1. When we meet with something we're not familiar with or something frightening, our brain and body start making changes to help prepare us for the unknown. Dr. Kerr says. "For some people, choosing to be scared can be fun. ”
What good is fear?
2. It tells a person to hide, run away, or defend oneself. Faster heartbeat and breathing send more blood and oxygen to the muscles so they are ready when they are needed. Stress chemicals can make a person more alert.
Our memories also help protect us. We keep a close eye on babies because they don't understand what might hurt them. As babies grow, they learn what's unsafe, their brains store those memories. Then their brains use fear to warn them of dangers. "We don't want to be fearless; Dr. Kerr says. “3.!”
Too much can be harmful
Experiences can lead to long-lasting fears that may stop a person from trying new things. We’re born with the ability to feel fear, but a lot of what we're afraid of is learned.
"Being afraid doesn't mean you’re weak," Dr. Kerr says. A long-lasting fear can mean you\e had a bad experience, and your brain doesn't want you to have it again. 4. Other people may have no special fear of dogs but may be afraid of other
things, such as heights, snakes, or spiders.
How to feel less afraid
Many people have beat their own fears. Here is one method: Instead of listening to their imagination, they learn the facts about anything that seems scary. 5..
Dr. Kerr grew up on a farm. As a seven-year-old, she was scared of black bears in the woods. Later, she read about them. " Understanding the facts gave me a sense of confidence, she says. "I knew for sure what to do if I ever met with a bear and how to protect myself."
A. Knowledge can help a person feel less afraid
B. Being scared is not always a bad thing
C. Fear is a tool that brain uses to keep the body safe
D. That is why our brain works faster in time of danger
E. It is good to have a healthy sense of what's dangerous
F. Some people are scared to death by his own shadow at night
G. If a dog bit someone, that person might feel afraid of all dogs
Are people less or more happy when they get older? A study in 2018 found that people generally become happier and experience less worry after age 50. In fact, it found that by the age of 85, people are happier with their life than they were at 18.
Arthur Stone in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stony Brook University in New York led the study. His team found that levels of stress were the highest among adults between the ages of 22 and 25. 1.
Happiness was the highest among the youngest adults and those in their early 70's. But the people least likely to report feeling negative emotions were those in their 70’s and 80’s. The survey also found that men and women have similar emotional patterns as they grow older. 2.The researchers also considered possible influences like, having young children being unemployed or being single. Bu, they found that influences like these did not affect the levels of happiness and well-being related to age.
3. One theory is that, as people get older, they become more than thankful for what they have and have better control of their emotions. They also spend less time thinking about bad experiences.
4.In another study, people in their 80’s reported the fewest problems with the quality of their sleep. The original goal was to confirm the popular belief that aging is connected with increased sleep problems. 5.But except for that, people reported that they felt their sleep quality improved as they got older.
A. So why will happiness increase with age?
B. Researchers surveyed more than 150, 000 American adults.
C. At that time, the people were between the ages of 18 and 85.
D. Stress levels dropped sharply after people reached their 50's.
E Happiness is not the only thing that apparently improves with age.
F. The survey did find an increase during middle age, especially in women.
G. However, women at all ages reported more sadness, stress and worry than men.
Conflict is on the menu tonight at the café La Chope. This evening, as on every Thursday night, psychologist Maud Lehanne is leading two of France’s favorite pastimes, coffee drinking and the “talking cure”. Here they are learning to get in touch with their true feelings. It isn’t always easy. They customers—some thirty Parisians who pay just under $2 (plus drinks) per session-care quick to intellectualize (高谈阔论), slow to open up and connect. “You are forbidden to say ‘one feels,’ or ‘people think’,” Lehane told them. “Say ‘I think,’ ‘Think me’.”
A café society where no intellectualizing is allowed? It couldn’t seem more un-French. But Lehanne’s psychology café is about more than knowing oneself: It’s trying to help the city’s troubled neighborhood cafes. Over the years, Parisian cafes have fallen victim to changes in the French lifestyle-longer working hours, a fast food boom and a younger generation’s desire to spend more time at home. Dozens of new theme cafes appear to change the situation. Cafes focused around psychology, history, and engineering are catching on, filling tables well into the evening.
The city’s psychology cafes, which offer great comfort, are among the most popular places. Middle-aged homemakers, retirees, and the unemployed come to such cafes to talk about lover, anger, and dreams with a psychologist. And they come to Lehance’s group just to learn to say what they feel. There’s a strong need in Paris for communication, says Maurice Frisch, a cafe La Chope regular who works as religious instructor in a nearby church. “People have few real friends. And they need to open up” Lehanne says she’d like to see psychology cafes all over France. “If people had normal lives, these cafes wouldn’t exist”, she says, “If life weren’t a battle, people wouln’t need a special place just to speak.” But then, it wouldn’t be France.
