Bad news travels fast--when you watch the evening news or read the morning papers, it seems that things that get the most coverage are all tragedies like wars, earthquakes, floods, fires and murders.
This is the classic rule for mass media. “They want your eyeballs and don’t care how you’re feeling,” Jonah Berger, a psychologist at University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times.
But with social media getting increasingly popular, information is now being spread in different ways, and researchers are discovering new rules--good news can actually spread faster and farther than disasters and other sad stories.
Berger and his colleague Katherine Milkman looked at thousands of articles on The New York Times’ website and analyzed the “most e-mailed” list for six months.
One of his findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list. Those stories aroused feelings of awe (敬畏) and made the readers want to share this positive emotion with others.
Besides science stories, readers were also found to be likely to share articles that were exciting or funny. “The more positive an article was, the more likely it was to be shared,” Berger wrote in his new book. “For example, stories about newcomers falling in love with New York City,” he writes, “tended to be shared more than the death of a popular zookeeper.”
But does all this good news actually make the audience feel better? Not necessarily.
According to a study by researchers at Harvard University, people tend to say more positive things about themselves when they’re talking to a bigger audience, rather than just one person, which helps explain all the perfect vacations that keep showing up on microblogs. This, researchers found, makes people think that life is unfair and that they’re less happy than their friends.
But no worries. There’s a quick and easy way to relieve the depression you get from viewing other people’s seemingly perfect lives--turn on the television and watch the news. There is always someone doing worse than you are.
1.Bad news covers most papers because .
A. the public care for reading tragedies
B. the public intend to express sympathy for victims
C. mass media want to attract the public’s attention
D. mass media appeal to the public to help victims
2.Which of the following might be e-mailed most according to Berger?
A. The perfect vacation of your friend
B. The story of a determined inventor
C. The death of a popular zookeeper
D. The flood hitting a small town
3.We can infer from the passage that .
A. bad news always makes people sad
B. people prefer to share bad news with a bigger audience
C. people can relieve the depression by reading good news
D. good news sometimes has negative influence
4.What would be the best title for the passage?
A. Good News Spreads Fast
B. Bad News Travels Fast
C. The Effect of Bad News
D. The Power of Good News
高三英语阅读理解简单题
Bad news travels fast--when you watch the evening news or read the morning papers, it seems that things that get the most coverage are all tragedies like wars, earthquakes, floods, fires and murders.
This is the classic rule for mass media. “They want your eyeballs and don’t care how you’re feeling,” Jonah Berger, a psychologist at University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times.
But with social media getting increasingly popular, information is now being spread in different ways, and researchers are discovering new rules--good news can actually spread faster and farther than disasters and other sad stories.
Berger and his colleague Katherine Milkman looked at thousands of articles on The New York Times’ website and analyzed the “most e-mailed” list for six months.
One of his findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list. Those stories aroused feelings of awe (敬畏) and made the readers want to share this positive emotion with others.
Besides science stories, readers were also found to be likely to share articles that were exciting or funny. “The more positive an article was, the more likely it was to be shared,” Berger wrote in his new book. “For example, stories about newcomers falling in love with New York City,” he writes, “tended to be shared more than the death of a popular zookeeper.”
But does all this good news actually make the audience feel better? Not necessarily.
According to a study by researchers at Harvard University, people tend to say more positive things about themselves when they’re talking to a bigger audience, rather than just one person, which helps explain all the perfect vacations that keep showing up on microblogs. This, researchers found, makes people think that life is unfair and that they’re less happy than their friends.
But no worries. There’s a quick and easy way to relieve the depression you get from viewing other people’s seemingly perfect lives--turn on the television and watch the news. There is always someone doing worse than you are.
1.Bad news covers most papers because .
A. the public care for reading tragedies
B. the public intend to express sympathy for victims
C. mass media want to attract the public’s attention
D. mass media appeal to the public to help victims
2.Which of the following might be e-mailed most according to Berger?
A. The perfect vacation of your friend
B. The story of a determined inventor
C. The death of a popular zookeeper
D. The flood hitting a small town
3.We can infer from the passage that .
A. bad news always makes people sad
B. people prefer to share bad news with a bigger audience
C. people can relieve the depression by reading good news
D. good news sometimes has negative influence
4.What would be the best title for the passage?
