Faced with employment pressures
2 . My son just turned 14 and does not have a smartphone. When he graduated from Grade 8, he was the only kid in his class without one. He asks for a phone now that he’s going to high school. I say no, he asks why, I explain(yet again), and he pushes back.
“You can choose to do things differently when you’re a parent,” I told him. But sometimes, I wonder if I’m being too stubborn or unfair.
The more I research, the more confident I feel in my decision. Many studies link the current mental health crisis among adolescents to fundamental changes in how they socialize, namely, the shift from in-person to online interaction.
But other parents challenge my perspective. “He must feel so left out!” Then there are the parents who tell me with profound sadness that they wish they had delayed their teenager’s phone ownership longer than they did. They urge me to hold out.
If teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 are truly spending an average of 8 hours 39 minutes per day on their devices, as stated in a 2021 survey conducted by the non-profit research organization Common Sense Media, then what are they not doing? Kids absorbed in their devices are missing out on real life, and that strikes me as really sad.
I want my son to have a childhood he feels satisfied with and proud of. I want it to be full of adventures, imaginative play and physical challenges which he must sort out himself—and emerge stronger—without asking for me at the push of a button.
The easiest and simplest way to achieve these goals is to delay giving him a smartphone.
Some think my son is missing out or falling behind, but he is not. He does well in school and extracurricular activities, hangs out with his friends in person, and moves independently around our small town. He swears (发誓) he’ll give his own 14-year-old a phone someday, and I tell him that’s fine. But recently, he admitted that he missed the beautiful scenery on a drive to a nearby mountain because he had been so absorbed in his friend’s iPad.
If that is his version of admitting I’m right, I’ll take it.
1. What is the author’s primary concern regarding giving her son a smartphone?| A．Her son’s social life. | B．Her son’s well-being. |
| C．Her son’s time management. | D．Her son’s academic performance. |
| A．Her doubts about the reliability of a teenage survey. |
| B．The rise of smartphone addiction among teenagers. |
| C．The potential negative effects of excessive phone usage. |
| D．The factors contributing to teenage smartphone addiction. |
| A．Team spirit | B．Leadership |
| C．Self-reliance | D．Critical thinking |
| A．He is struggling academically. |
| B．He no longer desires a smartphone. |
| C．He is easily influenced by his friends. |
| D．He has realized the drawbacks of excessive screen time. |
3 . “When I stopped in at our local tourism office in Montreal to ask where they would recommend visitors to go to smell, taste, and listen to the city, I just received blank stares. They only know about things to see, not about the city’s other sensory attractions, its soundmarks and smellmarks,” says Howes, the director of Sensory Studies, a growing field often referred to as “sensory urbanism”.
Around the world, researchers like Howes are investigating how non-visual information defines the character of a city and affects its livability. Using methods ranging from low-tech sound walks to data collecting, wearables (clothing or glasses that contain computer technology), and virtual reality, they’re fighting what they see as a limiting visual preference in urban planning.
“Just being able to close your eyes for 10 minutes gives you a totally different feeling about a place,” says Oguz Öner, an academic and musician. He has spent years organizing sound walks in Istanbul where participants describe what they hear at different spots with their eyes covered. His research has identified locations where a wave organ could be constructed to strengthen the sounds of the sea, something he was surprised to realize people could hardly hear, even along the waterfront.
Although his findings have not been considered into local urban plans yet, this kind of individual feedback (反馈) about the sensory environment is already being put to use in Berlin, where quiet areas identified by citizens using a free mobile app have been included in the city’s latest noise action plan.
The best way to determine how people react to different sensory environments is a subject of some debate within the field. Howes and his colleagues are using observation and interviews to develop a set of best practices for good sensory design in public spaces. Other researchers are going more high-tech, using wearables to track biological data like heart-rate variability to reveal different sensory experiences.
As data collection about people’s sensory experiences becomes more widespread, many of these experts warn that concerns about privacy and surveillance (监视) need to be taken into account. Issues of fairness and inclusion also come into play when determining whose sensory experiences are factored into planning. “Sensory awareness is not independent or simply biological; whether we find something pleasant or not has been shaped culturally and socially,” says Monica Degen, an urban cultural sociologist at Brunel University London.
Degen cites the example of a London neighborhood where inexpensive restaurants for local youth were replaced by trendy cafes. “It used to smell like fried chicken,” she says, but newer residents found that smell annoying rather than welcoming. “Now it smells like the popular Italian coffee, cappuccinos.”