1.What are people encouraged to do at the cafe La Chope?
A.Learn a new subject
B.Keep in touch with friends.
C.Show off their knowledge.
D.Express their true feelings.
2.How are cafes affected by French lifestyle changes?
A.They are less frequently visited.
B.They stay open for longer hours.
C.They have bigger night crowds.
D.They start to serve fast food.
3.What are theme cafes expected to do?
A.Create more jobs.
B.Supply better drinks.
C.Save the cafe business.
D.Serve the neighborhood.
4.Why are psychology cafes becoming popular in Paris?
A.They bring people true friendship.
B.They give people spiritual support.
C.They help people realize their dreams.
D.They offer a platform for business links.
Your house may have an effect on your figure. Experts say the way you design your home could play a role in whether you pack on the pounds or keep them off. You can make your environment work for you instead of against you. Here are some ways to turn your home into part of your diet plan.
Open the curtains and turn up the lights. Dark environments are more likely to encourage overeating, for people are often less selfconscious (难为情) when they’re in poorly lit places—and so more likely to eat lots of food. If your home doesn’t have enough window light, get more lamps and flood the place with brightness.
Mind the colors. Research suggests warm colors fuel our appetites. In one study, people who ate meals in a blue room consumed 33 percent less than those in a yellow or red room. Warm colors like yellow make food appear more appetizing, while cold colors make us feel less hungry. So when it’s time to repaint, go blue.
Don’t forget the clock—or the radio. People who eat slowly tend to consume about 70 fewer calories (卡路里) per meal than those who rush through their meals. Begin keeping track of the time, and try to make dinner last at least 30 minutes. And while you’re at it, actually sit down to eat. If you need some help slowing down, turn on relaxing music. It makes you less likely to rush through a meal.
Downsize the dishes. Big serving bowls and plates can easily make us fat. We eat about 22 percent more when using a 12inch plate instead of a 10inch plate. When we choose a large spoon over a smaller one, total intake (摄入) jumps by 14 percent. And we’ll pour about 30 percent more liquid into a short, wide glass than a tall, skinny glass.
1.The text is especially helpful for those who care about ____________.
A.their home comforts B.their body shape
C.house buying D.healthy diets
2.A home environment in blue can help people ______________.
A.digest food better B.reduce food intake
C.burn more calories D.regain their appetites
3.What are people advised to do at mealtimes?
A.Eat quickly. B.Play fast music.
C.Use smaller spoons. D.Turn down the lights.
4.What can be a suitable title for the text?
A.Is Your House Making You Fat? B.Ways of Serving Dinner
C.Effects of SelfConsciousness D.Is Your Home Environment Relaxing?
In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, “No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me.”
The city planner decided to build an underground drainage (排水) system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.
An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced me the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12 feet.
This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?
That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10 jackscrews. At Pullman's signal each man turned his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening. Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.
1.The author mentions the joke to show ______.
A. horses were fairly useful in Chicago
B. Chicago's streets were extremely muddy
C. Chicago was very dangerous in the spring
D. the Chicago people were particularly humorous
2.The city planners were convinced by Ellis Chesbrough to_______.
A. get rid of the street dirt B. lower the Chicago River
C. fight against heavy floods D. build the pipes above ground
3.The underlined word “hoist”in Paragraph 4 means “_______”.
A. change B. lift
C. repair D. decorate
4.What can we conclude about the moving operation of the Tremont Hotel?
A. It went on smoothly as intended.
B. It interrupted the business of the hotel.
C. It involved Pullman turning ten jackscrews.
D. It separated the building from its foundation.
5.The passage is mainly about the early Chicago's ______.
A. popular life styles and their influences
B. environmental disasters and their causes
C. engineering problems and their solutions
D. successful businessmen and their achievements
As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remember less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.
In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.
In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location (位置) better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory (交互记忆)”
According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.
1.The passage begins with two questions to ________.
A.introduce the main topic B.show the author’s attitude
C.describe how to use the Internet D.explain how to store information
2.What can we learn about the first experiment?
A.Sparrow’s team typed the information into a computer.
B.The two groups remembered the information equally well.
C.The first group did not try to remember the formation.
D.The second group did not understand the information.
3.In transactive memory, people ________.
A.keep the information in mind
B.change the quantity of information
C.organize information like a computer
D.remember how to find the information
4.What is the effect of the Internet according to Sparrow's research?
A.We are using memory differently.
B.We are becoming more intelligent.
C.We have poorer memories than before.
D.We need a better way to access information.
