Passage 1

Social change is more likely to occur in societies where there is a mixture of different kinds of people than in societies where people are similar in many ways. The simple reason for this is that there are more different ways of looking at things present in the first kind of society. There are more ideas, more disagreements in interest, and more groups and organizations with different beliefs. In addition, there is usually a greater worldly interest and greater tolerance in mixed societies. All these factors tend to promote social change by opening more areas of life to decision. In a society where people are quite similar in many ways, there are fewer occasions for people to see the need or the opportunity for change because everything seems to be the same. And although conditions may not be be satisfactory, they are at least customary and undisputed.

Within a society, social change is also likely to occur more frequently and more readily in the material aspects of the culture than in the non-material, for example, in technology rather than in values; in what has been learned later in life rather than what was learned early; in the less basic and less emotional aspects of society than in their opposites; in the simple elements rather than in the complex ones; in form rather than in substance; and in elements that are acceptable to the culture rather than in strange elements.

Passage 2

l used to go to Starbucks for their coffer, but that's changed since I discovered their comforting, tasty teas, which are better than coffee any time. Tea is cool even when it's hot. People drink more tea than any other drink in the world, except for water.

Whether it's served hot or cold, natural and flavored teas are drinks that have been consumed for centuries. Everywhere you look, you'll find various kinds of teas--in restaurants, grocery stores, television advertisements, and gift shops.

Why is there all this excitement about tea? What's its attraction? Well, there are many possibilities for why more and more people are drinking tea. One possibility is that people are coming to notice the benefits of drinking tea, particularly green tea. Studies show that drinking four cups of green tea a day can reduce the risk of developing various types of cancers, as well as heart disease. The key to tea's effects of cure seems to lie in chemicals found in tea which prevent a process that leads to the growth of cancers. Green tea may also prevent skin cancer. It has also been linked with helping the body to rid itself of harmful materials, and green tea is thought to possibly protect against colds and Parkinson's(帕金森) disease.

Another explanation for why people are drinking more tea may be due to the comforting process of just making a cup of tea. The time it takes to prepare tea leaves in hot water and enjoy its gentle flavor forces drinkers to slow down and relax a while, making it the perfect way to improve a world where people are so crazy about cappuccino, a hot coffee with milk in it.

So, whether you drink tea, eat it in foods, wear it to smell good, or take it in pills, one thing is certain, these of tea is more than a trend—it is a habit of our past and if studies prove the benefits of its use, it will undoubtedly be an important element of our future.

Passage 3

Chokwe Selassie is on a mission to help drivers avoid potholes(路面坑洼). The eighth-grader got his inspiration on a recent morning, when his mother was driving him to school. "Their car was damaged as it went over a huge pothole in the middle of the street in their hometown of Jarckson, Misissippi. "l decided I was going to do something about the pothole problem in my city," said Chokwe. His solution: an app that warns drives when there is a pothole ahead.

Chokwe developed the app with his friends. "When the app detects a pothole, it is highlighted in red," Chokwe says." And if you get close to the pothole, your phone will warm you with a beep." Drivers can also use the app to report any potholes they encounter, and to look for other routes they can lake to avoid roads that have them.

The app relies on current available information about the streets of Jackson. "It works by using the city's 311 call system, so it uses information already stored in a database, " Chokwe says. Through the call system, citizens dial 311 to report non-emergency problems--which include potholes. As Chokwe and his friends worked on the app, they also went street by street throughout the city. They determined that focusing on the 10 busiest streets in Jackson would give them a large enough sample size to test it.

Although the app isn't yet available for sale, Chokwe is already looking for ways to improve it. The app remains limited to 10 streets in Jackson, but he hop cs to all more, so that it includes every street in the city. And then he wants to go even further. "l want to keep working on the app until it's nationwide . " Chokwe says.

Passage 4

Impatience has been around for a long time. There is nothing new about people losing their patience while stuck in traffic or waiting in line. But some experts believe that people are less patient today than in the past.

Some analysts suggest that in recent years many people are less patient because of technology. They suggest that "digital technology, from cellphones to e-mails to iPads, is changing our lives. The instant results we get from this technology have in turn increased our desire for instant satisfaction in other aspects of our lives."