A. Good News Spreads Fast
B. Bad News Travels Fast
C. The Effect of Bad News
D. The Power of Good News
高三英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析
We know them when we see them: The TV shows and movies we love, even though we just know they’re bad. The worthless books we simply can’t put down.
Yes, these are our guilty pleasures — what some people consider the junk food in our media diets. But if we enjoy them, why should we feel guilty? As it turns out, these so-called “guilty” pleasures can actually be good for us, so long as they’re enjoyed in moderation.
According to Robin Nabi, a professor at the University of California, a guilty pleasure is something that we enjoy, but we know we’re either not supposed to like, or that liking it says something negative about us.
Studies suggest that guilty pleasures can bring back some psychological resources. Besides, giving ourselves permission to enjoy downtime is also an important part of self-pity, which is an effective way of fighting anxiety and sadness. Perhaps the most important value of a guilty pleasure is the bond it can create between people.
If that’s true, why do guilty pleasures get such a bad reputation? Actually, it’s not the indulgences themselves, but the attitudes we take when talking about them. “We have the cultural value of media consumption being instructive, and that what we do should be about growing and achieving,” Dr. Nabi said. “We don’t focus as much on refreshment and enjoyment, and these are such important aspects of being a human being.”
Feeling guilty about activities we enjoy can diminish the benefits they offer us. But removing unnecessary embarrassment about our interests can enrich our social lives, which is why it’s time to get rid of “guilty pleasure” from our vocabulary.
While guilty pleasures benefit us in some cases, they can also push us to indulge in behaviors we feel guilty about. Therefore, it’s best to follow the age-old advice our parents taught us: Everything in moderation.
1.Which of the following might make us feel guilty pleasure?
A.Eating an entire bag of chips in one sitting. B.Telling an old bedtime story.
C.Staying up late doing your homework. D.Giving up seats to the elderly.
2.Why do people think poorly of guilty pleasures?
A.They take guilty pleasures too seriously. B.They dislike the behaviour of indulgence.
C.They ignore the benefits of guilty pleasures. D.They are influenced by their cultural value.
3.What does the underlined word “diminish” in paragraph 6 mean?
A.Reduce. B.Increase. C.Maximize. D.Destroy.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A.Guilty pleasure? Avoid it B.Guilty pleasure? No Such Thing
C.Everything in Moderation D.New Trend in Media Consumption
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Sometimes, you just can't help it. Maybe you're watching a sad movie, or thinking about the friend who moved away. Next thing you know, you feel pressure in your throat, your eyes are watering, and you have tears running down your cheeks.
According to Ad Vingerhoets, a professor of psychology at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands, who is one of the few scientists in the world who have studied crying, there are three types of tears. Basal tears are the first type. They act as a protective barrier between the eye and the rest of the World. Next are reflex tears. They wash your eyes clean when something gets in them. Finally, there are emotional tears. “These are released in response to emotional states,” explains Vingerhoets.
Scientists believe crying has something to do with how humans developed and learned to depend on each other. “Humans are very complex social creatures,” says Lauren Bylsma, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania. "It seems that tears serve to arouse help and support from others,” She says.
Vingerhoets agrees, "I think that the reason why humans shed tears（流眼泪）has something to do with our childhood, " he says. "that's the time when we are still dependent on adults for love and protection and care. The major advantage of emotional tears is that you can target them at a specific person." Vingerhoets says this ability could have come in handy in prehistoric times, when humans were living among dangerous animals. Tears were a safer way to get attention. "In this case, it is better to use a silent signal to ask for help, "he says.
Vingerhoets and Byhma do frequent studies to better understand why humans cry. According to Byhma, there is still much more to discover. "It's surprising, "she says, "how much we still don't know.”
1.In the scientists' opinion, crying is ________.
A.a sign of human evolution B.a result of human kindness
C.a cause of personal growth D.a means of relying on each other
2.The underlined phrase "this ability" in the last paragraph refers to the ability to ________.
A.seek help wisely B.aim tears at someone
C.cry emotionally D.appeal to other people
3.From the text, we learn that Ad Vingerhoets and Lauren Bylsma ________.
