4 . People are taught how to speak, but good sentence structure and a wide range of vocabulary words won’t always lead to being understood or understanding others.    1    

The good news is that it’s never too late to learn how to communicate more effectively. The first step is to realize you’ re having communication issues.    2    The following is a list of the top three signs that you need to learn healthier communication skills.

You have the same fights over and over.

Your fights are about the same topic again and again. If this is happening, it means you don’t yet have the skills to resolve conflicts.    3    The fight may end, but it’s only a matter of time before you argue about the same thing again. When you learn how to resolve conflicts, issues don’t pile up or become baggage that weighs down your relationship.

    4    

You don’t want to fight so you try not to bring up subjects that lead only to pain and disconnection. The problem is that avoiding them leads to pain and disconnection anyway. Unless you learn how to have hard conversations productively, you will get more and more disconnected until your relationship is in danger of ending.

You regularly feel misunderstood or unheard.

No matter how hard you try, you don’t feel understood. Perhaps your partner has expressed the same feeling.Over time the disconnected feeling does damage to your relationship. It’s important to learn how to communicate in a better way, so that both you and the other person feel heard and understood.    5    To be heard, your partner will need to learn how to listen. For you, to be able to hear your partner, you will need to do the same.

A．You avoid discussing certain topics.

B．You argue with your partners about some issues.

C．If you can’t resolve issues, they will continue to show up.

D．This requires more than just speaking to your partner or vice versa.

E．Then, you can learn how to communicate in a more productive way.

F．If you leave conflicts unsettled, you will feel disconnected and lonely.

G．Effective communication requires much more than being able to speak.

5 . A recent study by a group of researchers found that there is a link between happiness and a term that the researchers coined called “relational diversity.”

Using public data from sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the World Health Organization, the researchers were able to analyze data sets and survey responses from people who had shared their daily habits, schedules and interactions. They noticed a clear relationship between relational diversity and overall levels of satisfaction.

Hanne Collins, a Harvard Business School doctoral student who co-authored the study, says that relational diversity is composed of two elements: richness and evenness.

Richness measures relationship categories, or how many kinds of people you interact with in a day. That could be your romantic partner, a family member, a neighbor or a stranger. “The more relationship categories they talk to in a day and the more even their conversations are across those categories, the happier they are. And we find this in a large sample across many countries,” Collins said.

Evenness relates to the distribution of conversations among those different relationship categories. Some people may find themselves interacting with colleagues at work more than, say, their family members. “If you have a few conversations with colleagues, a few with friends, a few with a romantic partner or a couple chats with strangers, thats going to be more even across these categories,” Collins explained.

Ultimately, Collins says, the study gives insight to the idea that humans are social creatures at heart. Having a support system is important, but it goes beyond your inner circle. “Its about this mix. Its about connecting with people who are close to you, who are maybe less close to you, who connect you with other people, who provide different kinds of support,” she said. “Essentially, the idea is that the more diverse your social portfolio (社交档案), the happier you are and the higher your well-being.”

Next time you consider striking up a conversation with a stranger in line at the grocery store or while waiting at the coffee shop, keep in mind that it might be beneficial to your well-being.

1. How does the author explain the term “relational diversity”?

A．By listing statistics.	B．By making comparison.
C．By giving definitions and examples.	D．By describing the process.

2. Who is the happiest according to the study?

A．A person who interacts most with his family members.

B．A person who communicates frequently with his friends.

C．A person who seldom strikes up conversations with strangers.

D．A person who has ever conversations with many different people.

3. Which of the statements about the study is true?

A．Researchers came up with a new concept.

B．It shows that a support system is not necessary.

C．Researchers collected data by conducting experiments.

D．It was led by a doctoral student from Harvard Business School.

4. What is the writers attitude towards the result of the study?

A．Neutral.	B．Skeptical.
C．Opposed.	D．Approving.

