1 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

It Takes at Least 200 Hours to Make a Close Friendship, and More to Maintain It

Many of us worry that we don’t put in enough time to maintain close friendships. But how much is enough? Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula (公式) for how much time you need to spend on your friends to keep them. Each friendship and friend are unique and develops or ends depending on how we interact.

Forming a friendship in the first place takes a certain number of hours of being together. We need between 40 and 60 hours together for a person we know slightly to become a casual friend. In order to move from casual friends to close friends, we need to spend an additional 140 to 160 hours together for a total of about 200 hours.

However, deeper interactions can quicken that timeline. We can form a close bond in less than 200 hours with meaningful conversations. Contrarily, spending 200 hours together doesn’t necessarily mean a person will become a close friend. They have to want to be your friends. Some co-workers can spend 300 hours together and never become close friends.

When it comes to maintaining friendships, it’s not just the number of hours spent together, but what we do that matters. Engaging in passive activity with friends — like watching a TV series — is fun and enjoyable, but it doesn’t do as much to maintain friendship as having deep conversations, sharing feelings, and being a good listener. And routinely checking in with people we choose to connect with, through calls and texts or in person, helps maintain relationships and leads to higher scores of positive feelings, like happiness.

The key point is that sharing things about ourselves can lead to close friendships. Once that closeness is established, some ways to maintain closeness are supporting friends when things go wrong for them and celebrating their achievements.

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2 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

I received an email from a reader who asked, “Why do some friendships end, no matter how much you want them to last?” She referred to     1     (see) the question in one of my articles, Mystery of Friendship. As I wrote in it, I don’t think easy answers exist as to how friendships start, why some turn into lifetime     2    , and why some end. Although I’ve tried answering the first two questions in other articles (To Have A Friend and Be A Friend), I still get surprised by friendships that endure and disillusioned by those that slip away. Even so, I’ll try to offer some insights here as to why friendships end.

My simple answer is that friendships end because the situations     3     friends are in or even the friends themselves change. First, the realities friends face may change. The decision to relocate     4     a new school or job cannot help but affect a friendship. Likewise, if a friend is in an accident, develops an illness, or loses someone close, these cannot help but affect a friendship. Does a friendship need to end because of these changes? No, but it’ll require adjustments that one or both friends     5     not be willing to make.

Second, the friends themselves may change. A significant reason why friendships often end     6    friends are apart for an     7     (extend) period of time (for summer camp, college, etc.) is that one or both of the friends change. I think it     8     (hurt) less when both friends change, because then the breakup is more often mutual and so both friends get closure by both deciding to let go and move forward in their lives without each other. What tends to hurt most is when just one friend changes. One friend might change social circles, become involved in new social organizations, start to date, get a pet, or take on some other venture that consumes more time and passion. Again, a friendship can endure these changes,     9     one or both of the friends for some reason decide not to invest the time and energy involved in the adjustment period. In this situation, breakups may not be mutual and so one or both friends feel betrayed and end up with bitter memories about     10     was a precious friendship to them.

3 . 阅读下面短文，根据其内容写一篇60词左右的内容概要。

Good friendships seem to be especially helpful for the heart. A three-year Swedish study of more than 13,600 men and women found that having few or no close friends increased the risk of having a heart attack by about 50 percent. A two-year study of more than 500 women with suspected coronary artery(冠状动脉) disease showed similar results. Women who reported the lowest levels of social support were twice as likely to die during the study. The women who enjoyed close support were not only more likely to be alive after two years, they also had lower rates of high blood pressure and were less likely to have excessive fat.

As reported in the Journal of the National Medical Association, friendships and other types of social support can help relieve stress, a well-known contributor to heart disease. Among other things, stress can encourage inflammation (炎症) in arteries. The research is still not very mature, but some studies have found that people who enjoy close support from friends and family generally have fewer inflammatory chemicals in their blood. The link between social ties and inflammation seems to be especially marked in older people.

When stress does appear, friends can encourage healthy reactions. People who lack strong social support tend to have dramatic and potentially dangerous reactions to scary situations. Their hearts pound and their blood pressure soars. But friends can help keep the heart on a more even keel. A study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine found that young men and women discussing rough patches in their lives had a lower pulse and blood pressure when they had a supportive friend at their side.

Finally, friendships may help encourage a heart-healthy lifestyle. As reported in Current Opinion in Psychiatry, people are more likely to eat fruit and vegetables, exercise regularly and quit smoking if they have a network of friends and family.

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