A.hold different opinions about the causes of tears
B.think positively of the effects of tears
C.are working together to study tears
D.have learned enough about tears
4.What can be a suitable title for the text?
A.The types of tears B.The components of tears
C.The science of tears D.The opinions about tears
高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
Sometimes，you just can’t help it．Maybe you’re watching a sad movie，or thinking about the friend who moved away．Next thing you know，your eyes are watering，and you have tears running down your cheeks．Why do people cry when they are emotional? What are tears? Scientists are working hard to find the answers to these questions．
Ad Vingerhoets is a professor of psychology at Tilburg University，in the Netherlands．He is one of the few scientists in the world who have studied crying．According to Vingerhoets，there are three types of tears．Basal tears are the first type．They lubricate(润滑)the eyes and act as a protective barrier between the eye and the rest of the World．Next are reflex tears．They wash your eyes clean when something gets in them．Finally，there are emotional tears. “These are released in response to emotional states，”explains Vingerhoets．“Especially when we feel helpless．”
Scientists believe that crying has something to do with how humans developed and learned to depend on each other．“Humans are very complex social creatures，”says Lauren Bylsma，a professor at the University of Pittsburgh，in Pennsylvania．“It seems that tears serve to arouse help and support from others，’’She says．“Another reason we weep is that humans have the longest developmental period of almost any animal．It takes a long time to grow up．”
Vingerhoets agrees．“I think that the reason why humans shed tears(流眼泪)has something to do with our childhood，”he says．“That’s the time when we are stir dependent on adults for love and protection and care．The major advantage of emotional tears is that you can target them at a specific person．”Vingerhoets says this ability to target someone could have come in hand in prehistoric times，when humans were living among dangerous animals．Crying could attract predators(捕食者)．Tears were a safer way to get attention．In this case，it is better to use a silent signal to ask for help，”he says．
Vingerhoets and Bylsma do frequent studies to better understand why humans cry．According to Byhma，there is still much more to discover．“It’s surprising，”she says，“how much we still don’t know．”
1.Which of the following is reflex tears?
A．Tears when eyes are dry．
B．Tears moved by a story．
C．Tears released when crying．
D．Tears when dirt gets into eyes．
2.What’s the function of tears according to Bylsma?
A．It helps human develop longer．
B．It helps humans attract predators.
C．It helps arouse attention．
D．It helps people to be independent．
3.What can we learn from the passage?
A．Emotional tears are better than reflex tears．
B．Basal tears are a type of protective barrier．
C．Tears helped frighten predators away．
D．It’s easy to understand why humans cry．
4.What’s the main idea of this passage?
A．Why people shed tears． B．When people shed tears．
C．How people shed tears． D．Where people shed tears．
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
— Do you want to watch this or the news?
— _________ . It’s up to you.
| A．I’m easy | B．Let me see | C．All right | D．I have no idea |
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
If you’re in your 20s or even 30s, you might feel a lot of uncertainty all the time. You may be not sure what your life purpose is.1.This is normal.
We all want to have a certain life purpose. We all want to feel we’re on the right path. We all want to perfect our habits, our routines, or our productivity. We all want to feel more certain, and perfect in what we’re doing.
There is a struggle between the comfort of certainty and perfection and the fear of uncertainty and being suboptimal(不最理想的).
Let me let you in on a secret: no one is free from this struggle. Look at the most successful people you can think of —Bill Gates, Obama, Taylor Swift. 2.Do you think they have certainty and a feeling of reaching perfection? Not a chance. There is not one of us alive, not me or anyone else, who ever feels certainty about their purpose or path. If they do, they’re fooling themselves. 3.
No one ever feels they’ve found the perfect productivity routine, the perfect version of themselves. 4.
We all feel uncertainty, all day, and we all struggle with it. Some people have grown more comfortable with it than others, but in general no one likes uncertainty.
5.That’s perfectly OK, perfectly normal. Don’t run from it. Instead, stay with this uncomfortable, unappealing uncertainty. It’s here in you, a part of this moment, a part of you but not the whole of you.
A.Because it doesn’t exist.
B.Do you think they have it all figured out?
C.This uncertainty you’re feeling is unpleasant.
D.But if they’re honest, they don’t feel that certainty.
