1 . If you identify as a people-pleaser, you might feel like it’s impossible to change. Well-meaning friends can try to encourage you to just be yourself, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t shake that urge to keep everyone happy.     1    

Tell people-pleasing from being polite

    2     To be able to tell the difference, you should look at the amount of tension you feel. For example, when you see a friend finish his water and you refill his cup, that can come out of normal sensitivity to other people’s needs if you feel relaxed when you do it. But if you notice a sense of pressure, like something bad will happen if you don’t refill their drink, then you’re operating from anxiety and fear.

    3    

Lots of times, people who try to please other people are extremely quick to react in social settings. They know what to say right away and they move into care taking immediately.     4     One subtle but powerful technique to change your habit is to deliberately delay your reactions, connect with yourself and then try to have the interaction out of an authentic part of yourself.

Be ready for relationships to change or end

As you slowly start to become aware of your needs and even state them out loud, it can bring in some essential changes in your relationships. You might realize that as you mature, some friendships are not as rewarding or even as equal as you would like them to be.     5     If you have an emotionally immature friend, it’s up to you to decide if you want to leave the friendship or use that relationship as an opportunity for mutual growth, if the other person also seems interested in changing.

A．So, it’s time to end the relationship.

B．Change your habits and please yourself.

C．Slow down and check in with yourself before reacting.

D．This could be because, since childhood, they have developed this habit.

E．However, that doesn’t mean you always have to cut people out of your life.

F．Therefore, here’s how to slowly stop people-pleasing and start being yourself.

G．General polite behavior to one person can be people-pleasing to someone else.

2 . There’s a long line of research showing that when we make contact with people who’re socially different from us, we tend to feel less prejudice towards them. According to the contact theory, contact seems to work best for reducing prejudice when the contact is generally positive. But what happens when the conditions for interpersonal contact may not be ideal? For example, what if you feel threatened in some way by a group of people you see as “the other”?

Researchers from Ghent University in Belgium analyzed the results of 34 studies surveying nearly 64,000 people from 19 countries to see how intergroup contact affected their viewpoints about “outgroups” under conflict situations. For example, people were asked to report on how they viewed other groups. The researchers also had data from the surveys that measured attitudes towards outgroup members, such as how positive people felt towards them and how much they could trust them.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found strong feelings of threat were associated with more negative views of outgroup members. But having contact with outgroup members still reduced prejudice just as much under those unfavorable conditions. To Jasper Van Assche, the lead author of the paper, this suggests contact theory holds even under conflict situations.

Van Assche says that contact is so powerful probably because just being around people from an outgroup affects how we think and feel about them. As we become accustomed to even the me re presence of people from other groups, that can reduce our anxiety, especially if the encounters are positive—and that can lead to warmer feelings. Also, contact can enhance our knowledge about others’ customs and practices, so that they don’t seem so foreign or “other” to us.

Van Assche hopes his research can lead people to see the benefits of integrating the spaces where they live. This could be done through top-down methods, such as the government requiring school integration, but also from the bottom up. For example, suggests Van Assche, communities could create low-cost, low-key events that bring people together, helping to promote tolerance.

1. Why are the questions raised in paragraph 1?

A．To inspire readers’ imagination.	B．To argue against the contact theory.
C．To show the author’s curiosity.	D．To offer the purpose of the study.

2. Why can interpersonal contact reduce prejudice?

A．It improves people’s adaptive capacity.	B．It increases people’s desire to socialize.
C．It promotes each other’s understanding.	D．It makes people emotionally stable.

3. What might be Van Assche’s advice according to the text?

A．Expanding communities on the whole.

B．Increasing chances of positive contact.

C．Strengthening interactions between schools.

D．Offering equal education opportunities to diverse groups.

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

A．People involved in equal contact are generally positive	B．Opportunities for intergroup contact are on the rise
C．The interventions based on contact are unhealthy	D．Interpersonal contact can help people connect

6 . PEER PRESSURE

Have you ever been forced to do anything? Have you ever felt that you are in a tight corner because of someone’s comment?     1     Peer pressure is the influence a social group has on him or her.

    2     We all want to be part of a group and feel like we belong to our community. Peer pressure can happen when we are influenced to do something that we would not usually do because we want to be accepted by our peers. Children and young adults feel social pressure to be in line with the peer group.

