Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
Going Hungry in the Land of the Rich
The United States is one of the world's wealthiest countries. Despite this, many Americans struggle just to put healthy food, or any food at all, on the table every day. One might think that a food shortage (happen) in America, but this is not the case. There is more than sufficient food for everyone, 40% of is unfortunately, wasted every day. There are many different ways food (waste): farmers only pick the best-looking crops, deliveries aren't made on time, supermarkets throw out extra products, customers buy more thanthey need, and so on. The highest level of wastage tends to happen in the richest communities.
Meanwhile, people who live in poor or rural areas often have little or no access to food. These areas are called "food deserts." They have fewer supermarkets, and the only food options that they afford are often unhealthy ones. Healthy foods fresh fruits and vegetables may be impossible to find. Sadly, 12.8% of the American population live in the food deserts.
What can we do to help who don't have enough food? Shirley and Annie Zhu came up with a solution. In 2017, when Hurricane Harvey destroyed over 100,000 homes in their city, Houston, the sisters got involved. helping to clear water from a flooded supermarket, they saw a huge amount of food being wasted. At the same time, thousands of people in the city didn't have enough (eat).
The girls set up Fresh Hub with 10 of their classmates, (hope) to do something to help. They created an app which could be used by residents to find out fresh food was available. Then they contacted local farmers and supermarkets to ask for their extra food. To date, Fresh Hub has delivered more than 15,000 pounds of food to people in need.
A. normally B. boost C. sustain D. gains E. assessing F. substantially G. efforts H. mixed I. surprising J. anticipate K. assigned |
Your Social-Media Detoxes （脱瘾治疗） Probably Aren't Helping You
We've all heard the supposed benefits of unplugging from digital devices, even for 24 hours. Such breaks are said toself-confidence, reduce social competitiveness and fears of missing out, and make room for more-enriching, in-person interactions. Yet studies exploring those effects have produced results. So a global research team set out to systematically test the idea that social media detoxing delivers meaningful psychological.
The researchers recruited 600 undergraduate students in three places: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. All participants were randomlyto keep away from social media on either the first or the second day of a two-day experiment. On the other day, they were to interact with the digital platforms as they would. Each evening they answered survey questions aimed at various aspects of well-being. Contrary to the researchers' expectations, the one-day detox made no noticeable impact on positive or negative emotions, self-confidence, or daily satisfaction. When it did have an effect, it decreased daily satisfaction and social relatedness, although the changes were not significant once the analysis was adjusted to control for gender. Just as , people didn't use the time freed up from looking at screens for other forms of socializing. In fact, they reported lower levels of face-to-face, phone, and email interactions on their detoxing days.
Even short social-media breaks can be hard to -- indeed, only half the participants in the experiment did what was required and these results suggest that they may not be worth the . "We did not find any evidence that social media detoxing for one day had significant positive impacts on psychological well-being," the researchers write.
Often, we know what makes us happy ... but, despite this, often we don't put the theory into action. Why do I (the person who tells you that taking breaks 1 stress and makes you more efficient) sit at my computer eating my lunch? I know this is unhelpful for me, so what on earth is going on? It all started at a time of huge pressure when I was training, and I began eating my lunch at my desk to2 time. I did it over and over again until it became3 to my brain.
My brain will choose this route by default （默认情况下） , because it is the most learned behaviour. Something in my office4 (probably my stomach rumbling （发咕咕声） will send a signal to my brain that it's lunchtime, and I will pick up my sandwich and eat it with very little5 . It is a no-brainer to my brain; it's just what it does.
Habits don't6 new learning from the brain; they are stored as a sequence of activities in the brain. The brain adds a routine of behaviours together so they all happen7 in sequence when activated by a signal (that rumbling stomach) to get us to a reward (my lunch), which8 strengthens that learned behaviour. Your brain uses habits to9 effort and save energy, and will default to these behaviours when signalled. How can we build happiness habits into our lives?
Step 1: What is it that you want to do Decided what you want to10 as small daily habits. Next, think about how and when you will do this.11 , consider the habits that affect happiness negatively and that you want to break. Like me, do you want to12 eating lunch at your desk and get outside instead?
Step 2: Be13 about your why What will you gain from this new happiness habit? Why is it important to you? This helpsyou to want to make the effort to break your default habits.
