It wasn’t fair.
Aminah always studied hard, so there was nothing unusual about her receiving top marks at the end of the year. But Farhan was often playing with the village boys. To help motivate him this year, their father had promised to buy him a bicycle if his grades improved. It really touched Farhan.
At the end of the school year, Aminah received top marks as she always did. And; as usual, her parents gave her100 rupees as a reward.
For the first time, Farhan got top marks too. True to his word, their father came home with a bicycle. It was well used. But to Farhan, it was the most beautiful bicycle in Pakistan. Farhan’s friends cheered when they saw it. It was understood that something as precious as a bicycle would be shared with everyone.
Well, almost everyone.
After a few days of watching Farhan and the village boys learning to ride, Aminah and her friends grew resentful (愤恨不满的). They spent afternoons on the hill just north of the village, watching the lazy brook flow at the hill’s foot. They could hear the boys cheering on the other side of the hill. “Why doesn’t he let us ride, Aminah?” asked Fatima. Aminah shrugged.
“He and the other boys just want the bicycle all for themselves!” replied Shehnaz.
Sarah shook her head. “But Aminah is his baji (姐姐)! He should share with her.” As they talked, the boys’ noise grew closer. Aminah looked up and saw her brother on his bicycle at the top of the hill. “Look! I can do it!” he yelled. The boys cheered. Suddenly he and the bike were rushing in the direction of the girls, toward the brook.
“Stop the bike!” the kids yelled.
“I can’t!” Farhan grabbed the handlebars. His body was locked.
Aminah jumped up. “Quick! I need your scarf!” Fatima and Shehnaz slipped their scarves off their shoulders and tossed them to Aminah, who removed her own scarf and quickly tied thick knots, connecting the scarves together.
Farhan was second away.
The bicycle seemed ruined, but their father took it to the city to see if it could be fixed.
A good book can be satisfying. If reading is a habit you’d like to get into, there are some ways to develop it.
●Realize that reading is enjoyable if you have a good book. If you have a difficult book and you are forcing yourself through it, it will seem like a task.
●Set time. You should have some time during every day when you’ll read for at least 5 to 10 minutes.
●Always carry a book.
●
●Reduce television/ the Internet. If you really want to read more, try cutting back on time on TV or the Internet.
| A．Go to bookstores. |
| B．Find a quiet place. |
| C．This may be difficult for some people. |
| D．Wherever you go, take a book with you. |
| E．Have some good tea or coffee while you read. |
| F．It means you will read no matter how busy you are. |
| G．If this happens, give up the book and find another one that you’ll really love. |
Having held the interschool (校际) story tell g championship for the past two years, I was the shining star of my school. When it came to choosing the right candidate (候选人) to participate in such competitions, I was always the first choice. Naturally, I was once again selected to represent my school in the approaching contest this year.
Upon hearing the fact that I was chosen again, my classmates and friends acknowledged that I would undoubtedly be the champion again. Consequently, I became conceited (自负的). I was so proud that I ignored the importance of practicing for the contest.
A week before the contest, my teacher Ms. Sara asked, “Selena, would you like to stand in front of the class to rehearse (排练) for the contest?” She had tutored me in the past two competitions and knew how important practice was. “Just imagine you are on the stage
“I’m sorry, Ms. Sara,” I replied. “I have a bit of a sore throat.”
This was usually the lie I would tell whenever my teacher requested me to practice in front of the class. I always found excuses to avoid doing it because I believed that I was the best and therefore the practice was unnecessary. On one occasion, I event old Ms. Sara not to worry too much as I was well prepared for the contest. In fact, I did everything but practice my script (讲稿) .I only managed to glance briefly through the story the day before the contest. As the best storyteller among the students of the local secondary schools, I was too vain to practice and expected everything to be fine.
The contest was being held in the local community hall. On the day of the contest, the hall was crowded with people. My schoolteachers and principal were there along with many of my classmates and schoolmates. I was the eighth contestant out of twenty in total. Those who spoke before me did extremely well. On seeing their fascinating and outstanding performance, I began to lose confidence in myself. My palms (手掌) sweated heavily and I started to feel nervous.
Soon it was my turn to talk.
Finally, I heard the results announced after the contest and felt sad.