E.See if you can tell what you’re being uncertain about.
F.So focus on what you actually have right in front of you.
G.You may be uncertain about what path you should take in life.
高三英语七选五中等难度题查看答案及解析
If you’re ever reading a book or watching a movie and get the distinct feeling you’ve come across the story before — or even better, can predict exactly what's going to happen next — there could be a good reason for that.
Researchers from the Computational Story Laboratory at the University of Vermont studied the complete text of some 1,737 fiction works available on Project Gutenberg, an online collection of more than 50,000 digital books in the public area. They discovered that English literature consists of just six kinds of emotional arcs (情感弧线) that make up nearly all of the most well-known stories. By analysing the sentiment (情感) of language used in these texts, the researchers were able to show the emotional ups and downs for the stories as a whole. They discovered that negative words like “poverty”, “dead”, and “punishment” dragged the emotion down, while positive terms like “love”, “peace”, and “friend” brought it up.
According to the researchers, those six core (核心的) emotional arcs are:
“Rags to riches” (An ongoing emotional rise)
“Tragedy, or riches to rags” (An ongoing emotional fall)
“Man in a hole” (A fall followed by a rise)
“Icarus” (A rise followed by a fall)
“Cinderella” (Rise–fall–rise)
“Oedipus” (Fall–rise–fall)
Interestingly, based on download statistics from Project Gutenberg, the researchers say the most popular stories are ones that use more complex emotional arcs, with the “Cinderella” and “Oedipus” arcs registering the most downloads. Also popular are works that combine these core arcs together in new ways within one story, such as two “Man in a hole” arcs stuck together, or the “Cinderella” arc coupled with a tragic ending.
1.Readers often feel familiar when reading a new story because stories have similar ______.
A. beginnings B. endings
C. characters D. emotional arcs
2.How did researchers carry out their study?
A. By conducting surveys among readers.
B. By reading books borrowed from libraries.
C. By analysing works from an online collection.
D. By interviewing authors of the well-known stories.
3.Which set of works may drag emotion down?
A. Hope, fortune and riches.
B. Disease, murder and war.
C. Smile, health and beauty.
D. Cold, earthquake and spring.
4.According to the last paragraph, which kind of works are most popular among readers?
A. Works with an ongoing emotional rise.
B. Works with an ongoing emotional fall.
C. Works with a rise followed by a fall.
D. Works with more than one rise and fall.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
When you’re all comfortable and warm, watching the snowflakes pile up outside, you might wonder, what about the poor animals? No fire. No cocoa. No blankets. 1.
Well, it’s really people who aren’t designed to live in cold climates. 2. Geese have built-in down comforters. Bears have fur coats. Robins just fly south. But look at people. No fur. No feathers. No fair! And not everyone can jet off to Florida when it snows.
3. Mainly, our big brains. Still, it’s taken us a long time to figure out how to cope with cold weather, and along the way we’ve borrowed a few tricks from the animals, too.
When you put on a jacket, you feel warm. Why? Because your jacket traps the heat your body produces. Your body uses the food you eat as fuel to stay warm. 4. Active muscles burn more fuel and produce more heat. That’s why you shiver when you’re cold. By shivering, your body is doing its best to get your muscles moving and warm you up.
5. Even in the coldest weather, your brain needs lots of warm blood. That’s one reason why your feet and hands get cold --- your body is sending heat to your brain. If you put on a hat, you will find that your feet and hands get warmer.
A. How do they stand it?
B. It can no longer trap a layer of warm air.
C. If you run or jump around, you feel even warmer.
D. So what do people have to help beat the cold?
E. Animals have lots of cool ways to survive the winter.
F. That’s because water carries heat away from your skin.
G. The most important part of your body to keep warm is your brain.
高三英语其他题中等难度题查看答案及解析
What do you get when you mix six little pigs, four monkeys and the deadly Ebola virus? Bad news, according to a recent experiment by Canadian researchers.
The experiment is the first to suggest that the Ebola virus can spread through the air. The study, published in November, detailed how the virus apparently moved from pigs to monkeys without their coming into physical contact. Previously, researchers thought animals had to touch to pass along the virus, which has been blamed for the deaths of more than 1,500 people.