Step 3: Be specific
Decide when specifically you will14 your new habit and what you will do -- for example, "I want to go for a walk to connect with nature at lunchtime." Start as small as you can, because this is more likely to be achievable, repeatable and rewarding -- three things were need to happen to shift from a(n)15 new behaviour to a habit.
Homing pigeons combine precise internal compasses and memorized landmarks to re-trace a path back to their lofts -- even four years after the previous time they made the trip, a new study shows.
Testing nonhuman memory retention （保持） is challenging; in research studies, "it's rare that there is a gap of several years between when an animal stores the information and when it is next required to retrieve it," says University of Oxford zoologist Dora Biro. For a recent study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biro and her colleagues compared domestic homing pigeons' paths three or four years after the birds established routes back to their loft from a farm 8.6 kilometers away. The study built on data from a 2016 experiment in which pigeons learned routes in different social contexts during several flights -- on their own or with peers that did or did not know the way.
Using data from GPS devices temporarily attached to the birds' backs, the researchers compared the flight paths a pack of pigeons took in 2019 or 2020, without the birds visiting the release site in between. Some birds missed a handful of landmarks along the way, but many others took "strikingly similar" routes to those they used in 2016, says Oxford zoologist and study co-author Julien Collect: "It was ... as if the last time they flew there was just the day before, not four years ago."
The team found that the pigeons remembered a route just as well if they first flew it alone or with others and fared much better than those that had not made the journey in 2016. The result is not surprising, says Verner Bing-man, who studies animal navigation at Bowling Green State University and was not involved with the study. But it provides new confirmation of homing pigeons' remarkable memory, he says: "It closes the distance a little bit between our self-centered sense of human intellectual abilities and what animals can do."
A-Z OF COACHING
Welcome to Barefoot Coaching's A-Z series. We aim to simplify what might otherwise be complex psychological theories and models and talk about them in a way that anybody can understand. We believe that everybody benefits from learning about and practising coaching skills - and it's catching! Coaching spreads into other areas of our life and work and the positive effects are felt far beyond just ourselves. Each issue we will be focusing on a different element of
coaching. Last month we explored Happiness, this month we will focus on Intuition.
'I' IS FOR INTUITION
"There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen." Rumi
If you have ever followed a "hunch", gone with your gut, listened to your inner voice, or felt "I just know", then you have accessed your intuition. We don't have to reject logic or intellect to embrace intuition - good decisions are often the result of instinct and intellect working together.
Here are 3 ways to improve your intuition:
. Wild writing. Every day for a week, sit quietly and write for 5 minutes without thinking. Just let the words appear on the page. Then notice what you learn from your untamed thoughts.
Walking without purpose. Go for a walk (without your phone or others distractions). Take notice if you find your attention being drawn to any particular sights or sounds. Identify what feelings, thoughts or meaning they have for you.
When faced with a decision, ask yourself "What does my head, heart and gut say?"
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In memory of Eleanor—a woman ____
[1] Eleanor Lowenthal - my grandmother - om desperate need of income to put her husband through graduate school, walked into the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. There, she convinced the scientists that she was the perfect person to mount（安放）and catalog their growing ant collection.
[2] At the time, a promising graduate student named E. O. Wilson was coming up in the department. Wilson, who passed away in December 2021, was called the "father of biodiversity". When Eleanor joined the department, researchers were racing to collect and catalog specimens（标本） . As Wilson shifted research towards smaller, less glamorous species that nonetheless held ecological significance, he set the stage for conservation biology. Behind the scenes, technicians like my grandmother preserved the specimen that furthered Wilson's work and continue to provide new insights and opportunities for researchers across the globe.
[3] At the time, hiring a 21-year-old woman who had dropped out of art school was a significant gamble. It paid off. Eleanor's job as a technician required the same manual flexibility and coordination that art school had demanded. The job required her to work quickly, yet precisely. Rushing could risk ruining a rare specimen, but Eleanor could process ants as quickly as Wilson could mail them back from his expeditions to Australia and Papua New Guinea. She sometimes mounted as many as 200 a day.
[4] It wasn't a coincidence that Eleanor found work in entomology. Wilson's high-profile research on ants cracked an opening for women in previously male-dominated field of conservation, which was centered around studying big game in the first half of the 20th century.