Psychologist Jennifer Hartstein makes some observations. She explains that "we have become an immediate satisfaction culture, and we expect things to move (quickly, efficiently and in the way we want. When that doesn't happen, we tend to become increasingly frustrated and unsatisfied."

Some believe that e-mail is losing popularity and could soon become outdated. Why? Because many people who send message do not have the patience to wait hours, or even minutes, for a response. Also with e-mails, as with letter writing, introduces and concluding greetings are often expected. But many people consider such formalities(客套)to be boring and time-consuming. They prefer instant messaging. Many people do not take the time to proofread what they put in writing. As a result, letters and e-mails contain numerous grammatical and spelling errors.

The thirst for immediate results is not limited to the digital communications. People seem to be losing their ability to wait in other areas of life. For instance, do you ever find yourself talking too fast, eating too fast, driving too fast, or spending money too fast ? The few moments it takes to wait for an elevator to come, for a traffic light to change, or for a computer to start may seem like too long a time.

Passage 1

The faces of elderly, happily-married people sometimes resemble each other. Dr. Aiken studied a number of couples who had been married for at least twenty-five years. Each couple provided four photographs--one photo of each partner at the time of their marriage and another photo of each partner twenty-five or more years later. All background was cut from the photos to remove any clues. The photos were then displayed in groups: a random grouping of the persons at the time of their marriage and another random grouping of the same persons who took photographs later. Some testees were asked to pick out the partners. They failed totally with the first group. Their judgements were no better than chance. But with the photos taken twenty-five or more years after the marriage, the testees were quite successful with the most happily-married couples.

Dr. Aiken believes there are several reasons why couples grow alike. One reason has something to do with imitation. One person tends to copy or do the same as someone else without knowing it. He says human begins to imitate the expressions of the faces of their loved ones. "Another possible reason," he says, "is the common experience of the couples." There is a tendency for people who have the same life experience to change their faces in similar ways. For example, if a couple have suffered from a lot of sad experiences, their faces are likely to change in a similar way.

Passage 2

In what now seems like the prehistoric times of computer history, the earth's post-war era, there was a quite widespread concern that computers would take over the world from man one day. Already today, less than forty years later, as computers are relieving us of more and more of the routine tasks in business and in our personal lives, we are faced with a less dramatic but also less foreseen problem. People tend to be over-trusting of computers and are reluctant to challenge their authority. Indeed, they behave as if they were hardly aware that wrong buttons may be pushed, or that a computer may simply malfunction.

Obviously, there would be no point in investing in a computer if you had to check all its answers, but people should also rely on their own internal computers and check the machine when they have the feeling that something has gone wrong. Questioning and routine double checks must continue to be as much a part of good business as they were in pre-computer days. Maybe each computer should come with the following warning: for all the help this computer may provide, it should not be seen as a substitute for fundamental thinking and reasoning skills.

Passage 3

Today, there is no such thing as a "typical" college student. People of all ages are enrolled in colleges.

Though the concept of college may be the same for all students, the stress and future goals are different. The college students most people think of usually range in age from 18 to 21, and are most often away from home for the first time. As a result, they now have choices and no parent to tell them what to do. They are responsible for their own lives, needing to learn to manage their time and find a job, while attending school. They enter this new world with the anticipation of freedom, fun and a good job after graduation.

The new faces in the college are usually 30 years old or older, and are returning to school after several years away. They are starting their college education, after raising a family and now ready to do something for themselves. "Their lives are considerably different from their younger classmates. They have been on their own for awhile, and are concerned about family, responsibilities, work, and the adjustment of being back in school after some years. Most important to them are the hopes of i new career or a job promotion after they graduate.

Though they may come to college for different reasons, the result is the same. It is their chance to make a better life for themselves or their families. As the younger generation is looking for freedom in their lives, those who are returning to school also see freedom. The same opportunities were not available 20 years ago.

So in our college and universities, there is a new sense of hope and dreams. Where once stood only the youth of our future, they are now joined by people of all ages who share the dreams of a better life.

