1 . Inconvenient Truths

If doctors lie, it is surely inexcusable. One of the basic_________ the public have of doctors is honesty. But what would you think if I told you that research has shown that 70 per cent of doctors   _________ to lying to their patients? If I am honest, I have told lies to my patients.

Mrs Walton was in her eighties and _________ to see her husband. She would try to get up to find him, despite being at risk of falling. “He’s on his way, don’t worry,” the nurses would say this to calm her down. I said the same thing to her. But it was a lie. He died two years ago. The truth, if I can use that word, is that it is a _________ to lie sometimes.

Mrs Walton is one of the dementia (痴呆) sufferers, who lose their short-term memory and the memory of_________ events, but hold memories from the distant past. Sufferers are trapped forever in a confusing past that many realize bears little   _________ to the present, but are at a loss to explain. Those with dementia often feel upset, scared and confused that they are in a strange place, _________ by strange people, even when they are in their own homes with their family, because they have gone back to decades ago.

They look at their adult children   _________ and wonder who they could be because they think their children are still little kids. I have had countless families break down in tears, not knowing how to react as their loved one moves further away from them back into their distant past and they are   _________ in the present. And how, as the doctor or nurse caring for these patients, does one manage the anger and outbursts of distress that comes with having no   __________ of your life for the past ten or 20 years? The lies that doctors, nurses and families tell these patients are not big, elaborate lies — they are   __________ comforts intended to calm and allow the subject to be swiftly changed.

__________ with them about this false reality is not heartless or unprofessional — it is actually kind. That’s not to say that lying to patients with dementia__________ is right or defensible. But what kind-hearted person would put another human being through the unimaginable pain of learning, ________ again and again, that they have lost their beloved ones. It would be an unthinkable cruelness.

Sometimes honesty is __________ not the best policy.

3 . Why do people read negative Internet comments and do other things that will obviously be painful? Because humans have an inherited need to ___________ uncertainty, according to a recent study in Psychological Science. The new research reveals that the need to know is so strong that people will ___________ to satisfy their curiosity even when it is clear the answer will hurt.

In a series of four experiments, behavioral scientists at the University of Chicago and the Wisconsin School of Business tested students’ willingness to ___________themselves to unpleasant stimuli in an effort to satisfy curiosity. For one experiment, each ___________was shown a pile of pens that the researcher claimed were from a previous experiment. The twist? Half of the pens would deliver an electric shock when ___________. Twenty-seven students were told which pens were electrified; Another 27 were told only that some were electrified. ___________ left alone in the room, the students who did not know which ones would shock them clicked more pens and incurred more shocks than the students who knew what would ___________. Consequent experiments reproduced this effect with other stimuli, such as the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard and photographs of horrible insects.

The drive to ___________ is deeply rooted in humans, much the same as the basic drives for food or shelter, says Christopher Hsee of the University of Chicago. Curiosity is often considered a good instinct — it can ___________ new scientific advances, for instance — but sometimes such ____________ can backfire. The instinct that curiosity can drive you to do self-destructive things is a tragic one. Unhealthy curiosity is possible to ____________, however. In a final experiment, participants who were encouraged to ____________ how they would feel after viewing an unpleasant picture were less likely to ____________ to see such an image. These results suggest that imagining the ____________ of following through on one’s curiosity ahead of time can help determine whether it is worth the efforts. “Thinking about long-term ____________ is key to reducing the possible negative effects of curiosity.” Hsee says. In other words, don’t read online comments.

6 . People think children should play sports. Sports are fun, and children keep healthy while playing with others. However，playing sports can have_________effects on children. It may produce feelings of poor self-respect or aggressive behavior in some children. According to research on kids and sports，40,000,000 kids play sports in the US. Of these,18,000,000 say they have been_________at or called names while playing sports. This leaves many children with a bad_________of sports. They think sports are just too aggressive.

Many researchers believe adults, especially parents and coaches, are the main_________of too much aggression in children’s sports. They believe children_________aggressive adult behavior. This behavior is then further strengthened through both positive and negative feedback (反馈). Parents and coaches are powerful teachers because children usually look up to them. Often these adults behave aggressively themselves, sending children the message that_________is everything. Many parents go to children’s sporting events and shout_________at other players or cheer when their child behaves_________. As well, children are even taught that hurting other players is _________or are pushed to continue playing even when they are injured.____________, the media makes violence seem exciting. Children watch adult sports games and see violent behavior replayed over and over on television.

We really need to____________this problem and do something about it. Parents and coaches____________should act as better examples for children. They also need to teach children better____________. They should not just cheer when children win or act aggressively. They should teach children to____________themselves whether they win or not. Besides, children should not be allowed to continue to play when they are injured. If adults allow children to play when injured, this gives the message that____________is not as important as winning.

7 . The designer, Charles Frederick Worth (1825-95), was the first to sew labels into the clothes that he created. Because of this and his international fame, Worth is generally considered to be the father of _________ , which started in the late 19th century. Before then, making clothes was mainly done by _________ dressmakers whose clothes were influenced by what people were wearing at the French royal court. Worth, originally from England, moved to France in 1846, where he enjoyed considerable success with the nobility. Since then, there have been even greater successes for other designers, such as Chanel and Armani and those _________ the younger, trendier market, for example, Tommy Hilfiger. Currently the fashion industry relies more on mass-market sales than on _________ designs. Some well-known designers have even teamed up with international high street shops who want to add a luxury product to their range. _________ , the London branch of H&M, a clothing company from Stockholm, has started selling cut-price clothes by high-fashion designers. Recently, hundreds of people _________ outside for up to 12 hours to buy clothes designed by Lanvin! Some camped there overnight, even though at the time England was experiencing an extremely cold winter. Is this _________ to labelled goods really worth all the trouble?