1. The underlined phrase “blank stares” in Paragraph 1 implies that______.| A．Montreal is lacking in visual appeal |
| B．Montreal’s non-visual information is ignored |
| C．the tourism officers object to sensory urbanism |
| D．there are too many tourist attractions to recommend |
| A．Many methods are used to limit the visual preference. |
| B．Potential concerns about collecting data can be relieved. |
| C．People may fail to notice sound attractions even in better locations. |
| D．Individual feedback restricts the development of sensory environment. |
| A．People’s perceptions of their sensory surroundings are subjective. |
| B．Sensory urbanism needs to focus on developing sensory facilities. |
| C．Sensory experience is dominant in shaping the character of a city. |
| D．Choices of sensory attractions in urban planning depend on tourists. |
Gather a couple of friends and take a leisurely walk through the streets—this is
If you feel like you may be a people-pleaser, you’re not alone. In today’s highly-connected world, we have a growing obsession (痴迷) with being liked and needing to please others. People seek to please others for various reasons, including avoiding conflicts, securing feelings of being needed, and reducing fears of abandonment. And they are forced to use agreeableness as self-defense.
People-pleasing behavior can lead to mental and physical health problems such as fear of rejection, frustration, anger, addictions, headaches, stomach problems, and high blood pressure. It can also result in weak boundaries, problems with decision-making and dependency. Therefore, it’s important to recognize and overcome your own people-pleasing behaviors. Here are some simple exercises that you can start working on today.
Learn to love your own company. Trust that people will not abandon you, even if you don’t drop everything for them. Believing you are lovable for who you are, not what you do, means knowing that people will still be there for you even if you do not always search for ways to please them. Practice this by going to a movie or restaurant alone.
Value the plans made with yourself. They are as important as plans you make with other people. Otherwise, you are sending a message to your brain that a plan you make with yourself does not hold as much value. Don’t break long-or short-term plans you make with yourself, whether it’s going to the gym or studying for an exam.
Say “no” when necessary. If you’re a people-pleaser, you may find it hard to say “no” because you feel it comes across as cruel or uncaring. But it absolutely does not have to. Be clear, be direct, and use “I” statements. Try statements like: “I would really love to be able to help you, but unfortunately, I’m already committed at that time.” By consistently integrating these strategies into your life, you’ll break your people-pleasing habits and develop more healthy, interdependent relationships.
1. What is a people-pleaser like?2. Besides mental and physical problems, what other problems may a people-pleaser suffer from?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
If you don’t want to be a people-pleaser, you should love being with others, value the plans made with yourself, and decline others’requests when necessary.
4. What do you think of the behavior of pleasing others? (In about 40 words)
6 . Demanding days seem designed to test our self-control. We all need to rely on willpower to avoid short-term temptations and override unwanted thoughts or impulses (冲动). The prevailing psychological theory proposed that willpower resembled a kind of battery. With each exercise of self-control, you exhausted this resource. Without a chance to recharge, that resource ran low, making it harder to maintain self-control. This process was known as “ego depletion”.
In 2010, however, psychologist Veronika Job published a study that questioned the foundations of “ego depletion” theory, with some interesting evidence that ego depletion depended on people’s underlying beliefs. In the study, Job divided participants into two categories: those with a “limited” view of willpower and those with a “non-limited” view of willpower, based on a prior questionnaire. She then gave the participants some standard laboratory tests examining mental focus, which was considered to depend on the reserves of willpower. The study found that people with a limited mindset tended to perform exactly as ego depletion theory would predict but the non-limited individuals did not, which indicated that people’s beliefs about willpower could be self-fulfilling prophecies (预言). Those who believed willpower was easily depleted saw their self-control decrease, while those who believed in “mental stamina (耐力)” experienced no ego depletion.
Subsequent debates about the reliability of the laboratory tests of ego depletion emerged, but Job’s work demonstrated that mindset significantly impacted real-life outcomes. Her follow-up study revealed that after completing demanding tasks, most participants recovered to some degree overnight, but those with non-limited mindsets actually experienced an increase in their productivity the following day, as if energized by the extra pressure.
If you already have a non-limited mindset about willpower, these findings might be a cause for self-satisfaction. For those with limited mindsets, hope is not lost. Learning about this science can help shift beliefs. Sharing this knowledge with others can further consolidate this shift. Moreover, recollecting times of engaging in taxing yet enjoyable tasks naturally shifts people’s beliefs toward non-limited mindsets, as they see proof of their own men tal stamina. To provide yourself with further evidence, you can conduct small self-control tests. As you realize your willpower’s growth, you’ll find resisting temptations and distractions easier.
While immediate miracles aren’t guaranteed, perseverance will lead to a changed mindset and increased self-control, propelling actions toward personal goals.