In the experiment, researchers infected six piglets with Ebola. The team then placed the infected piglets in a room with several monkeys. A barrier separated the monkeys from the pigs, so the two species could not touch. And yet, after about a week, two monkeys became sick, infected with the virus. A few days later, the other two monkeys also fell sick with Ebola.
The Ebola virus is named for a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, close to where the germ was discovered. The virus causes high fevers and deadly bleeding disorders in primates, including people and monkeys. It is often deadly. However, scientists previously believed that the virus spread only through direct contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person or animal. Other viruses, including the ones that cause chicken pox and the common cold, are known to spread through the air.
Though Ebola too appeared to spread through the air in the laboratory experiment, researchers haven’t documented any cases of airborne infection under normal conditions. Since the discovery of Ebola in 1976, it has infected more than 2,200 people. Of that total, only 13 people fell ill apparently without coming into direct contact with an infected animal or person. If Ebola spreads easily through the air, scientists and doctors would expect to see more such cases.
1.What does the underlined part “Bad news” in Paragraph1 refer to?
A. The animals will only spread the virus to other animals.
B. Canadian researchers have not reached a conclusion.
C. The virus will be spread among people by pigs and monkeys.
D. The pigs and monkeys will get infected with the virus.
2.What have researchers surprisingly found about the Ebola virus recently?
A. The Ebola virus can be deadly to animals in the wild.
B. The Ebola virus can spread without direct physical contact.
C. The Ebola virus can kill humans after they get infected with it.
D. Animals have to touch each other to pass along the Ebola virus.
3.What do we know about the Ebola virus?
a. It was first found in an African country.
b. It spreads totally differently from chicken pox.
c. It cannot spread through other body fluids besides blood.
d. People usually suffer from high fevers after getting infected.
e. It spread only through direct contact with the blood in the past.
A. abe B. ad C. abc D. bcde
4.It is implied about the Ebola virus in the last paragraph that ___.
A. it has killed thirteen people in total through air spreading
B. it cannot cause any human infections under normal conditions
C. spreading through the air is not an efficient route of transmission
D. more than 2,200 people have died because of the infection of the virus
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Could the device, smartphone or PC, which you re using affect the moral decisions you make when using it? To test it, researchers presented multiple dilemmas to a sample set of 1,010 people. The participants were assigned a device at random.
One case of the questions participants were asked is the classic “trolley(有轨电车) problem”: A runaway trolley is headed towards five people tied up on a-set of train tracks. You can do nothing, resulting in the deaths of five people, or push a man off a bridge, which will stop the trolley. The practical response is to kill one man to save five lives, which 33. 5 percent of smartphone users chose, compared to 22.3 percent of PC users.
“What we round in our study is that when people used a smartphone to view classic moral problems, they were more likely to make more unemotional, reasonable decisions when presented with a highly emotional dilemma, “Dr Albert Barque-Duran, the lead author of the study, told City, University of London. “This could be due to the increased time pressure often present with smartphones and also the increased psychological distance which can occur when we use such devices compared to PCs.”
As for why the researchers started this study, Dr Barque-Duran noted, “Due to the fact that our social lives, work and even shopping take place online, it is important to think about how the contexts where we typically face moral decisions and are asked to engage in moral behavior have changed, and the impact this could have on the hundreds of millions of people who use such devices daily. “it’s clear that we need more research on how our devices affect our moral decision making because we’re using screens at an ever increasing rate.
1.Why did the author mention the trolley problem?
A.To introduce a difficult problem to readers.
B.To introduce the aim of carrying out the study.
C.To show an example of the questions in the study
D.To show the difficulty in dealing with dilemmas.
2.How do the smartphone users of the study behave in dealing with emotional dilemmas?
A.Calmly. B.Cruelly.
C.Hesitantly. D.Enthusiastically.
3.Dr Albert believes that compared with PCs, smartphones .
A.help people bear more pressure
B.help people make decisions quick
C.make people feel more mentally distant
D.make people stay happier to solve problems
4.What can we infer from the text?
A.Shopping online has a great effect on making moral decisions.
B.The people using smartphones are more than those using PCs.
C.People who often use smartphones or PCs always meet with dilemmas,
D.It is common for people to be involved in making moral decisions in daily life.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析