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In an essay entitled "Making It in America”, the author Adam Davidson relates a joke from cotton country about just how much a modern textile mill has been automated: The average mill has only two employees today, “a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machines.”Davidson’s article is one of a number of pieces that have recently appeared making the point that the reason we have such stubbornly high unemployment and declining middle-class incomes today is largely because of the big drop in demand because of the Great Recession, but it is also because of the advances in both globalization and the information technology revolution, which are more rapidly than ever replacing labor with machines or foreign workers.In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra——their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment.Yes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. But there’s been an acceleration. As Davidson notes, “In the 10 years ending in 2009, [ U. S. ] factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs—about 6 million in total—disappeared.”There will always be change—new jobs, new products, new services. But the one thing we know for sure is that with each advance in globalization and the I. T. revolution, the best jobs will require workers to have more and better education to make themselves above average.In a world where average is officially over, there are many things we need to do to support employment, but nothing would be more important than passing some kind of G. I. Bill for the 21st century that ensures that every American has access to poet-high school education.1.The joke in Paragraph 1 is used to illustrate (  ).2.According to Paragraph 3, to be a successful employee, one has to (  ).  3.The quotation in Paragraph 4 explains that (  ).  4.According to the author, to reduce unemployment, the most important is  (  ).  5.Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the text?

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Europe is not a gender-equality heaven. In particular, the corporate workplace will never be completely family-friendly until women are part of senior management decisions, and Europe’s top corporate-governance positions remain overwhelmingly male. Indeed, women hold only 14 percent of positions on Europe corporate boards.The Europe Union is now considering legislation to compel corporate boards to maintain a certain proportion of women一up to 60 percent. This proposed mandate was born of frustration. Last year, Europe an Commission Vice President Viviane Reding issued a call to voluntary action. Reding invited corporations to sign up for gender balance goals of 40 percent female board membership. But her appeal was considered a failure: only 24 companies took it up.Do we need quotas to ensure that women can continue to climb the corporate ladder fairly as they balance work and family?“Personally, I don’t like quotas,” Reding said recently. “But I like what the quotas do.” Quotas get action: they “open the way to equality and they break through the glass ceiling,” according to Reding, a result seen in France and other countries with legally binding provisions on placing women in top business positions.I understand Reding’s reluctance—and her frustration. I don’t like quotas either; they run counter to my belief in meritocracy, government by the capable. But, when one considers the obstacles to achieving the meritocratic ideal, it does look as if a fairer world must be temporarily ordered.After all, four decades of evidence has now shown that corporations in Europe as well as the US are evading the meritocratic hiring and promotion of women to top position一no matter how much “soft pressure” is put upon them. When women do break through to the summit of corporate power—as, for example, Sheryl Sandberg recently did at Facebook—they attract massive attention precisely because they remain the exception to the rule.If appropriate pubic policies were in place to help all women—whether CEOs or their children’s caregivers一 and all families, Sandberg would be no more newsworthy than any other highly capable person living in a more just society.1.In the European corporate workplace, generally (  ).2.The European Union’s intended legislation is (  ).  3.According to Reding, quotas may help women (  ).  4.The author’s attitude toward Reding’s appeal is one of  (  ).  5.Women entering top management become headlines due to the lack of(  ).