1. “Ego depletion” theory shows that willpower ________.| A．helps control our impulses | B．reduces after exercising self-control |
| C．is a test of your character | D．is like a chargeable battery |
| A．Extra pressure boosts mental focus. |
| B．Demanding tasks reduce mental focus. |
| C．Reserves of willpower depend on mental focus. |
| D．The change of mental focus relies on one’s mindset. |
| A．Picturing your ideal university. |
| B．Doing homework in front of a TV. |
| C．Sharing science knowledge with friends. |
| D．Recalling mastering a challenging piano piece. |
You are watching your favorite TV show when a commercial break starts. First you see an ad for candy. Then there is one for fast food. Your stomach growls. Suddenly, all you can think about is how much you need a snack.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. Researchers from McMaster University in Canada studied the effects of junk food ad. The researchers examined the effects of advertising junk food on more than 6000kids through TV commercials and other types of media. They found that kids made unhealthy food and drink choicesas quickly as 30 minutes after seeing the ads.
“There is too much unhealthy food advertising out there,” Says Behnam Sadeghirad. He’s one of the researchers who led the study. “This is dangerous for younger children.”
Food and drink ads are everywhere from TV to the Internet. Companies want to make sure you know about their products. They spend nearly 1.8 billion a year on food ads aimed at kids according to a report.
The Nielsen Company tracked the number of food ads that kids saw in 2015. It found that kids watched nearly 12 food ads on TV each day. Most of these ads weren’t for health y foods. In fact, on average. kids saw only one ad per week for fruits and vegetables. Instead, most of the ads were for fast food, candy and sugary drinks.
Jennifer Harris, a professor at the University of Connecticut, says this is a big part of the problem. “Unhealthy foods are not things we should be encouraging kids to eat more often”. Harris says. “But unfortunately those are the products being advertised to them the most”.
Health experts say it’s OK to treat yourself to a cookie once in a while. But what can you do to keep from having an unhealthy snack every time you see an ad for junk food? Harris says it’s important to learn to spot the techniques companies use in their ads, tell their kids what is going on and help kids think about whether these products are good for them.
1. What did researchers from MaMaster University find?2. What do the findings of the Nielsen Company suggest?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
To avoid negative impacts of advertisements for unhealthy food, parents should keep their kids from watching these kinds of advertisements.
4. Please briefly describe what you can do to reduce the negative impact of advertising on your life.
8 . In our information-driven society, shaping our worldview through the media is similar to forming an opinion about someone solely based on a picture of their foot. While the media might not deliberately deceive us, it often fails to provide a comprehensive view of reality.
Consequently, the question arises: Where, then, shall we get our information from if not from the media? Who can we trust? How about experts—people who devote their working lives to understanding their chosen slice of the world? However, even experts can fall prey to the allure of oversimplification, leading to the “single perspective instinct” that hampers(阻碍)our ability to grasp the intricacies of the world.
Simple ideas can be appealing because they offer a sense of understanding and certainty. And it is easy to take off down a slippery slope, from one attention-grabbing simple idea to a feeling that this idea beautifully explains, or is the beautiful solution for, lots of other things. The world becomes simple that way.
Yet, when we embrace a singular cause or solution for all problems, we risk oversimplifying complex issues. For instance, championing the concept of equality may lead us to view all problems through the lens of inequality and see resource distribution as the sole panacea. However, such rigidity prevents us from seeing the multidimensional nature of challenges and hinders true comprehension of reality. This “single perspective instinct” ultimately clouds our judgment and restricts our capacity to tackle complex issues effectively.
It saves a lot of time to think like this. You can have opinions and answers without having to learn about a problem from scratch and you can get on with using your brain for other tasks. But it’s not so useful if you like to understand the world. Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you would like to understand reality.
Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, consult people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world. I have been wrong about the world so many times. Sometimes, coming up against reality is what helps me see my mistakes, but often it is talking to, and trying to understand, someone with different ideas.
If this means you don’t have time to form so many opinions, so what? Wouldn’t you rather have few opinions that are right than many that are wrong?
1. What does the underlined word “allure” in Para.2 probably mean?| A．Temptation. | B．Tradition. | C．Convenience. | D．Consequence. |
| A．They meet people’s demand for high efficiency. |
| B．They generate a sense of complete understanding. |
| C．They are raised and supported by multiple experts. |
| D．They reflect the opinions of like-minded individuals. |
| A．Simplifying matters releases energy for human brains. |
| B．Constant tests on our ideas help make up for our weakness. |
| C．A well-founded opinion counts more than many shallow ones. |
| D．People who disagree with us often have comprehensive views. |
| A．Embracing Disagreement: Refusing Overcomplexity |
| B．Simplifying Information: Enhancing Comprehension |
| C．Understanding Differences: Establishing Relationships |
| D．Navigating Complexity: Challenging Oversimplification |
9 . In recent years, researchers from diverse fields have agreed that short-termism is now a significant problem in industrialised societies. The inability to engage with longer-term causes and consequences leads to some of the world’s most serious problems: climate change, biodiversity collapse, and more. The historian Francis Cole argues that the West has entered a period where “only the present exists, a present characterised at once by the cruelty of the instant and by the boredom of an unending now”.