How much time do you spend doing research before you make a decision? The answer for many of us, it turns out, is “hardly any”, even when spending a lot of money. Most people make two trips or fewer to a dealership before buying a car. We are not necessarily conserving our resources to spend them on bigger decisions either. One in five Americans spends more time planning their upcoming vacation than they do on their financial future.
To be sure, some people go over every detail exhaustively before making a choice, and it’s certainly possible to overthink things. But there are also people who are quick to jump to conclusions. This way of thinking is considered a “cognitive bias (认知偏差)”, a term psychologists use to describe a tendency toward a specific mental mistake.
In our own research, we have found that hasty judgments are often just one part of larger error-prone patterns in behavior and thinking. We’ve also found that people who tend to make such “jumps” in their reasoning may experience a wide range of costs.
To study jumping to conclusions, we worked with more than 600 people from the general population. Because much of the work on this bias comes from studies of schizophrenia (精神分裂症), we borrowed a thinking game used in that area of research.
In this game, players encountered someone who was fishing from one of two lakes: in one lake, most of the fish were red, and in the other, most were gray. The fisher would catch one fish at a time and stop only when players thought they could say which lake they were fishing in. Some players had to see many fish before making a decision. Others, the jumpers, stopped after only one or two.
We also asked participants questions to learn more about their other thinking patterns. We found that the fewer fish a player needed to see, the more errors he or she made in other beliefs, reasoning and decisions.
What our research and other recent studies show is that sometimes the most important decision can be when you choose to spend time considering before deciding. Even gathering just a little bit more evidence may help you avoid a major mistake.
1．Why does the author ask the question in the first paragraph?| A．To raise a controversial issue. | B．To introduce the author. |
| C．To develop a new concept. | D．To lead to the topic. |
| A．A person who always regrets making a decision. |
| B．A person who buys a coat when seeing it at first sight. |
| C．A person who checks every detail before buying a car. |
| D．A person who suffers from the disease of schizophrenia. |
| A．Participants in the game are from a specific hospital. |
| B．The jumpers tend to make more mistakes in reasoning. |
| C．The fish in the two lakes were equal in number. |
| D．The fisher helped participants make correct decisions. |
| A．To advise people to think twice before making decisions. |
| B．To analyse the reasons for jumpers making quick decisions. |
| C．To explain the concept of a cognitive bias. |
| D．To provide some tips for people to make correct decisions. |
Several large wooden constructions
First discovered in 1978,the site used
Researchers
Researchers believe
Even if you love fish, actually cooking it in your kitchen can be a commitment. Long after the fish has been eaten, the pots washed, and the plates put in the dishwasher, the fish smell still exits.
A lot of the smell from cooking fish is because of the cooking method you use.
| A．Frying can cause a big smell problem. |
| B．Prepare your home ahead offish cooking time. |
| C．Here's how to make every room smell amazing. |
| D．Cooking fish wrong brings about terrible smells. |
| E．When all else fails, bake up some cookies for dessert. |
| F．But, admittedly, even the freshest fish can get a bit of smell once it's cooked. |
| G．It can be enough to put even the most devoted fish eater off cooking it regularly. |
Two 18-year-old girls, Jrasnatt and Marisa, learned about a major challenge faced by the cricket (蟋蟀) farmers. Bigger crickets often attack the smaller ones. When attacked, a cricket will cut off its own legs to escape. But after abandoning a leg, this animal will often die or becomes less valuable to buyers.
Jrasnatt and Marisa were determined to solve the problem. After some research, they learned that colored light can influence the behaviors of some animals, including insects. To find out, the teen researchers transferred groups of 30 newly hatched crickets into each of 24 boxes. The crickets in six boxes were exposed only to red light. Another six boxes were lit with green. Six more boxes were lit with blue. These three groups of insects spent daytime hours throughout their lives — about two months — in a world bathed in just one color of light. The last six boxes of crickets lived in natural light.
“We see they’re growing every day and take notes on what’s happening,” says Marisa. “We’re like the parents of the crickets.” Throughout, the teens kept track of the crickets. The share of crickets with missing legs was about 9 in every 10 among those living in red, blue or natural light. But fewer than 7 in every 10 crickets who grew up in a world of green lost legs. Also, the survival rate for crickets in the green box was four or five times higher than that in the other boxes.
Crickets’ eyes are adapted to only see in green and blue light. So, in red light, the world would always look dark. Without being able to see, they are more likely to hit each other. That results in crickets losing legs. Besides, crickets are more attracted to blue light than green light, which pulls them closer together and leads to more fights. In the green light box, the crickets were most likely to mind their own business and avoid struggle.