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The hugely popular blog the Skint Foodie chronicles how Tony balances his love of good food with living on benefits. After bills, Tony has £60 a week to spend, £40 of which goes on food, but 10 years ago he was earning £130, 000 a year working in corporate communications and eating at London’s best restaurants at least twice a week. Then his marriage failed, his career burned out and his drinking became serious. “The community mental health team saved my life. And I felt like that again, to a certain degree, when people responded to the blog so well. It gave me the validation and confidence that I’d lost. But it’s still a day-by-day thing.’’ Now he’s living in a council flat and fielding offers from literary agents. He’s feeling positive, but he’ll carry on blogging---not about eating as cheaply as you can--- “there are so many people in a much worse state, with barely any money to spend on food” ---but eating well on a budget. Here’s his advice for economical foodies.1.                                                Impulsive spending isn’t an option, so plan your week’s menu in advance,making shopping lists for your ingredients in their exact quantities. I have an Excel template for a week of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Stop laughing: it’s not just cost effective but helps you balance your diet. It’s also a good idea to shop daily instead of weekly, because, being human, you’ll sometimes change your mind about what you fancy.2.                                                                 This is where supermarkets and their anonymity come in handy. With them,there’s not the same embarrassment as when buying one carrot in a little greengrocer. And if you plan properly, you’ll know that you only need, say,350 g of shin of beef and six rashers of bacon, not whatever weight is prepacked in the supermarket chiller.3.                                                You may proudly claim to only have frozen peas in the freezer—that’s not good enough. Mine is filled with leftovers, bread, stock, meat and fish. Planning ahead should eliminate wastage, but if you have surplus vegetables you’ll do a vegetable soup, and all fruits threatening to “go off” will be cooked or juiced.4.                                                 Everyone says this, but it really is a top tip for frugal eaters. Shop at butchers, delis and fish-sellers regularly, even for small things, and be super friendly. Soon you’ll feel comfortable asking if they’ve any knuckles of ham for soups and stews, or beef bones, chicken carcasses and fish heads for stock, which, more often than not, they’ll let you have for free.5.                                                 You won’t be eating out a lot, but save your pennies and once every few months treat yourself to a set lunch at a good restaurant—£ 1.75 a week for three months gives you £21 —more than enough for a three-course lunch at Michelin-starred Arbutus. It’s £16.95 there—or £12.99 for a large pizza from Domino’s: I know which I’d rather eat.

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Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries; that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community; that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin; that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers; and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than repre¬sentative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them.But as recently as in 1968, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v. West Virginia, the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws.The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898, it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty. Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personally asked to have their names included on the jury list. This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home, and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s.In 1968, the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act, ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury. This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community. In the landmark 1975 decision Taylor v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level. The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconsti¬tutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors. (405 words)1.From the principles of the U. S. jury system, we learn that (  ).2.The practice of selecting so-called elite jurors prior to 1968 showed (  ).  3.Even in the 1960s,women were seldom on the jury list in some states because (  ).  4.After the Jury Selection and Service Act was passed, (  ).  5.In discussing the U. S. jury system, the text centers on(  ).

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Many people talked of the 288,000 new jobs the Labor Department reported for June, along with the drop in the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, as good news. And they were right. For now it appears the economy is creating jobs at a decent pace. We still have a long way to go to get back to full employment, but at least we are now finally moving forward at a faster pace.However, there is another important part of the jobs picture that was largely overlooked. There was a big jump in the number of people who repot voluntarily working part-time. This figure is now 830,000 (4.4 percent) above its year ago level.Before explaining the connection to the Obamacare, it is worth making an important distinction. Many people who work part-time jobs actually want full-time jobs. They take part-time work because this is all they can get. An increase in involuntary part-time work is evidence of weakness in the labor market and it means that many people will be having a very hard time making ends meet.There was an increase in involuntary part-time in June, but the general direction has been down. Involuntary part-time employment is still far higher than before the recession, but it is down by 640,000 (7.9 percent) from is year ago level.We know the difference between voluntary and involuntary part-time employment because people tell us. The survey used by the Labor Department asks people if they worked less than 35 hours in the reference week. If the answer is “yes”, they are classified as worked less than 35 hours in that week because they wanted to work less than full time or because they had no choice. They are only classified as voluntary part-time workers if they tell the survey taker they chose to work less than 35 hours a week.The issue of voluntary part-time relates to Obamacare because one of the main purposes was to allow people to get insurance outside of employment. For many people, especially those with serious health conditions or family members with serious health conditions, before Obamacare the only way to get insurance was through a job that provided health insurance.However, Obamacare has allowed more than 12 million people to either get insurance through Medicaid or the exchanges. These are people who may previously have felt the need to get a full-time job that provided insurance in order to cover themselves and their families. With Obamacare there is no longer a link between employment and insurance.1.Which part of the jobs picture are neglected?2.Many people work part-time because they ( ).3.Involuntary part-time employment in the US ( ). 4.It can be learned that with Obamacare, ( ). 5.The text mainly discusses( ).