Peer pressure can influence how people dress, how they talk, what music they listen to, what attitudes they adopt and how they behave. Teenagers want to be liked, to fit in and to be accepted.     3     People who are low in confidence and unsure of themselves may be more likely to seek their peers’ approval by going along with risky suggestions or choosing the “wrong” path.

Students can do a lot to avoid peer pressure. The most important thing is to build up self-confidence, so that it is easier to say “no” to the peer group.     4     It’s a good idea for teens to surround themselves with positive role models—people who don’t make fun of them, but accept them and are confident themselves. It’s also important for young people to think about the consequences of their actions.     5     If they stop and think about the consequences, they might make a different decision.

A．Why does peer pressure happen?

B．Teens can talk to a grown-up they trust.

C．Students can do this by choosing their friends wisely.

D．If they give in to peer pressure, what could be the result?

E．This means peer pressure can be powerful and hard to resist.

F．We’ve all experienced the situations like that—peer pressure.

G．We need to recognize when it is positive and when it is negative.

7 . Romantic attachment is one of the best predictors of happiness that social scientists have identified. For example, my review of the General Social Survey finds that although 27 percent of married Americans said they were “very happy” with their lives, only 11 percent of those respondents who were never married, divorced, separated, or widowed answered this way. And research in the Journal of Research in Personality has shown that marriage can protect happiness in adulthood.

These findings may help explain the well-documented decline in American happiness, especially among young adults. The percentage of adults who are currently married has fallen from almost 70 in 1960 to about 50 today. The solution to the happiness deficit (赤字) — for the nation as well as among individuals — is simply to encourage more people to pair off. However, a closer look at the singles trend suggests that the problem is not a lack of available partners, but that young adults may unintentionally be avoiding romantic attachment.

Psychologists commonly measure the health of attachment through two dimensions: anxiety and avoidance the latter meaning a resistance to intimacy (亲密). To score lower on each dimension is better. An insecure bond can involve someone being anxious but not avoidant, avoidant but not anxious, or both, while secure attachment is on the other hand. Unfortunately, insecure attachment is becoming more and more common. Over the past two decades, successive groups of studied college students have shown an increasing likelihood of experiencing one of the insecure styles. One particular insecure style-avoidance-is associated with a greater preference for singlehood. That tells us that the underlying problem is chiefly one of greater avoidance.

The popularity of avoidant attachment is a more reasonable explanation for the increase in unhappiness among young adults than their simply being uncoupled. After all, we also know that singlehood can make some people happier, and that a bad romantic partnership is clearly worse than no relationship at all. But in contrast to that mixed picture, many studies show that avoidant attachment is associated with lower satisfaction with life.

So what is causing this mass romantic avoidance? Two psychologists provided clues in a paper published in 2022 that was based on surveys of university students in Cyprus, including what led them to prefer being single. Strongly predictive of singledom, the researchers found, was not only a preoccupation with work and career but also the wide spread of so-called Dark Triad(narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy). In other words, people may avoid romantic commitment if they are especially self-centered or work-focused.

1. What does the author think of the solution to happiness decline?

A．It hits the target.	B．It barks up the wrong tree.
C．It cuts to the chase.	D．It gets to the bottom.

2. What is secure attachment like according to the psychologists?

A．It is anxious but not intimate.	B．It is both intimate and anxious.
C．It is neither anxious nor avoidant.	D．It is neither anxious nor intimate.

3. What is paragraph 4 mainly about?

A．The benefits of romantic partnership.

B．The popularity of insecure attachment.

C．The explanation for avoidant attachment.

D．The cause for declining happiness among young adults.

4. In the last paragraph, two psychologists found singledom was also probably associated with _____.

A．pressure of job hunting	B．level of education
C．different occupations	D．personal characteristics

10 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What is a good topic to start a conversation at a party?

A．Something about the host or hostess.

B．Good friends who are present.

C．A recent movie.

2. How can people make a conversation more informal immediately?

A．By looking other people in the eyes.

B．By using their first names.

C．By giving short answers.

3. Why should people stand close enough to others in a conversation?

A．To show their interest.

B．To hear the words clearly.

C．To create a relaxing atmosphere.

4. Why should people avoid political or religious subjects?

A．They make people feel bored.

B．They are difficult to understand.

C．They may cause disagreements.