An article in The Economist suggests labelled clothes really do _________ the wearers. It quotes research from Tilburg University, in the Netherland, which explains that such clothes bring status and even job recommendations, but only when the label is _________ ! The university’s first research experiment involved photos of a man wearing a polo shirt. The photos were digitally __________ so that one shirt had no logo, another had a luxury-designer logo and the third had a non-luxury logo. On a five-point scale for status, the luxury designer logo rated 3.5, no logo rated 2.91 and the non-luxury logo came last, rated 2.84. It seems it may be better to have no logo at all than to have the __________ logo! In another experiment, people watched one of two videos of a job interview of the same man. In one, his shirt had a luxury logo on it, in the other it didn’t. The man with the logo was rated more __________ the job and even received a recommendation for a 9% higher salary!

The research concluded that like a peacock’s tail, designer labels are seen as __________ of superior status: ‘the peacock with the best tail gets all the girls’. But while a peacock can’t make his tail look more attractive, it seems humans can __________ their status by using design labels. And by doing so, the way we __________ each other’s status may be seriously wrong!

11.

A．special

B．luxurious

C．wrong

D．untold

8 . The closer one studies the gig economy (灰色经济), the less fun it sounds. Those who make their living this way, generally___________ app-based platforms that match consumer needs with workers who can fulfil them are ___________ being in uncertain employment.

Bodies such as the International Labor Organization characterize this kind of employment as mostly low-paid and ___________, in which workers enjoy very few social, organizational and___________ rights and protections.

Attention is turning to the health and well-being of this fast-growing workforce, which ___________ about 1.3m in the U.K.One academic is even calling for a “Gig-hall” study — similar to the landmark Whitehall ___________ into the health of civil servants.

Those studies, conducted over three decades by Sir Michael Marmot, demonstrated the ___________ between socio-economic status and health, a correlation that became known as “status syndrome”. Senior civil servants enjoyed lower _____________ of death and heart disease than lowlier employees, a difference partly ascribed to (把……归功于……) autonomy (自主权) at work.

The_____________ of powerlessness that afflicts (折磨，使痛苦) many in the gig economy — according to one survey, only four out of 10 gig workers (零工) feel like they are their own__________________ — suggests that health problems may be brewing in this sizeable slice of workforce.

One study on the Italian workforce, published last year in Social Science and Medicine, suggests that those on __________________ contracts are more likely to use prescription medication for mental health conditions such as __________________ (although the reverse is also likely to be true, that pre-existing ill health leads to more irregular employment).

__________________ not specifically about the gig economy, the authors, from the universities of Brunel and Milan, conclude that the __________________ to make labour markets more flexible might prove ill for the psychological well-being of workers.

Gig work is often conducted privately, in cars and homes, from bicycles and motorbikes, instead of from a __________________workplace, so basic hazards, such as fatigue associated with long hours, can go unnoticed.

9 . It has been one of the deadliest climbing seasons on Everest, with at least 10 deaths. And at least some seem to have been _________.

The problem hasn’t been avalanches(雪崩）, blizzards or high winds. Experienced climbers and industry leaders _________ too many people on the mountain, in general, and too many inexperienced climbers, in particular.

Fly-by-night adventure companies are taking up untrained climbers who pose a risk to everyone on the mountain. And the Nepalese government, _________ for every climbing dollar it can get, has issued more permits than Everest can safely _________, some experienced mountaineers say.

Add to that Everest’s unmatched _________ to a growing body of thrill-seekers the world over. And the fact that Nepal, one of Asians poorest nations and the site of most Everest climbs, has a long record of bad regulations and mismanagement.

To reach the peak, climbers _________ every pound of equipment they can and take with them just enough cans of compressed oxygen to make it to the top and back down. It is hard to think straight at that altitude（海拔）.

According to the climbers, some of the deaths this year were caused by people getting held up in the long lines on the last 1,000 feet or so of the climb, unable to get up and down fast enough to _________ their oxygen supply. Others were simply not fit enough to be on the mountain _________.

Nepal has no _________ rules about who can climb Everest, and experienced climbers say that is a direct reason for _________. “You have to reach certain standards to do the Ironman,” said Alan Arnett, a remarkable Everest climber. “But you don’t have to _________ to climb the highest mountain in the world? What’s wrong with this picture?”

The last time 10 or more people died on Everest was in 2015, during an avalanche. By some measures, the Everest machine has only gotten more out of _________. Last year, experienced climbers, insurance companies and news organizations _________ a far-reaching scheme by guides, helicopter companies and hospitals to trick millions of dollars from insurance companies byevacuating(疏散) climbers with _________ signs of altitude sickness.

Despite all the problems, this year the Nepali government issued a record number of permits, 381, as part of a bigger _________ to commercialize the mountain. Climbers say the permit numbers have been going up steadily each year and that this year the traffic jams were heavier than ever.