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Harlan Coben believes that if you’re a writer, you’ll find the time; and that if you can’t find the time, then writing isn’t a priority and you’re not a writer. For him, writing is a (1) job—a job like any other. He has (2) it with plumbing. Pointing out that a plumber doesn’t wake up and say that he can’t work with pipes today. (3), like most writers these days, you’re holding down a job to pay the bills, it’s not (4) to find the time to write. But it’s not impossible. It requires determination and single-mindedness. (5) that most best-selling authors began writing when they were doing other things to earn a living. And today, even writers who are fairly (6) often have to do other work to (7) their writing income. As Harlan Coben has suggested it’s a (8) of priorities. To make writing a priority, you’ll have to (9) some of your day-to-day activities and some things you really enjoy. Depending on your (10) and your lifestyle, that might mean spending less time watching television or listening to music, though some people can write (11) they listen to music. You might have to (12) the amount of exercise or sport you do. You’ll have to make social media an (13) activity rather than a daily, time-consuming (14). There’ll probably have to be less socializing with your friends and less time with your family. It’s a (15) learning curve, and it won’t always make you popular. There’s just one thing you should try to keep at least some time for, (16) your writing—and that’s reading. Any writer needs to read as much and as widely as they can; it’s the one (17) supporter—something you can’t do without. Time is finite. The older you get, the (18) it seems to go. We need to use it as carefully and as (19) as we can. That means prioritising our activities so that we spend most time on the things we really want to do. If you’re a writer, that means—(20)—writing.

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More Americans are opting to work well into retirement, a growing trend that threatens to up end the old workforce model.One in three Americans who are at least 40 have or plan to have a job in retirement to prepare for a longer life, according to a survey conducted by Harris Poll for TD Ameritrade. Even more surprising is that more than half of “unretirees”—those who plan to work in retirement or went back to work after retiring—said they would be employed in their later years even if they had enough money to settle down, the survey showed.Financial needs aren’t the only culprit for the “unretirement” trend. Other reasons, according to the study, include personal fulfillment such as staying mentally fit, preventing boredom or avoiding depression.“The concept of retirement is evolving,” said Christine Russell, senior manager of retirement at TD Ameritrade. “It’s not just about finances. The value of work is also driving folks to continue working past retirement.”One reason for the change in retirement patterns: Americans are living longer. The share of the population 65 and older was 16% in 2018, up 3.2% from the prior year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s also up 30.2% since 2010.Because of longer life spans, Americans are also boosting their savings to preserve their nest eggs, the TD Ameritrade study showed, which surveyed 2,000 adults between 40 to 79. Six in 10 “unretirees” are increasing their savings in anticipation of a longer life, according to the survey. Among the most popular ways they are doing this, the company said, is by reducing their overall expenses, securing life insurance or maximizing their contributions to retirement accounts.Unfortunately, many people who are opting to work in retirement are preparing to do so because they are worried about making ends meet in their later years, said Brent Weiss, a co-founder at Baltimore-based financial-planning firm Facet Wealth. He suggested that preretirees should speak with a financial adviser to set long-term financial goals.“The most challenging moments in life are getting married, starting a family and ultimately retiring,” Weiss said. “It’s not just a financial decision, but an emotional one. Many people believe they can’t retire.”1. The survey conducted by Harris Poll indicates that ________.2. It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that Americans tend to think that ________.3. Retirement patterns are changing partly due to ________.4. Many retirees are increasing their savings by ________.5. With regard to retirement, Brent Weiss thinks that many people are ________.