Creating a green-light world for crickets is a solution that could be brought to the farms. Jrasnatt and Marisa are already in talks with the farmers. Those farmers plan to try out green lighting to see if it will boost their profits.
1．What problem of crickets did the girls decide to settle?| A．There is no cricket buyer. | B．They often jump high to escape. |
| C．Their legs are cut off by farmers. | D．There are always injuries and deaths. |
| A．They conducted the research seriously. | B．They looked after the insects carelessly. |
| C．They observed the crickets day and night. | D．They divided the crickets into three groups. |
| A．Possible application of the research finding. |
| B．A brief introduction to the research method. |
| C．A further explanation for the research results. |
| D．Detailed information about the research process. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Opposed. | C．Supportive. | D．Indifferent. |
One day Officer Jackson and Steve were discussing a serious case when they were informed of a disturbance (骚乱) in the nearby subway. So, they walked out of the station and got into their car.
The two officers had expected they’d have to deal with an annoying beggar troubling the passers-by for money. But when they arrived at the crime scene, they were shocked at the beggar’s appearance. The man had tears in his eyes and was sitting on the subway stairs, looking untidy and tired.
“Excuse me, sir,” Officer Jackson said. “You can’t stay here, nor can you bother the people to give you money. You have to leave this place.”
“Look, officers,” the man sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble, okay? I lost my cane (拐杖), and I can’t walk without it. I wanted a few cents so I could get myself something to eat.”
The two officers exchanged looks, knowing the man wasn’t a disturbance but someone who really needed their help. So they promised to get him food, buy him a cane, and drop him home.
After doing that, the officers drove to the beggar’s home, only to discover he had no home at all. He was just wandering in the streets and living off the leftovers he managed to find.
The poor man said his name was Eugene. When he was working at a skyscraper construction site, he was injured and became disabled, losing his ability to walk. Unfortunately, his disability forbade him from doing physical labor, and he wasn’t well-educated to find a desk job, so he remained jobless. Because he couldn’t provide for his family, his wife and children left him. “I don’t have any hopes of changing my destiny (命运), officers,” the man said.
But Officer Jackson wanted Eugene to change his life. “You’re still young,” he said.
“You can’t lose hope so soon. He brought him something warm to eat, helped him take a shower, and gave him his warm boots. After his work, Officer Jackson drove Eugene to a shelter for the homeless and left.
It seems as if social media platforms have taken over our lives. According to a study, there were over 3.6 billion social media users in 2021. And that number is only expected to grow.
Although social media platforms have helped to keep friends and family connected, there is also a dark side to social media. To put it simply, it is a money making machine. This is partially because of social media influencers. A social media influencer is someone “who can shape audience’s attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media”. You may be asking yourself, “Why would they want to do this, though?” The answer is simple: to make money. Social media influencers make money by promoting brands among their followers. In fact, influencer marketing is so profitable that the study reported that the industry is expected to reach $15 billion in value in 2022.
Social media influencers are now being called out because some of their actions have started to negatively impact the environment. One man in particular, who goes by Steve to remain anonymous (匿名的), noticed that some online influencers failed to follow rules when they went to national parks or public places. This included things like leaving garbage behind, or using drones (无人机) to take pictures from the sky.
Because of this, Steve made it his mission to stop social media influencers from hurting the environment with their bad behavior in order to get the “perfect shot”. In 2018, he made the account “Public Lands Hate You” to name and shame influencers who failed to follow the rules made to protect the environment. The account now has over 85 thousand followers.
He hoped that it could help some influencers find the light and right their wrongs. Steve said, “If everybody thought just a little bit more about their small actions and the impact those actions have on the environment and the people around them, I think that a lot of our bigger problems would be much more easily solved.”
1．What feature of social media influencers is mainly shown in paragraph 2?| A．Good communication. | B．Chasing profits. |
| C．Creative shows. | D．Volunteering service. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By offering data. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By explaining reasons. |
| A．To win wide attention and attract more fans. |
| B．To get the influencers aware of their wrong deeds. |
| C．To make public places inaccessible to influencers. |
| D．To inform the influencers of the places for perfect shots. |
| A．Well begun is half done. | B．Practice makes perfect. |
| C．Every bit of effort counts. | D．Actions speak louder than words. |
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