Passage 4

In 2013, New York State ordered stores to charge a deposit on beverage(饮料) containers. Within a year, consumers had returned millions of aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles. Plenty of companies were eager to accept the aluminum and glass as raw materials for new products, but because few could figure out what to do with the plastic, much of it would be buried in landfills (垃圾填埋场). The problem was not limited to New York.Unfortunately, there were too few uses for second hand plastic.

Today, one out of five plastic soda bottles is recycled in the United States. The reason for the change is that now there are dozens of companies across the country buying discarded plastic soda bottles and turning them into fence posts, paint brushes, etc.

As the New York experience shows, recycling involves more than simply separating valuable materials from the rest of the rubbish. A discard remains a discard until somebody figures out how to give it a second life--and until economic arrangements exist to give that second life value. Without adequate markets to absorb materials collected for recycling, throwaways actually depress prices for used materials.

Shrinking landfill space, and rising costs for burying and burning rubbish are forcing local governments to look more closely at recycling. In many areas, the East Coast especially, recycling is already the least expensive waste management option. For every ton of waste recycled, a city avoids paying for its disposal, which, in parts of New York, amounts to savings of more than $100 per ton. Recycling also stimulates the local economy by creating jobs and trims the pollution control and energy costs of industries that make recycled products by giving them a more refined raw material.

Passage 1

Do you believe that only boys do well in science? Does it seem to you that girls have better vocabularies than boys? In your opinion, are boys better at building things? If your answer to each of those questions is "Yes", you are right.

On the average, males score higher on tests that measure mathematical reasoning, mechanical ability, and problem-solving skills. Females show superior ability in tests measuring vocabulary, spelling, and memory.

It is known that bones, muscles and nerves develop faster in baby girls. Usually, too, baby girls talk at an earlier age than boys do. Scientists think there is a physical reason for this. They believe that the nerve endings in the left I side of the brain develop faster in girls than in boys. And it is this side of the brain that strongly influences an individual’s ability to use words, to spell, and to remember things.

By the lime they start Io school, therefore, little girls have an advantage that boys do not have. Girls are physically more ready to remember facts, to spell, and to read. These, of course, are skills that are important in elementary school.

But what have the boys been doing in the years before starting school? They have been developing something called aggression. An aggressive person has courage and energy. He feels strong and independent. He is often the first one to start fight.

Passage 2

A study of art history might be a good way to learn more about a culture than is possible to learn in general history classes. Most typical history courses concentrate on politics, economics and war. But art history focuses on much more than this because art reflects not only the political values of a people, but also religious beliefs, emotions and psychology. In addition, information about the daily activities of our ancestors can be provided by art. In short, art expresses the essential qualities of a time and a place, and a study of it clearly offers us a deeper understanding than can be found in most history books.

In history looks, objective information about the political life of a country is presented; that is, facts about politics are given, but opinions are not expressed. Art, on the other hand, is subjective(主观的): it reflects emotions and opinions. The great Spanish painter Francisco Goya was perhaps the first truly "political" artist. In his well-known painting The Third of May, 1808, he criticized the Spanish government for its abuse(滥用)of power over people.

In the same way, art can reflect a culture's religious belief. For hundreds of years in Europe, religious art had been almost the only type of art that existed. Churches and other religious buildings were filled with paintings that descried people and stories from the Bible. Although most people couldn't read, they could still understand the Bible stories in the pictures on church walls. By contrast, one of the main characteristics of art in the Middle East was (and still is) its absence of human and animal images. This reflects the Islamic belief that statues are not holy .

Passage 3

Our minds may wander during boring tasks because daydreaming is actually the brain's normal state, rather than a pointless distraction, according to a new U.S. study.

The researchers, reporting their findings today in the U.S. journal, Science, found that daydreaming could be the result of the brain thinking over important--but not immediately relevant--issues when the external environment ceases posing interesting and engaging problems.

"For the most part psychologists have sort of assumed that we spend most of our time engaged in goal-directed thought and that, every so often, we have blips(光点) of irrelevant thoughts that pop up on the radar, "said Malia Mason of Harvard University. "However, it could very well be the case that most of the time we are engaged in less directed, unintended thought and that this stale is routinely interrupted by periods of goal-directed thought."

