Now teenagers always have some dark     1     (think) about their physical appearance. Standards of beauty in the media can have a big influence on    2     they think of their physical appearance. Teenagers who want to copy the looks of their favourite stars will end up    3     (feel) worse about themselves. Besides,     4    (they) friends with model­like good looks also influence the way     5     they view their physical appearance.

However, there    6     (be) certainly ways to deal with these external influences. First, it’s wrong     7     (follow) popular beauty standards     8     (blind). It’s very important to accept what you are. Second, teenagers should believe that they are unique and that their family and friends love them just the way they are. Finally,     9     (try) to direct the attention away from negative thoughts. What they should do is to take pride     10     what they do well instead of worrying about things they cannot change.

Clothing rental is a hot new industry and retailers are demanding to get on board in hopes of attracting green shopper.

But is renting fashion actually more environmentally-friendly than buying it, and if so, how much more? Journalist and author Elizabeth Cline     1     this question and concluded that it’s not as     2     as it seems.

Take shipping, for example, which has to go two ways if an item is rented-receiving and returning. Cline writes that consumer transportation has the second largest carbon     3       of our collective fashion habit after manufacturing.

She writes, “An item ordered online and then returned can send out 20 kilograms of carbon each way, and     4     up to 50 kilograms for rush shipping. By     5     the carbon impact of a pair of jeans purchased from a physical store and washed and worn at home is 33.4 kilograms, according to a 2015 study by Levi’s.”

Then there’s the burden of washing, which has to happen for every item when it’s returned, regardless of whether or not it was worn. For most rental services, this usually means dry cleaning, a high impact and polluting     6    . All the rental services that Cline looked into have replaced perchloroethylene, an air pollutant that     7     cancers, still used by 70 percent of US dry cleaners, with alternatives, although these aren’t great, either.

Lastly, Cline fears that rental services will increase our appetite for fast fashion, simply because it’s so easily     8    . There’s something called “share washing” that makes people waste more precisely because a product or service is shared and thus is regarded as more eco-friendly. Uber is one example of this,     9     as “a way to share rides and limit car ownership.” and yet “it has been proven to     10     walking, bicycling, and public transportation use.”

Renting clothes is still preferable to buying them cheap and throwing them in the dustbin after a few wears, but we shouldn’t let the availability of these services make us too satisfied. There’s an even better step-that’s wearing what is already in the closet.

7 . Did you ever have to say “no” to somebody? Such as a classmate asking to have breakfast with you? New research suggests that, at least socially, a rejection shouldn’t include an —___________. In other words, saying you are sorry doesn’t make the person being rejected feel any better. ___________, it might make the rejected person feel worse. That is ___________.Many people consider it to be good manners to say they are sorry when they ___________ a request.

Gili Freedman is doing some related research at Dartmouth College. For her research, she asked over 1,000 people to respond to different ___________ of social rejection. In one instance, the researchers asked people for their ___________ after a person named Taylor asked to join a co-worker who went out to lunch every Friday. And Taylor was told “no”. But in some cases, the person rejecting Taylor ___________ an apology. In other cases, the people doing the rejection did not say they were ___________. People were asked how they would ___________ if they were being turned down, just as Taylor was. Most said they would be more ___________ by a rejection with an apology than a rejection without an apology.

Gili Freedman said the reason is that apologies make people feel like that the rejection was ___________ — even when they felt-like it was not okay. Rejection without an apology lets them express their feelings of ___________, hurt or anger more easily. Freedman also said that an apology often makes the person ___________ feel better — even as it makes the person being rejected feel worse.

However, her research deals only with ___________ communication. A business situation might be very ___________. “If a manager rejects a job interviewee or a boss must tell an employee that he or she is being fired from a job,” Freedman said, “reactions to apologies maybe another case.”

Convenience vs Health: the Takeaway Dilemma (纠结)

Feeling hungry? If you’re feeling so, what’s the easiest way to satisfy your hunger? Many of us will reach     1     a takeaway menu and order some delicious, but possibly unhealthy food. And our increasingly busy lives add to our need to buy ready-made food.

Eating options are endless, and new technology means we can feed our cravings at the push of a button. Takeaway delivery apps make     2     (order) food quick and convenient, and during the recent coronavirus crisis, it provided a lifeline to those     3     (stick) at home with nothing to cook or who lacked the skills to prepare a meal for     4    . It is estimated that in the UK alone, people cat three million takeaway meals a day, and the three biggest delivery apps together offer a choice of 100 cuisines from 60,000 restaurants. Amelia Brophy, Head of UK Data Products at YouGov, told the BBC that “its research suggests that the frequency of takeaways ordered     5     (expect) to increase in the future.”

    6     is no wonder that we are tempted     7     (skip) the grocery shopping, bypass the kitchen, and tuck into something     8     someone else has prepared. But ordering a deep crust pizza, a spicy curry or a box of noodles,     9     come at a price both financially and to our health. Eating too much processed and unhealthy fast food bas some effect on obesity and the risk of developing certain metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. A few years ago, The BBC Good Food Nation Survey found that most people ate fast food on average two days per week. But, in the 16 to 20-year-old category, one in six ate fast food at least twice a day.

Of course, reducing salt, sugar and fat is one way to make takeaway food healthier, as well as offering smaller portion sizes. But     10     (good) advice you might want to take away from this Takeaway English is to find a recipe book and try making your own nutritious meal. And if you haven’t got time, try ordering a healthier alternative from the menu.

10 . A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

If you answered 10 cents, you’re not alone — most people give the same answer (the correct answer is 5 cents). It’s an example of how we often rely on intuitive responses — answers we feel are true. People give answers that pop into their mind, says cognitive scientist Steven Sloman. We don’t spend much time “reflecting and checking whether the answer is right or wrong.”

The bat and ball question helps explain why we often believe in fake news. It is part of human nature. But “the trick with fake news is to know to verify” — in other words, to stop and question what you know.

In one experiment, Sloman and a colleague invented a discovery called helium rain. They told a group of volunteers about it, but admitted they could not fully explain what it was. They then asked the volunteers to rate their own understanding of helium rain. Most volunteers rated themselves 1 out of 7, meaning they did not understand the concept.

The researchers then told another group of volunteers about the discovery. This time, they said that scientists could fully explain how it works. When asked to rate their understanding, the volunteers gave an average answer of 2. The scientists’ confidence gave the volunteers an increased sense of their own understanding, Sloman says.

According to Sloman, knowledge spreads like a contagion (传染病). “If everyone around you is saying they understand why a politician is dishonest,” Sloman says, “then you’re going to start thinking that you understand, too.”

Another explanation for the spread of fake news is “motivated reasoning”. We are naturally more likely to believe things that confirm our existing opinions. If you already have a negative opinion about someone, you’re more likely to trust damaging stories about them.

So, in a world where misleading information is common, training people to care about fact-checking is important, especially in online communities. Think of the stories that are shared on social media every day. Probably these fit in with your own worldview — but perhaps not all of them are true.

“Develop a norm (行为标准) in your community that says, ‘We should check things and not just take them at face value,’” Sloman says “Verify before you believe.”