1 . A University of Michigan (U-M) study has found that older adults’ regular visits to eateries such as fast food restaurants and coffee shops may be as protective of cognitive (认知的) health as marriage.
Lead researcher Jessica Finlay and her team interviewed 125 older adults aged 55-92 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and accompanied them on visits to their neighborhood places. Through analysis of her interviews, they found that older adults valued these types of eateries as places of familiarity and comfort, places that were physically and economically accessible, and places to socialize with family, friends, staff and customers.
“Traditionally, fast food has a negative relationship with cognition — we know that diets high in fat and salt are associated with increased risk of cognitive decline,” said Finlay. “But as a geographer, I’m interested in the places themselves and what those spaces mean for the everyday lives of older adults.”
There is one interviewee called Denise. “It was an expensive month with a wedding and two unexpected funerals (葬礼), and these events ate up her budget (预算),” the researchers wrote. “Though she could not afford restaurant meals regularly, Denise still enjoyed inexpensive coffee with her friends as a valued opportunity to socialize.”
Finlay’s research at U-M focuses on how neighborhoods may help reduce or increase risk for Alzheimer’s disease. She assumed that regular socialization and leisure activities that take place in these places might be linked to cognitive health.
Finlay and U-M researcher Michael Esposito tested this idea in a national cohort by drawing on the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke, or REGARDS, study, which collects information by mail and telephone from more than 30,000 aging individuals. The participants were an average age of 64 in 2003-2007.
REGARDS respondents living in the most limited retail food (零售食品) environments had cognitive scores that were modestly lower — about 0.1 points — than residents living in the highest density (密度) environments. The difference in cognitive well-being between individuals living in high-density and low-density neighborhoods was about a year difference in age, which is strongly linked to age-related cognitive decline in older adults.
“My side of the project was translating what Finlay found in her qualitative results over to the national level, blowing it up to see if some of those associations she inferred from her study in Minnesota held for the nation at large — and they did,” said Esposito.
1. What is the new study concerning seniors mainly about?| A．Their great love for fast food. |
| B．Their usual choices while eating outside. |
| C．The impact of marriage on their cognition. |
| D．The link between restaurant visits and their health. |
| A．They offer an affordable way to make social interactions. |
| B．They provide her with a lot of unexpected surprises. |
| C．She enjoys high-fat and salty foods served there. |
| D．She takes part in important activities there. |
| A．She interviewed its respondents. |
| B．She visited the places mentioned in it. |
| C．She reached a conclusion based on its data. |
| D．She compared it with her research at U-M. |
| A．Its results are applicable nationally. |
| B．It should be done outside Minnesota. |
| C．It offers a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. |
| D．Its respondents should cover other age groups. |
2 . There is a decades-long rise in Americans feeling socially isolated (孤独的). That may seem strange, in the light of all the ways we now have to connect electronically, from email and Facebook to Instagram and TikTok.
“Loneliness is strongly related to people’s health problems,” said psychologist Matt Johnson. And he pointed out: increasing loneliness also has a connection with the proliferation of social media platforms worldwide. “When this social need for interpersonal connections isn’t met in your organic social environment, the market converges on (趋同于) this,” said Johnson. “We see the rise of social media happening around the same time as this loneliness epidemic (流行病).” Johnson said that social media platforms can sometimes relieve loneliness — if you’re actually keeping in touch with others through them.
That’s the kind of social network that Deena Hindi has been trying to build for her 84-year-old mother. Hindi’s father passed away several years ago. Her mother was left living alone next door to Hindi, with few friends. Hindi figured, “There’s got to be a lot of lonely people. So that’s why I created a Meetup group, to see if I could get people together.” A group of older women found Hindi’s Meetup group online. They now go out regularly in person.
However, Johnson said, “More and more people, especially younger people, are engaging in the more follower-type of social media, where you’re engaging with people with massive followings, and you’re looking at their TikTok videos, their tweets and their Instagram content. You don’t know them personally; you’ll probably never meet them in real life: not really social connection.”
There are ways that employers can help fight the loneliness epidemic, according to Anne Bowers, who researches the workplace, mental health, and productivity. “Workers who have a good work-life balance, social companionship (友谊), and satisfying communications at work are 53% less likely to be lonely than other employees who don’t. Creating a healthy work-life balance for employees is very important — flexible work schedules can create better balance,” he said.
1. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “proliferation” in paragraph 2?| A．Decline. | B．Increase. | C．Importance. | D．Limitation. |
| A．To make online friends. |
| B．To learn about lonely people’s life. |
| C．To provide intelligent companionship for her mother. |
| D．To establish real-life social connections for lonely people. |
| A．To show how younger people behave in real life. |
| B．To recommend some ways to deal with loneliness. |
| C．To highlight great dangers of the loneliness epidemic. |
| D．To express his dissatisfaction with spending time on social media. |
| A．By reducing tasks. |
| B．By shortening working hours. |
| C．By allowing more flexible work time. |
| D．By promoting the use of social media platforms. |
1. What percentage of seniors in the UK would talk with three people a week at most?
| A．About 55%. | B．Just 26%. | C．Over 20%. |
| A．Leaving their homes. | B．Parting from their children. | C．Taking early retirement. |
| A．A minority of them worried about their elder years. |
| B．One-third of them wanted to help seniors. |
| C．30% of them felt too shy to talk with seniors. |
4 . Those who don’t live in cities often complain about or feel surprised at the fact that strangers don’t talk to each other in urban public places. They feel sorry about the way we seem to increasingly get lost in mobile devices, seemingly oblivious to what’s going on around us. But sociologists recognize that the space we give each other in the urban places serves an important social function.
Well-known sociologist Erving Goffman developed the concept of “civil inattention” in his book Behavior in Public Places. Far from ignoring those around us, Goffman proved through years of studying people in public that what we’re actually doing is pretending to be unaware of what others are doing around us, therefore providing them a sense of privacy, as they do the same for us. Goffman proved in his research that civil inattention typically involves at first a mirror form of social interaction, like very brief eye contact, the exchange of head nods, or weak smiles. Following that, both parties then typically shin their eyes from the other party.
Goffman theorized that what we achieve, socially speaking, with this kind of interaction, is mutual (相互的) recognition that the other present causes no threat to our security, and we both agree, tacitly (默契地), to let the other alone to do as they please. When we provide civil inattention to others, we effectively approve their behavior. Sometimes, we use civil inattention to save face when we’ve done something we feel embarrassed by, or to help manage the embarrassment that another might feel if we witness them trip, or drop something.
Civil inattention is thus not a problem, but an important part of maintaining social order in public. For this reason, problems arise when this norm (规范) is broken. Because we expect it from others and see it as normal behavior, we may feel threatened by someone who doesn’t give it to us. This is why women feel threatened by those who catcall (发嘘声)to them, and why for some men, simply being stared at by another is enough to cause a physical fight.
1. How does the author begin this text?| A．By giving people a warning. |
| B．By giving some people’s feelings. |
| C．By explaining a way of socializing. |
| D．By giving a problem with technology. |
| A．curious about |
| B．unsure about |
| C．tired of |
| D．unaware of |
| A．We are ignoring him on a rude basis. |
| B．We are showing our respect for others’ privacy. |
| C．We are protecting ourselves from physical attacks. |
| D．We are worrying that we could lose belongings. |
| A．Civil inattention has positive effects on social interaction. |
| B．Civil inattention helps save face when we’ve done something wrong. |
| C．Civil inattention is unlinked to social interaction according to Goffman. |
| D．Civil inattention is a type of normal behavior which we may feel threatened. |
5 . Years ago it was popular to speak of a generation gap, a disagreement between young people and their elders. Parents said that children did not show them proper respect and obedience (服从), while children complained that their parents did not understand them at all. What had gone wrong? Why had the generation gap suddenly appeared? Actually the generation gap has been around for a long time. Many people argue that a gap is built into the fabric (结构) of our society.
One important cause of the generation gap is the chance that young people have to choose their own ways of life. In more traditional societies, when children grow up, they are expected to live in the same area as their parents, to marry people that their parents know and agree to, and to continue the family occupation. In our society, young people often travel great distances for their education, move out of the family home at an early age, marry or live with people whom their parents have never met, and choose occupations different from those of their parents.
In our easily changing society, parents often expect their children to do better than they did: to find better jobs, to make more money, and to do all the things that they were unable to do. Often, however, the strong wish that parents have for their children is another cause of the disagreement between them. Often, they discover that they have very little in common with each other.
Finally, the speed at which changes take place in our society is another cause of the gap between the generations. In a traditional culture, elderly people are valued for their wisdom, but in our society the knowledge of a lifetime may become out of date overnight. The young and the old seem to live in two very different worlds, separated by different skills and abilities. No doubt, the generation gap will continue to be a feature of American life for some time to come. Its causes are rooted in the freedom and changes of our society, and in the rapid speed at which society changes.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The concept of generation gap. |
| B．The reasons for generation gap. |
| C．Ways to reduce generation gap. |
| D．Attitudes towards generation gap. |
| A．depend on their parents to make a life |
| B．live with their parents in the same area |
| C．ask their parents for the best advice |
| D．have very little in common with their parents |
| A．Parents should be strict with their children. |
| B．The generation gap is partly caused by the older generation. |
| C．Parents couldn’t do things well themselves. |
| D．The young never want to satisfy their parents. |
| A．Parents are not strict enough with their children. |
| B．The young value the old too much for their wisdom. |
| C．Young people don’t have the knowledge of a lifetime. |
| D．The society develops too fast. |