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We have all encountered them, in both our personal and professional lives. Think about the times you felt tricked or frustrated by a membership or subscription that had a seamless sign-up process but was later difficult to cancel. Something that should be simple and transparent can be complicated, intentionally or unintentionally, in ways that impair consumer choice. These are examples of dark patterns.First coined in 2010 by user experience expert Harry Brignull, “dark patterns” is a catch-all term for practices that manipulate user interfaces to influence the decision-making ability of users. Brignull identifies 12 types of common dark patterns, ranging from misdirection and hidden costs to “roach motel”, where a user experience seems easy and intuitive at the start, but turns difficult when the user tries to get out.In a 2019 study of 53,000 product pages and 11,000 websites, researchers found that about one in 10 employs these design practices. Though widely prevalent, the concept of dark patterns is still not well understood. Business and nonprofit leaders should be aware of dark patterns and try to avoid the gray areas they engender.Where is the line between ethical, persuasive design and dark patterns? Businesses should engage in conversations with IT, compliance, risk, and legal teams to review their privacy policy, and include in the discussion the customer/user experience designers and coders responsible for the company’s user interface, as well as the marketers and advertisers responsible for sign-ups, checkout baskets, pricing, and promotions. Any or all these teams can play a role in creating or avoiding “digital deception.”Lawmakers and regulators are slowly starting to address the ambiguity around dark patterns, most recently at the state level. In March, the California Attorney General announced the approval of additional regulations under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that “ensure that consumers will not be confused or misled when seeking to exercise their data privacy rights.” The regulations aim to ban dark patterns—this means prohibiting companies from using “confusing language or unnecessary steps such as forcing them to click through multiple screens or listen to reasons why they shouldn’t opt out.”As more states consider promulgating additional regulations, there is a need for greater accountability from within the business community. Dark patterns also can be addressed on a self-regulatory basis, but only if organizations hold themselves accountable, not just to legal requirements, but also to industry best practices and standard.1. It can be learned from the first two paragraphs that dark patterns ________.2. The 2019 study on dark patterns is mentioned to show ________.3. To handle digital deception, businesses should ________.4. The additional regulations under the CCPA are intended to ________.5. According to the last paragraph, a key to coping with dark patterns is ________.

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Although ethics classes are common around the world, scientists are unsure if their lessons can actually change behavior; evidence either way is weak, relying on contrived laboratory tests or sometimes unreliable self-reports. But a new study published in Cognition found that, in at least one real-world situation, a single ethics lesson may have had lasting effects.The researchers investigated one class session’s impact on eating meat. They chose this particular behavior for three reasons, according to study co-author Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosopher at the University of California, Riverside: students’ attitudes on the topic are variable and unstable, behavior is easily measurable, and ethics literature largely agrees that eating less meat is good because it reduces environmental harm and animal suffering. Half of the students in four large philosophy classes read an article on the ethics of factory-farmed meat, optionally watched an 11-minute video on the topic and joined a 50-minute discussion. The other half focused on charitable giving instead. Then, unknown to the students, the researchers studied their anonymized meal-card purchases for that semester—nearly 14,000 receipts for almost 500 students.Schwitzgebel predicted the intervention would have no effect; he had previously found that ethics professors do not differ from other professors on a range of behaviors, including voting rates, blood donation and returning library books. But among student subjects who discussed meat ethics, meal purchases containing meat decreased from 52 to 45 percent—and this effect held steady for the study’s duration of several weeks. Purchases from the other group remained at 52 percent.“That's actually a pretty large effect for a pretty small intervention,” Schwitzgebel says.Psychologist Nina Strohminger at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the study, says she wants the effect to be real but cannot rule out some unknown confounding variable. And if real, she notes, it might be reversible by another nudge: “Easy come, easy go.”Schwitzgebel suspects the greatest impact came from social influence—classmates or teaching assistants leading the discussions may have shared their own vegetarianism, showing it as achievable or more common. Second, the video may have had an emotional impact. Least rousing, he thinks, was rational argument, although his co-authors say reason might play a bigger role. Now the researchers are probing the specific effects of teaching style, teaching assistants’ eating habits and students’ video exposure. Meanwhile Schwitzgebel—who had predicted no effect—will be eating his words.1. Scientists generally believe that the effects of ethics classes are ________.2. Which of the following is a reason for the researchers to study meat-eating?3. Eric Schwitzgebel’s previous findings suggest that ethics professors ________.4. Nina Strohminger thinks that the effect of the intervention is ________.5. Eric Schwitzgebel suspects that the students’ change in behavior ________.

