It's true that “A small change can make a big difference” in our life. A better technical term that can well ______ this idea is the “Butterfly Effect”. A butterfly's ______ wings can make changes in the path of a tornado; it may ______ create or prevent a tornado at a certain location.
The “Butterfly Effect” plays a role in our ______ to a great extent. Small ______ could make a huge difference in our relationships. Most of the time we take things for granted in our ______ relations. We don't even think of saying “Thank You” to our parents as we ______ they are supposed to do things for us. Understanding some of the subtle（细腻的）feelings of our loved ones and ______ them the way they need would ______ change the relationship into a stronger one. I've come across people who feel ______ in their relationships as they ______ to address these small needs.
The “Butterfly Effect” also plays a role in our work. Looking ______ into the smallest details while starting a ______ is critical. A subtle mistake while taking care of our customer's ______ could end up creating big trouble at the end of the process. This would mean a huge expense to ______ at the final delivery stage.
Every morning, the time it takes me to ______ to my office depends on what time I start from my home. It usually takes 30 minutes if I start at 7:20 am. It takes more than a(n) ______ if I start at 7:30 am. At first I was ______ how just a 10-minute difference initially could add more than 30 minutes to the journey. ______ , the number of vehicles that come out on the road increases more than twice due to that 10-minute ______ and it looks like butterflies crowding on the road. Yes, this is nothing but the “Butterfly Effect”.
1.A. develop B. absorb C. explain D. shape
2.A. white B. tiny C. long D. flat
3.A. even B. yet C. only D. ever
4.A. education B. experience C. needs D. relationships
5.A. excuses B. conditions C. gestures D. promises
6.A. normal B. close C. public D. cultural
7.A. believe B. expect C. doubt D. declare
8.A. entertaining B. educating C. analyzing D. supporting
9.A. possibly B. frequently C. definitely D. suddenly
10.A. satisfaction B. pressure C. sympathy D. anger
11.A. forgot B. pretended C. failed D. refused
12.A. carefully B. differently C. proudly D. calmly
13.A. journey B. race C. discussion D. project
14.A. tasks B. requirements C. decisions D. adventures
15.A. correct B. discover C. collect D. express
16.A. walk B. drive C. ride D. move
17.A. week B. month C. day D. hour
18.A. pleased B. confident C. confused D. patient
19.A. In fact B. Above all C. In general D. At once
20.A. detour B. deed C. delight D. delay
Third-Culture Kids
Did you grow up in one culture, your parents came from another, and you are now living in a totally different country? If so, then you are a third-culture kid!
The term “third-culture kid” (or TCK) was coined in the 1960s by Dr. Ruth. She first came across this phenomenon when she researched North American children living in India. Caught between two cultures, they form their very own. 1. About 90 percent of them have a university degree, while 40 percent pursue a postgraduate or doctor degree. They usually benefit from their intercultural experience, which helps them to grow into successful academics and professionals.
2. In fact many hardships may arise from this phenomenon. A third-culture kid may not be able to adapt themselves completely to their new surroundings as expected. Instead, they may always remain an outsider in different host cultures. Max, for example, experienced this fundamental feeling of strangeness throughout his life as a third-culture kid. 3. While this can be a way to create a network of friends all around the world, it can be difficult for a third-culture kid like Max to maintain close friendships and relationships.
For a third-culture kid, it is often easier to move to a new foreign country than to return to their “home” country. After living in Australia and South Korea for many years, Louis finally returned to Turkey as a teenager. But she felt out of place when she returned to the country where she was born. 4. She did not share the same values as her friends’ even years after going back home.
While a third-culture kid must let go of their identity as foreigner when he/she returns, the home country can prove to be more foreign than anything he/she came across before. The peer group they face does not match the idealized image children have of “home”.5.
As a part of the growing “culture”, TCKs may find it a great challenge for them to feel at home in many places.
A. Yet being a third-culture kid is no
t always easy.
B. In general
, they often reach excellent academic results.
C. This often makes it hard for them to form their own identity.
D. However, their parents can help them see the opportunities of a mobile lifestyle.
E. Their experience abroad helps them to gain a better understanding of cultural differences.
F. Unlike other teens of her age, she didn’t know anything about current TV shows or fashion trends.
G. Additionally, making new friends and saying goodbye to old ones will at some point become routine for a third-culture kid.
Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 7, 9, 6. Read them loud. Now look away and spend 20 seconds memorizing them in order before saying them out loud again. If you speak English, you have about a 50% chance of remembering those perfectly. If you are Chinese, though, you’re almost certain to get it right every time. Why is that? Because we most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within a two-second period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.
That example comes from Stanislas Dahaene’s book The Number Sense. As Dahaene explains: Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be spoken out in less than one-quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is “si” and 7 “qi”). Their English pronunciations are longer. The memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in length.
It turns out that there is also a big difference in how number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, so one might expect that we would also say oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, and fiveteen. But we don’t. We use a different form: eleven, twelve, thirteen and fifteen. For numbers above 20, we put the “decade” first and the unit number second (twenty-one, twenty-two), while for the teens, we do it the other way around (fourteen, seventeen, eighteen). The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is two-tens-four and so on.
That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American 
children. Four-year-old Chinese children can count, on average, to 40. American children at that age can count only to 15. By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian friends in the most fundamental of math skills.
The regularity of their number system also means that Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to change the words to numbers (37+22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation(等式) is right there, in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: it’s five-tens-nine.
When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have a built-in advantage. For years, students from China, South Korea, and Japan --- outperformed their Western classmates at mathematics, and the typical assumption is that it has something to do with a kind of Asian talent for math. The differences between the number systems in the East and the West suggest something very different --- that being good at math may also be rooted in a group’s culture.
1.What does the passage mainly talk about?
A. The Asian number-naming system helps grasp advanced math skills better.
B. Western culture fail to provide their children with adequate number knowledge.
C. Children in Western countries have to learn by heart the learning things.
D. Asian children’s advantage in math may be sourced from their culture.
2.What makes a Chinese easier to remember a list of numbers than an American?
A. Their understanding of numbers. B. Their mother tongue.
C. Their math education. D. Their different IQ.
3.Asian children can reach answers in basic math functions more quickly because ____________.
A. they pronounce the numbers in a shorter period
B. they practice math from an early age
C. they don’t have to translate language into numbers first
D. American children can only count to 15 at the age of four
A new study has discovered that meditation（冥想）and oxygen sport together reduce depression. The Rutgers University study found that this mind and body combination, done twice a week for only two months, reduced the symptoms for a group of students by 40 percent.
“We are excited by the findings because we saw such a meaningful improvement in both clinically depressed and non-depressed students,” said lead author Dr. Brandon Alderman. “It is the first time that both of these two behavioral ways have been looked at together for dealing with depression.”
Researchers believe the two activities have an interactive effect in combating depression. Alderman and Dr. Tracey Shors discovered that a combination of mental and physical training (MAP) enabled students with major depressive disorder not to let problems or negative thoughts defeat them.
Rutgers researchers say those who participated in the study began with 30 minutes of focused attention meditation followed by 30 minutes of oxygen sport. They were told that if their thoughts drifted to the past or the future they should refocus on their breathing, enabling those with depression to accept moment-to-moment changes in attention.
Shors, who studies the production of new brain cells in the hippocampus—part of the brain involved in memory and learning—says scientists have shown in animal models that oxygen sport exercise keeps a large number of certain cells alive.
The idea for the human intervention（干预）came from her laboratory studies, she says, with the main goal of helping individuals acquire new skills so that they can learn to recover from stressful life events.
By learning to focus their attention and exercise, people who are fighting depression can acquire new learning skills that can help them process information and reduce the overwhelming recollection of memories from the past, Shors says.
“We know these treatments can be practiced over a lifetime and that they will be effective in improving mental health.” said Alderman. “The good news is that this intervention can be practiced by anyone at any time and at no cost.”
1.What made the research so different?
A. Adopting a way of meaningful talk.
B. Combining the two behavioral ways to treat depression.
C. Treating depression with special medicine.
D. Comparing the depressed with the non-depressed.
2.The underlined word “combating” in Paragraph 3 can be replaced by ______.
A. fighting B. identifying
C. distinguishing D. examining
3.What did the participants do in the research?
A. They did oxygen sport half an hour before thinking.
B. They thought quietly and then took exercise.
C. They took exercise longer than they thought.
D. They took exercise while thinking quietly.
4.What is Shors’ main purpose of her studies?