7 . How to Be a Successful Team Leader？

Every well-organized team needs to have an outstanding leader with specific skills. Sometimes the leader’s abilities can come to affect the whole team. Although you students are still young, it’s never too early to cultivate leadership skills.

A team consists of both leaders and followers.     1     What is essential to the role of the leader is the ability to unite the whole team. A great leader enables their team to achieve-a common goal through the giving of clear directions and support. Meanwhile, everyone on a team also desires personal success, so a balance can be hard to strike. A leader should have fierce determination.     2    

What’s more, a successful and charming leader ought to be able to handle interpersonal relationships well. They should be honest, fair, objective and impartial (公正的) when it comes to both rewards and punishments.     3     And in so being, the working atmosphere will only come to be improved.

    4     Good communication skills allow people to build good relationships, which is an essential part of being a good leader. If you find it hard to express your ideas clearly to those who you cooperate with, it may be rather difficult for you to be a good leader. Positive thinking will make it easier for leaders to become effective speakers and communicators. Listening and observing carefully is also of great importance, and a good leader knows how to listen effectively when communicating with others.

It’s a well-known fact that, whatever field you wish to work in, leadership skills are necessary for anyone who desires to have a successful career.     5    

A．These kinds of leaders are trustworthy.

B．Followers are different from leaders, though.

C．Leaders still need someone to guide them along the way.

D．Neither side can exist and work effectively without the other.

E．So it’s never too early to train yourselves as promising future leaders.

F．To be a leader, you should take the initiative in connecting with your fellow students.

G．Otherwise, the followers will lose their confidence and things will not be done well.

9 . When romantic partners argue over things like finances, jealousy, or other interpersonal issues, they tend to employ their current feelings as fuel for a heated argument. But thinking about the future helps overcome relationship conflicts, according to a University of Waterloo study just published online in Social Psychological and Personality Science. Alex Huynh, a doctoral candidate in psychology is the lead author of the study, which he published with Igor Grossmann from the University of Waterloo, and Daniel Yang from Yale University.

Previous research has shown that third-perspective reasoning can be a positive strategy for reconciliation (调解) of interpersonal struggles. Huynh and his collaborators investigated whether similar benefit can be induced by simply thinking about the future. Study participants were instructed to reflect on a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a close friend. One group of participants were then asked to describe how they would feel about the conflict one year in the future, while another group was asked to describe how they feel in the present.

The team examined participants’ written responses through a text-analysis program for their use of pronouns — such as I, me, she, he. These choices of pronouns were used to capture participants’ focus on the feelings and behaviour of those involved in the conflict. Written responses were also examined for forgiveness and reinterpreting the conflict more positively, both of which implied the participants’ use of reasoning strategies.

The researchers found that envisioning future relationship affected both participants’ focus on their feelings, and their reasoning strategies. As a result, participants reported more positivity about their relationship altogether, especially when study participants extended their thinking about the relationship a year into the future.

“Our study demonstrates that adopting a future-oriented perspective in the context of a relationship conflict — reflecting on how one might feel a year from now — may be a valuable coping tool for one’s psychological happiness and relationship well-being,” said Huynh.

1. What do romantic partners do in face of most disagreements?

A．They lose faith in their future.	B．They focus on their present feelings.
C．They look forward to a fierce conflict.	D．They care more about financial problems.

2. What does the underlined word “induced” in Paragraph 2 most probably mean？

A．Caused.	B．Explained.
C．Reduced.	D．Improved.

3. What do we know about the study?

A．All the study participants described how they felt both in the present and in the future.

B．Study participants described their recent relationship with their romantic partners or friends.

C．A text-analysis program was employed to examine participants’ use of negative words.

D．The reasoning strategies in participants’ written responses were well worthy of note.

4. What can be the best title of the text?

A．You have a year to solve your interpersonal problems!

B．Thinking about future is essential for relationship maintenance!

C．Your current feelings are the real cause of your heated arguments!

D．Beneficial reasoning is a positive strategy for reconciliation!