[5] Even when women's early work has been credited, the language used to describe their contributions often minimized their role in the team, not mentioning them by name. A recently discovered department report includes lines such as, "A large amount of spreading and setting insects was done by the lady assistant," and "The collection has been remarkably free from pests ... due to the continuous care of the lady assistant."
[6] The department now functions like a library (specimen can be borrowed for study or examined on site), and serves as a training center for the next generation of scientists who use the collection in ways Wilson and my grandmother probably never imagined.
[7] Eleanor didn't realize the impact of her contribution at the time - the technician role was just a job that paid $38 a week. But she's come to appreciate the significance of her work on a project that spans centuries. "You can see how it goes from one era to another," says Eleanor, "It's so important to have this library for people to make connections and new discoveries."
A. There'll still be times when old thoughts cause sadness, or you're anxious about what's next. B. The usefulness of nostalgia seems to vary with age. C. Today we have a much more positive attitude to nostalgia. D. You'll get faster at finding it, and add extra layers of detail each time. E. The answer lies in connecting with your past and future selves. F. But there's also a growing body of research into time travel "the other way". |
How to Travel in Time
The term "NNOSTALGIA" （怀旧） used to describe a mental disease. The "algia" bit means"pain", and the word was coined by a 17th-century doctor treating homesick soldiers, whose symptoms included hallucinations（幻觉）and depression. And it's a great example of the benefits of a strong memory -- choosing to recapture moments from the past to enjoy them all over again.
As evidence, a recent report highlighted the increase in old songs being streamed of Spotifyduring lockdown. It seems that we found strength in musical memories of happier times. Because memory skills can take you into the future, too -- bringing a whole new set of rewards.
In another pandemic experiment, people wrote letters to their future selves, and found that they improved their mood by imagining themselves safely on the other side of COVID-19. Here are my tips for becoming a confident time traveller yourself:
* To reawaken happy feelings, use all your senses -- not just sight. Smell, taste, touch and sound will also help you to recreate the past in rich clarity. If you find a memory that's particularly helpful -- for reassurance, say -- keep using it!
* When you're procrastinating（拖延）, visualise an end result. Flash forward to see the floorswept or the easy finished, and use that positive image to spur you into action.
* Ahead of major challenges, imagine the full impact of success. Don't just picture yourselfgetting that great job: fill your mind with the really big ways it's going to change your life.
But the more you learn to control your memory, the better you'll be at mining your past, and shaping your future, to be your best self now.
Ignoring Your Biggest Regrets
Regrets, people often feel, are to be avoided. Mistakes may be unavoidable, but they should be kept to a minimum. And when they do occur, the best course of action is to ignore them as inevitable steps on our journey. That seems logical, at least until you consider that one of the criteria for mental illness is an inability to feel regret. As author Kathryn Schulz argues, "If you want to be fully functional, and fully human, and fully humane, I think you need to learn to live not without regret, but with it." Counter-intuitively, she and other experts argue feeling regret is essential for living your best life. No one is saying, of course, that getting trapped in your past mistakes is a good idea. But neither is a "no regrets and never look back" mentality.
Regret forces us to engage in a reflective analysis to understand why we thought or acted the way we did and makes us try things differently in the future. If you keep telling yourself "no regrets," then learning isn't going to happen. Besides, hiding from regret doesn't make it hurt less.
Action, recent research shows, is the best way to make regret hurt less. So if you're troubled by your failure to travel when you were young, science suggests you consciously plan an adventurous trip now that you're older and wiser. Upset about a broken friendship? Act to try to repair it.
Acknowledging our mistakes, rather than ignoring them, reminds us that we are valuable and worthy despite our faults. That sort of acceptance is the basis both of real self-confidence and of true kindness. As Schulz sums up in her talk: "Regret doesn't remind us that we did badly. It reminds us we know we can do better."
假设你是美国一所中学的学生 Sam， 最近你班要召开一次主题为"不让霸凌成为青春的一道疤"的班会。根据主题内容， 写一篇发言稿（所给材料可供参考）。
Here are the national statistics about bullying in the USA
. About 20% of students aged 12 - 18 experienced bullying nationwide.
. Students aged 12 - 18 who reported bullied said they thought those who bullied them:
-- had the ability to influence other students' perception of them (56%)
-- were physically stronger or larger (40%)
-- had more money (31%)
Word box:
bully v./n. 恐吓； 伤害； /恃强凌弱者
