To bring out the topic of the passage. |
| A．To help people save money. | B．To cut the cost for daily life. |
| C．To prevent over-consumption. | D．To set up a new sales record. |
| A．Opposed (反对的). | B．Supportive. |
| C．Unknown. | D．Neutral (中立的). |
| A．Creating a New Lifestyle | B．Buy Nothing Day |
| C．Festivals Around the World | D．A Change in People’s Life |
5 . Imagine you’re out for an evening stroll (闲逛) in a foreign city, looking to find a restaurant for dinner. You will look for the busiest restaurant with the most diners because its popularity is bound to reflect on the quality of food and service. But is this true?
In tourist areas, which lack regular, local customers, the number of diners is unlikely to hold information about the quality of the meal. In this case, following the example of others could have led to a sub-optimal (次佳的) dinner choice in an overcrowded restaurant.
Spontaneously (不由自主地) copying other people’s thoughts or choices or simply going with the crowd is often referred to as “Herd behaviors”. It is a frequent occurrence among humans as well as many other animals, a common example being sheep.
Herding can appear to make a lot of sense. Average judgements of large groups of people often outperform individual choices. Furthermore, following the crowd appears to offer protection and comfort — after all, there’s “safety in numbers” — while helping to maintain a favourable reputation. Finally, following the herd reduces the effort needed to make a personal or unique decision.
Herd behaviors, while common and easy to explain, can have many harmful effects. Blindly following the herd can have grave consequences when trying to escape from danger. As seen in examples during earthquakes, herding may result in the entire crowd rushing for the same door, even if other exits are available. This unavoidably affects evacuation (撤退) efforts and may result in avoidable injuries or even deaths.
Psychology research suggests that it’s surprisingly difficult to resist the influences of the herd. In an experiment involving financial decision making, researchers found that warning messages about the potential errors of the crowd were surprisingly ineffective in helping customers make better choices. It appears there is no quick and easy fix. Instead, it is advisable to involve individuals adopting more critical approaches towards peers’ opinion, and questioning others’ behaviors as opposed to blindly following them.
1. What does the author want to tell us by the restaurant example?| A．Undesirable outcomes of herding, | B．Wise dinner choices of most customers. |
| C．Practical ways of avoiding herding. | D．Poor conditions of popular dining places. |
| A．Its application. | B．Its disadvantages. |
| C．Its definition. | D．Its benefits. |
| A．Send warning messages. | B．Follow peers’ opinions. |
| C．Stop behaving critically. | D．Have our own judgments. |
| A．Why can’t you find the reasons for herding? |
| B．Why shouldn’t you follow the crowd blindly? |
| C．When should you avoid influences of herding? |
| D．How can you discover wisdom of crowds? |
6 . In 1926, US automaker Henry Ford shortened its employees’ workweek from six eight-hour days to five, with no pay cuts. It was something workers and labor unions had been calling for. Ford wasn’t responding to worker demands; he was being a businessman. He expected increased productivity and knew workers with more time and money would buy and use the products they were making. It was a way of encouraging consumerism and productivity to increase profits, and it succeeded.
Since standardization of the 40-hour workweek in the mid-20th century, everything has changed except the hours. If anything, many people are working even longer hours, especially in North America. This has a severe influence on human health and wellbeing, as well as the environment. Until the Second World War, it was common for one person in a family, usually the oldest male, to work-full-time. Now, women make up 42% of the world’s full-time workforce. Technology has made a lot of work unnecessary, with computers and robots doing many tasks previously performed by humans.
Well into the 2lst century, we continue to work the same long hours as 20th century laborers, using up ever more of Earth’s supply to produce more goods that we must keep working to buy, use and replace in a seemingly endless cycle of hard work and consumption. It’s time to pause and consider better ways to live like shifting from fossil-fueled lifestyles with which our consumer-based workweeks are connected.
The UK think tank, New Economics Foundation, argues that a standard 21-hour workweek would address a number of interconnected problems: “overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life”.