Daydreaming or mind-wandering is more precisely defined as a stale of mind where thoughts that are experienced by an individual are unrelated to what is going on in the environment around them, according to Mason. When wandering, the brain flits from one thought to the next, generating images, voices, thoughts and feelings.

When deciding how best to encourage daydreaming in order to study it, the researchers recognized that our minds often wander while we are engaged in familiar tasks, such as making a sandwich, because we don't need to concentrate on it. They trained study subjects to become proficient on certain tasks so that their minds would be able to wander when they performed them, but would have to concentrate when given something new.

Passage 4

There is much discussion today about whether economic growth is desirable. At an earlier period, our desire for material wealth may have been justified. Now, however, this desire for more than we need is causing serious problems. Even though we have good intentions, we may be producing too much, too fast.

Those who criticize economic growth argue that we must slow down. They believe the society is approaching certain limits on growth. These include the fixed supply of natural resources, the possible negative effects of industry on the natural environment and the continuing increase in the world's population. As society reaches these limits, economic growth can no longer continue, and the quality of life will decrease.

People who want more economic growth, on the other hand, argue that even at the present growth rate there are still many poor people in the world. These proponents of economic growth believe that only more growth can create the capital needed to improve the quality of life in the world. Furthermore, they argue that only continued growth can provide the financial resources required to protect our natural surroundings from industrialization.

This debate over the desirability of continued economic growth is of vital importance to business and industry. If those who argue against economic growth are rcorrec4,the problems they mention cannot be ignored. To find a solution, economists and the business community must pay attention to these problems and continue discussing them with one another.

Passage 1

Why do we laugh? For years scientists have asked themselves this question. No animals laugh and smile—only human beings do. So does laughing help us to live longer? The answer seems to lie in that smiling and laughing help us to become less worried and calm, preventing illnesses that are caused by stress. Laughing is really the best medicine.

But if you're unhappy, it can't do you any good to smile, can it? That's not true. It is clear that smiling works just in the same way whether you feel like smiling or not. Scientists in California asked a group of students to act five different feelings: happiness, sadness, anger, surprise and fear—just using their faces. Changes in their heart rate, blood pressure and temperature were recorded. Most of the feelings they acted didn't cause changes, but when the students smiled, their heart rate and their blood pressure went down. That happened even though they were only acting! So even if we feel sad inside, smiling seems to make us feel better.

Now, what makes us laugh? It seems that the answer to the question is far from simple. Everyone likes jokes, but we don't laugh at the same ones. It depends largely on how old we are. There are some jokes, for example, that children love but older people might not find funny.

Passage 2

l was only eight years old when the Second World War ended, but l can still remember something about the celebrations in the small town where l lived on the day when the war in Europe ended. We had not suffered much from the war there. But both at home and at school I had become accustomed to the phrases "before the war" and "when the war is over". "Before the war", apparently, things had been better, though I was too young to understand why, except that there had been no bombs then, and people had eaten things like ice-cream and bananas, which l had only heard of. When the war was over we would go back to London, but this meant little tome. I did not remember what London was like.

What I remember now about VE (Victory in Europe) Day was the May evening. After dinner I said I wanted to see the bonfire(大火堆), so when it got dark my father took me to the end of the street. The bonfire was very high and somehow people had collected some old clothes to dress the unmistakable figure(人形) with the moustache(胡子) they had put on top of it. Just as we arrived, they set light to it. The flames rose and soon swallowed the"guy". Everyone was cheering and shouting, and an old woman came out of her house with two chairs and threw them on the fire to keep it going.

I stood beside my father until the fire started to go down, not knowing what to say. He said nothing, either. He had fought in the First World War and may have been remembering the end of that. At last he said, "Well, that's it, son. Let's hope that this time it really will be the last one."

Passage 3

Blind people can "see" things by using other parts of their bodies. This fact may help us to understand our feelings about color. If blind people can sense color differences, then perhaps we, too, are affected by color unconsciously(无意识地).

Manufacturers(生产商) have discovered by experience that sugar sells badly in green wrappings, that blue foods are considered unpleasant, and that cosmetics(化妆品) should never be packaged in brown. These discoveries have grown into a branch of color psychology.