A. To find out certain brain cells of humans.
B. To study the production of new brain cells.
C. To offer people a new method to treat stress.
D. To decide the links between stress and exercise.
A handshake is one of the most common ways to greet others, but US President Donald Trump’s unusual method has been put under the microscope lately.
Much like an arm wrestler in a match, the recently-elected leader has a habit of yanking (猛拉) people’s hands toward himself during handshakes. And while a typical handshake is only brief, the one between him and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Feb 10 lasted a full 19 seconds.
Simply having a strong hand is not the explanation here. According to Darren Stanton, a body language expert from the UK, while handshakes are usually an exchange of kindness, Trump uses his as a way to show power and control, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes people. “It is as if to say, ‘Hey, I’m in charge, don’t mess with me,’ ” Stanton told The Independent.
Apart from Trump’s “yank-shake”, there are other ways people display power with their hands. At business talks or political meetings, for example, some people may rotate (旋转) their wrists during handshakes so that their hand ends up on top instead of underneath. Some may squeeze so hard that it leaves the other person’s hand in pain.
According to Stanton, by pulling people into his personal space, Trump is also testing whether they are willing to cooperate with him. “For example, if someone was resistant to being yanked towards him and stood their ground, he would know that he has work to do with them before he got what he wanted,” Stanton told Express.
This is probably why on Feb 13 when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the White House, all eyes were on how he was going to handle Trump’s handshake. Fortunately, Trudeau managed to avoid the embarrassment by grabbing Trump’s shoulder to stop himself being pulled in. Afterward, some Twitter users wrote that this proved Trudeau’s strong leadership, with one even calling the moment “one of Canada’s greatest victories”.
Vice magazine summed up the exchange between the two leaders as: “... no regular handshake. This was the first shot in a bloodless war.”
1.According to Darren Stanton, Trump uses his “yank-shake” to _____.
a. show his kindness
b. gain control
c. remind people of his status
d. see if people are cooperative
e. get people to lower their guard
A. bcd B. abc
C. ace D. bde
2.The phrase “stood their ground” in Paragraph 5 probably means _____.
A. going ahead B. standing still
C. turning around D. pulling out
3.According to the text, the way Trudeau reacted to Trump’s handshake _____.
A. annoyed Trump B. displayed his power
C. was considered rude D. was likely to start a war
4.What can be concluded from the text?
A. Some people spin their wrists during handshakes to show extra respect.
B. Handshakes are the most preferable way for political leaders to greet others.
C. The way someone shakes another person’s hand can have different meanings.
D. The longer two people shake their hands, the better their relationship is.
If you feel like you’ve been listening to the same three songs on a loop（循环地）, maybe it’s time to discover some new songs. With these apps (almost all of which are free, by the way) and some patience, you might just find your new favorite songs:
Indie shuffle
Allows you to browse through lesser-known artists’ music based on genre（类型）, release date and various other categories（类别）. You can save songs or artists you like and find bands with similar sounds.
Rormix
Rormix searches your music library to find out what genres and artists you already listen to. Based on its findings, the app suggests music videos you might like just as much. It’s an easy way to find new artists without getting too far away from the genres you know and love.
Band of the day
Provides you with new lesser-known artists and groups to listen to every single day! Download the app, turn on notifications, and you’ll get a daily recommendation.
Bandsintown
If you live for live music, Bandsintown will automatically download your library and suggest concerts you might like based on that list. If a new concert is announced in your area, you will get an automatic e-mail with the details. Basically, you will never miss another show. Here is the best part: You can buy tickets through the app.
Soundcloud
It is the place to find up-and-coming musicians and remixed singles. Anyone can share and ad music, leading to endless possibilities. The app is a streaming（流媒体）service, online community, and creative outlet. For fans, it makes it possible to keep up with your favorite artists’ latest releases.
1.What do Indie shuffle and Band of the day have in common?
A. They can both provide lesser-known artists.
B. They can both offer live music show.
C. Downloading music is free.
D. They are the most popular.
2.Which app could give you suggestions according to what genres and artists you already listen to?
A. Indie shuffle. B. Rormix.
C. Band of the day. D. Bandsintown.
3.What do we know about Bandsintown?
A. It provides you with new lesser-known artists and groups.
B. You can save songs or artists you like.
C. It is an online community.
D. It is the favorite of those who love live music.
4.Where does the text probably come from?
A. Science fiction. B. A biography.
C. An advertisement. D. A travel guide