Economic systems that require constant growth on a finite (有限的) planet don’t make sense. It’s time for a change in our economic thinking.
1. Why did Ford decide to shorten the workweek?| A．To cut workers’ pay. | B．To meet labor unions’ requirements. |
| C．Tu respond to worker demands. | D．To make more profits. |
| A．More women worked full-time. |
| B．The number of laborers decreased. |
| C．Technology enabled people to work shorter hours. |
| D．It was unnecessary for a family’s oldest male to work. |
| A．Longer working hours means better consumption ability. |
| B．The 21st century sees the longest working hours in history. |
| C．The cycle of hard work and consumption should be changed. |
| D．Pausing our way of living can change the present workweek. |
| A．increase unemployment | B．cause various problems |
| C．challenge the economic growth | D．encourage people to enjoy life |
7 . Kindness May Keep You Healthy
If you are driving in the United States, you may see a common bumper (汽车保险杠) sticker on passing vehicles that reads:
However, being kind is not just emotionally beneficial. Lyubomirsky studied a group of people with the disease Multiple Sclerosis (多发性硬化).
“The basic reason why people are kind,” Oliver Curry, explained, the research director at Kind-lab that is a non-profit organization, “is that we are social animals. Kindness is as much a part of us as our anger, grief or desire.”
| A．Perform random acts of kindness |
| B．Acts of kindness are very powerful |
| C．In other words, we are designed to be kind. |
| D．She found that they felt better physically when helping others. |
| E．Research shows that doing kind things can make us feel better |
| F．He found that being kind makes people feel better emotionally, |
| G．Other research has shown that many people prize kindness above other values |
8 . Casting blame is natural: it is tempting to fault someone else for a mistake rather than taking responsibility yourself. But blame is also harmful. It makes it less likely that people will own up to mistakes, and thus less likely that organizations can learn from them. Research published in 2015 suggests that firms whose managers pointed to external factors to explain their failings underperformed companies that blamed themselves.
Blame culture can spread like a virus. Just as children fear mom and dad’s punishment if they admit to wrongdoing, in a blaming environment, employees are afraid of criticism and punishment if they acknowledge making a mistake at work. Blame culture asks, “who dropped the ball?” instead of “where did our systems and processes fail?” The focus is on the individuals, not the processes. It’s much easier to point fingers at a person or department instead of doing the harder, but the more beneficial, exercise of fixing the root cause, in which case the problem does not happen again.
The No Blame Culture was introduced to make sure errors and deficiencies (缺陷) were highlighted by employees as early as possible. It originated in organizations where tiny errors can have catastrophic (灾难性的) consequences. These are known as high reliability organizations (HROs) and include hospitals, submarines and airlines. Because errors can be so disastrous in these organizations, it’s dangerous to operate in an environment where employees don’t feel able to report errors that have been made or raise concerns about that deficiencies may turn into future errors. The No Blame Culture maximizes accountability because all contributions to the event occurring are identified and reviewed for possible change and improvement.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which supervises air traffic across the United States, makes it clear that its role is not to assign blame or liability but to find out what went wrong and to issue recommendations to avoid a repeat. The proud record of the airline industry in reducing accidents partly reflects no-blame processes for investigating crashes and close calls. The motive to learn from errors also exist when the risks are lower. That is why software engineers and developers routinely investigate what went wrong if a website crashes or a server goes down.
There is an obvious worry about embracing blamelessness. What if the website keeps crashing and the same person is at fault? Sometimes, after all, blame is deserved. The idea of the “just culture”, a framework developed in the 1990s by James Reason, a psychologist, addresses the concern that the incompetent and the malevolent (恶意的) will be let off the hook. The line that Britain’s aviation regulator draws between honest errors and the other sort is a good starting-point. It promises a culture in which people “are not punished for actions or decisions taken by them that match with their experience and training”. That narrows room for blame but does not remove it entirely.