Color psychology now finds application in everything from fashion to decoration. Some of our preferences are clearly psychological. Dark blue is the color of the night sky and therefore associated with calm, which yellow is a day color with associations of energy and incentive(刺激). For a primitive man, activity during the day meant hunting and attacking, while he soon saw red as the color of blood and anger and the heat that came with effort.

And green is associated with passive defense and self-protection.

Experiments have shown that colors, partly because of their psychological associations, also have a direct psychological effect. People exposed to bright red show an increase in breath, in heartbeat and in blood pressure; red is exciting. Similar exposure to pure blue has exactly the opposite effect; it is a calming color. Because of its exciting meaning, red is chosen as the signal for danger, but closer analysis shows that a vivid yellow can produce a more basic state of alarm. So fire engines and ambulances in some advanced communities are now rushing around in bright yellow colors that stop the traffic dead.

Passage 4

Human needs seem endless. When a hungry man gels a meal, he begins to think about an overcoat; when a manager gets a new sports car, a big house and pleasure boats dance into view.

The many needs of mankind might be regarded as making up several levels. When there is money enough to satisfy one level of needs, another level appears.

The first and most basic level of needs involves food. Once this level is satisfied, the second level of needs, clothing and some sort of shelter, appears. By the end of World War ll, these needs were satisfied for a great majority of Americans. Then a third level appeared. It included such items as automobiles and new houses.

By 1957 or 1958 this third level of needs was fairly well satisfied. Then, in the late 1950s, a fourth level of needs appeared: the"life-enriching " level. While the other levels involve physical satisfaction, that is, the feeding, comfort, safety, and transportation, this level stresses mental needs for recognition, achievement, and happiness. It includes a variety of goods and services, many of which could be called "luxury" items. Among them are vacation trips, the best medical and dental care, and recreation. Also included here are fancy goods and the latest styles in clothing.

On the fourth level, a lot of money is spent on services, while on the first three levels more is spent on goods. Will consumers raise their sights to a fifth level of needs as their income increases, or will they continue to demand luxuries and personal services on the fourth level?

A fifth level would probably involve needs that can be achieved best by community action. Consumers may be spending more on taxes to pay for government action against disease, ignorance, crime, and prejudice. After filling our stomachs, our clothes closets, our garages, our teeth, and our minds, we now may seek to ensure the health, safety, and leisure to enjoy more fully the good things on the first four levels.

Passage 1

What are the beauties of Hawaii? Let's start with four.

The beach, famous for its water temperature, air temperature and waves, is the first beauty. There are hundreds of miles of beaches on the twenty islands of Hawaii. They are thought to be among the finest beaches in the world.

Then, what do you think would be the second beautiful thing? It is volcanoes (火山) ,of course. These volcanoes are not just a part of the islands; they made the islands in the first place. Because of them the islands are still growing.

What would be the third thing of beauty that the first visitor to Hawaii would notice ? It probably wouldn't be just one thing, but many things: all the wonderful fruits an flowers of the islands. Sugar cane, bananas and pineapples are Hawaii's biggest exports. Sugar cane has been growing in Hawaii for a thousand years. AS for pineapples, the islands produce more than any other places in the world, which has made Dole Company the biggest fruit-packing company in the world.

The fourth and most beautiful thing about Hawaii is the people who live there. The Hawaiians never rush, and perhaps this is because they care more for human life than they care for the machine. There is an old Hawaiian law that a man can go to sleep in the middle of the road if he wants to. What makes the people of Hawaii so beautiful is their feeling about people. There are 64 different combinations of races on the islands, and they all live in peace. They believe "Above all nations is humanity." That is the most beautiful thing of all.

Passage 2

Late last year, I needed to transport some furniture from our house in Sussex to my son's flat in central London. I should have paid a man to do it for me, but foolishly confident in my driving ability, l decided to hire a van and drive it myself. It was a Ford Transit 280, long and wide; you couldn't see out of the back. You never really knew how close you were to anything else on the road.

Reversing in my home yard, I crashed into a small shed, causing permanent damage. At least I owned the shed.