It has been proved that people have a bias (偏向) towards the present, focusing on loud attractions in the moment at the expense of the health, well-being and financial stability of their future selves or community. In business, this bias surfaces as short-sighted decisions. And on slow-burning problems like climate change, it translates into the unwillingness to make small sacrifices (牺牲) today that could make a major difference tomorrow. Instead, all that matters is next quarter’s profit, or satisfying some other near-term desires.
These biased perspectives cannot be blamed on one single cause. It is fair to say, though, that our psychological biases play a major role. People’s hesitancy to delay satisfaction is the most obvious example, but there are others. One of them is about how the most accessible information in the present affects decisions about the future. For instance, you might hear someone say: “It’s cold this winter, so I needn’t worry about global warming.”Another is that loud and urgent matters are given too much importance, making people ignore longer-term trends that arguably matter more. This is when a pop star draws far more attention than, say, gradual biodiversity decline.
As a psychologist once joked, if aliens (外星人) wanted to weaken humanity, they wouldn’t send ships; they would invent climate change. Indeed, when it comes to environmental transformations, we can develop a form of collective “poor memory”, and each new generation can believe the state of affairs they encounter is nothing out of the ordinary. Older people today, for example, can remember a time with insect-covered car windscreens after long drives. Children, on the other hand, have no idea that insect population has dropped dramatically.
1. The author quotes Francis Cole mainly to ________.| A．draw a comparison |
| B．introduce a topic |
| C．evaluate a statement |
| D．highlight a problem |
| A．Climate change has been forgotten. |
| B．Lessons of history are highly valued. |
| C．The human mind is bad at noting slow change. |
| D．Humans are unwilling to admit their shortcomings. |
| A．Far-sighted thinking matters to humans. |
| B．Humans tend to make long-term sacrifices. |
| C．Current policies facilitate future decision-making. |
| D．Bias towards the present helps reduce near-term desires. |
10 . A question has increasingly bothered me since I began studying our relationship with technology two decades ago: Will we ever pay attention again? The concern arose from measuring the shrinking attention spans in various work roles. Whether we’re talking about a Gen Z or a baby boomer, a CEO or an administrative assistant, attention spans on our computers and phones are short and declining.
We tend to blame this trend on growing digital alerts and notifications, or on algorithms aimed at capturing our focus. These do play measurable roles. But it turns out that people are nearly as likely to switch their attention of their own volition. We are determined to be interrupted, if not by others, then by ourselves. Simply choosing to check our email is a major reason for interruptions. Our research found that, on average, people check their inboxes 77 times a day. More than 40% of the time, they do it willingly, without being spurred by any alert.
Are we doomed to see our attention spans nosedive? Completely unplugging from technology might help us recover, but few of us are ready to give up the benefits of online connections. There are possible remedies, however, if not real solutions.
First, we can become more intentional in our actions by examining the reasons behind: Am I distracting myself because I am bored? Are there other options? Taking proper breaks is also important; research shows that even a 20-minute walk in nature can lead us to increase our generation of ideas. Finally, people can plan to concentrate on important tasks when their mental resources are at their peak for avoiding distraction.
Institutional decisions can also help us to preserve attention. It’s not realistic to cut off email completely, but the volume can be reduced. We found that cutting email off in an organization for one workweek helped people focus longer on screens and reduced stress. Companies with an email-free day a week have reported positive results.
The German companies Volkswagen and Allianz have gone a step further and adopted a policy called “Right to Disconnect”. Actually, this policy of not punishing workers for failing to answer e-communications after work hours has been instituted in Ireland and France. How does this help? A 2017 study found afterhours work communications created emotional exhaustion, and a 2014 study showed detaching from work can improve sleep. The study found when sleep deficits increase, attention spans decrease.
Our online behavior is greatly influenced by the wider culture and the ever more sophisticated tools of digital technology, but we can’t just blame our short attention spans on algorithms and notifications that flood in. We still own our attention, and we can take change into our own hands.
1. In paragraph 2, the author mentions the result of the research to show that________.| A．we are likely to interrupt ourselves in most cases |
| B．people will sometimes voluntarily seek distraction |
| C．people are constantly interrupted by email from others |
| D．digital alerts are not to blame for the reduced concentration |
| A．The companies used to punish workers for not staying connected after work. |
| B．The employees of these companies were generally not satisfied with their job. |
| C．Their employees had lower sleep quality compared to those in France and Ireland. |
| D．The companies refused to adopt the policy because they wanted to make more profits. |
| A．It’s up to us human beings to decide how much we want to be distracted by it. |
| B．We can adjust our online behavior by making some changes to digital culture. |
| C．Standards must be set to ensure that we do not fall victim to its negative effects. |
| D．The impact of digital technology on our lives can be extended by cultural behavior. |