1. According to the research published in 2015, companies that ______ had better performance.| A．blamed external factors | B．admitted their mistakes |
| C．conducted investigations | D．punished the under performers |
| A．It encourages the early disclosure of errors. |
| B．It only exists in high reliability organizations. |
| C．It enables people to shift the blame onto others. |
| D．It prevents organizations from making any error. |
| A．Innocent people might take the blame by admitting their failure. |
| B．Being blamed for mistakes can destroy trust in employees. |
| C．The line between honest errors and the other sort is not clear. |
| D．People won’t learn their lessons if they aren’t blamed for failures. |
| A．Why We Fail to Learn from Our Own Mistakes |
| B．How to Avoid Disastrous Errors in Organizations |
| C．Why We Should Stop the Blame Game at Work |
| D．How to Deal with Workplace Blame Culture |
9 . Have you ever taken a personality test and found the results to be scarily accurate, checked your horoscope and had everything come true or taken an online quiz that told you precisely what your favorite Disney princess means about you? Well, we certainly have done so too many times, so we decided to do a little investigation into how Internet -quizzes, magazines and horoscope books seem to know us so well.
We discovered that we’ve all been falling victim to the Barnum effect. The Barnum Effect is the phenomenon that occurs when individuals believe that personality descriptions apply specifically to them, despite the fact that the description is actually filled with information that applies to everyone. It was named after P. T. Barnum, a famous 19th century showman, who would famously say, “There’s a fool born every minute.”
Indeed, Barnum proved to be right, as pseudoscience —such as astrology and personality tests — remains popular to this day. The Bamum effect explains why extremely general statements, such as the results of your personality test, seem so specific to you. Don’t believe us? Well, late psychology professor Bertram Forer offered some proof.
In a historic study, Forer conducted a personality test to his students. Forer copied statements such as “You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.” and “You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.” from the newspaper’s horoscope column and gave a test to every student. Forer asked his students to rate the accuracy of the test from one to five, with “one” being the least accurate and “five” being the most accurate. The average rating was 4.26. The universally high ratings from students on the personality test supported the Barnum effect.
One of the most important factors when reproducing this study is to keep the statements as vague as possible, with a mix of mostly positive and some negative content. For example, using the phrase “at times” makes for a powerful Barnum Effect. See “At times you are outgoing and sociable, while at other times you are shy and reserved” who would not agree with that statement?
So, keep in mind that we are not immune to the Barnum effect. Take everything you hear with several grains of salt.
1. What is the purpose of Paragraph 2?| A．To present a controversial opinion. | B．To provide an example of an idea. |
| C．To offer a solution to a problem. | D．To define the meaning of a term. |
| A．Potential application of the Barnum effect. | B．Further explanation of the Barnum effect. |
| C．Supporting evidence for the Barnum effect. | D．A reasonable doubt of the research process. |
| A．They are so specific. | B．They are unclear. |
| C．They are positive. | D．They are believable. |
| A．Phenomenon—analysis. | B．Cause—effect. |
| C．Problem—solution. | D．Claim—counterclaim. |
10 . The rise of social media has revolutionized human connectivity, but its overuse can make people feel increasingly unhappy and isolated.
One significant problem with frequent social media use is comparing ourselves to others. Many individuals experience “Facebook envy”.
Social media can also make it hard to form real friendships. Constant online interaction may make us feel lonely and left out when we see others having fun online. Stina Sanders, a former model, explained “When I see my friend’s photos of a party I didn’t go to, it can make me feel quite lonely and anxious”.
Quality sleep is essential for mental health, but excessive phone use before bedtime can severely disturb it. The anxiety and envy induced by social media content can keep our brains alert, making it challenging to fall asleep.
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If you feel like social media is beginning to affect you, why not consider allocating less social media time? The slight change can do you a lot of good.
| A．Regular use of Facebook can keep good relationships. |
| B．Social media offers a convenient way to record memories. |
| C．This can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction with themselves. |
| D．Plus, the blue light that is given off by screens affects our sleep. |
| E．Therefore, it’s important to develop genuine offline relationships. |
| F．Social media can lead to serious physical and mental health issues. |
| G．The reliance on it can negatively impact people’s mental health in the long run. |