I loaded up the furniture and set out. By now it was rush hour. My nerves broke down, as I steered the huge van through ever-shifting lanes, across oncoming vehicles, between distances of buses, at last to Charlotte Street.

Here, l found an available parking space. As I reversed into it, I noticed three people at a pavement cafe waving to me. I got out, trembling violently, like one who has just endured a stormy Atlantic crossing. "You've shifted the car parked behind you three feet," they said, and it belonged to a disabled person. I examined the car. There were white scratches along its front bumper. It bore a disabled sign. So, now I was a bad driver and a bad man. Under the stern gaze of the three, I left an apologetic note on the damaged car's windscreen, giving my phone number.

l unloaded the furniture, dripping with sweat. Wanting only to escape the monster, l drove the van back to it base on the Edgware Road. On arrival, the hire man told me I must fill it up with petrol before returning it. "Just charge me," l cried, still shaking with fear. He gazed at me with understanding. No doubt he'd witnessed other sin this state before. "How about l drive you to a petrol station, you fill up, and I drive her back?" he asked.

He danced the great van through the traffic so casually that it would have shamed me if I had not been so grateful.

Passage 3

Television has changed the lifestyle of people in every industrialized country in the world. In the United States, where sociologists have studied the effects, some interesting observations have been made.

Television, although not essential, has become an important part of most people's lives. I alters people's ways of seeing the world; in many ways, it supports and sustains(维持) modern life.

Television has become a baby-sitter, an introducer of conversations, the major transmitter of culture and a keeper of tradition. Yet when what can be seen on TV in one day is critically analyzed, it becomes evident that television is not a teacher but a sustainer; the poor quality of programming docs not elevate(提高)people into greater understanding, but rather maintains and encourages the life as it exists.

The primary reason for the lack of quality in American television is related to both the history of TV programming development and the economics of TV. Television in American began with the radio. Radio companies and their sponsors first experimented with television. Therefore, the close relationship which the advertisers had with radio programs became the system for American TV. Sponsors not only paid money for time within programs,but many actually produced the programs. " Thus, in American society, television is primarily concerned with reflecting and attracting society rather than experimenting with new ideas. Advertisers want to attract the largest viewing audience possible. To do so requires that the programs be entertaining rather than educational, attractive rather than challenging.

Television in America today remains, to a large extent, with the same organization and standards as it had thirty years ago. The hope for further development and true achievement toward improving society will require a change in the entire system.

Passage 4

People who multitask all the time may be the worst at doing two things at once, a new research suggests. The findings, based on performances and self-evaluation by about 275 college students, indicate that many people multitask not out of a desire to increase productivity, but because they are easily distracted(分心的) and can't focus on one activity. And "those people turn out to be the worst at handling different things," said David Sanbonmatsu, a psychologist at the University of Utah.

Sanbonmatsu and his colleagues gave the students a set of tests and asked them to report how often they multitasked, how good they thought they were at it, and how sensation-seeking(寻求刺激的) or impulsive(冲动的) they were. They then evaluated the participants' multitasking ability with a tricky mental task that required the students to do simple mathematical calculations while remembering a set of letters.

Not surprisingly, the scientists said, most people thought they were better than average at multitasking, and those who thought they were better at it were more likely to report using a cellphone while driving or viewing multiple kinds of media at once. But those who frequently deal with many things at the same time were found to perform the worst at the actual multitasking test. They also were more likely to admit sensation-seeking and impulsive behavior, which connects with how easily people get bored and distracted.

"People multitask not because it' s going to lead to greater productivity, but because they are distractible, and they get sucked into things that are not as important." Sanbonmatsu said.

Adam Gazzaley, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not a member of the research group, said one limitation of the study was that it couldn't find out whether people who start out less focused tend toward multitasking or whether people's recognizing and understanding abilities change as a result of multitasking.

The findings do suggest, however, why the sensation-seeker who multitask the most may enjoy risky distracted driving. "People who are multitasking are generally less sensitive to risky situations." said Paul Atchley, another researcher not in the group. "This may partly explain why people go in for these situations even though they're dangerous."