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How to Get Active Again After a BreakMoving your body has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, lower rates of many types of cancer and the risk of a heart ¬attack, and improve overall immunity. It also helps build strength and stamina. Getting back into exercise can be a challenge in the best of times, but with gyms and in-person exercise classes off-limits to many people these days because of COVID-19 concerns, it can be tricky to know where to start. And it’s important to get the right dose of activity. “Too much too soon either results in injury or burnout,” says Mary Yoke, PhD, a faculty member in the kinesiology department at Indiana University in Bloomington.The following simple strategies will help you return to exercise safely after a break.1. ____________________Don’t try to go back to what you were doing before your break. If you were walking 3 miles a day, playing 18 holes of golf three times week, or lifting 10-pound dumbbells for three sets of 10 reps, reduce activity to half a mile every other day, or nine holes of golf once a week with short walks on other days, or use 5-pound dumbbells for one set of 10 reps.Increase time, distance, and intensity gradually. “This isn’t something you can do overnight,” Denay says. But you will reap benefits such as less anxiety and improved sleep right away.2. ____________________If you’re breathing too hard to talk in complete sentences, back off. If you feel good, go a little longer or faster. Feeling wiped out after a session? Go easier next time. And stay alert to serious symptoms, such as chest pain or pressure, severe shortness of breath or dizziness, or faintness, and seek medical attention immediately.3. ____________________Consistency is the key to getting stronger and building endurance and stamina.Ten minutes of activity per day is a good start, says Marcus Jackovitz, DPT, a physical therapist at the University of Miami Hospital. All the experts we spoke with highly recommend walking because it’s the easiest, most accessible form of exercise. Although it can be a workout on its own, if your goal is to get back to Zumba classes, tennis, cycling, or any other activity, walking is also a great first step.4. ____________________Even if you can’t yet do a favorite activity, you can practice the moves. With or without a club or racket, swing like you’re hitting the ball. Paddle like you're in a kayak or canoe. Mimic your favorite swimming strokes. The action will remind you of the joy the activity brought you and prime your muscles for when you can get out there again.5. ____________________Exercising with others “can keep you accountable and make it more fun, so you're more likely to do it again,” Jackovitz says.You can do activities such as golf and tennis or take a walk with others and still be socially distant. But when you can’t connect in person, consider using technology. Chat on the phone with a friend while you walk around your neighborhood. FaceTime or Zoom with a relative as you strength train or stretch at home.You can also join a livestream or on-demand exercise class. SilverSneakers offers them for older adults, or try EverWalk for virtual challenges.

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Over the past decade, many companies had perfected the art of creating automatic behaviors—habits— among consumers. These habits have helped companies earn billions of dollars when customers eat snacks or wipe counters almost without thinking, often in response to a carefully designed set of daily cues. “There are fundamental public health problems, like dirty hands instead of a soap habit, that remain killers only because we can’t figure out how to change people’s habits, said Dr. Curtis, the director of the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “We wanted to learn from private industry how to create new behaviors that happen automatically."The companies that Dr. Curtis turned to—Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever—had invested hundreds of millions of dollars finding the subtle cues in consumers’ lives that corporations could use to introduce new routines.If you look hard enough, you’ll find that many of the products we use every day—chewing gums, skin moisturizers ,disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins—are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of shrewd advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity-preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands.A few decades ago, many people didn’t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.“Our products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.”Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in tying certain behaviors to habitual cues through ruthless advertising. As this new science of habit has emerged, con-troversies have erupted when the tactics have been used to sell questionable beauty creams or unhealthy foods. (413 words)1.According to Dr. Curtis, habits like hand washing with soap(  ).2.Bottled water, chewing gum and skin moisturizers are mentioned in Paragraph 5 so as to (  ).  3.Which of the following does NOT belong to products that help create people’s habits?4.From the text we know that some of consumers’ habits are developed due to (  ).  5.The author’s attitude toward the influence of advertisement on people’s habits is(  ).

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We’re fairly good at judging people based on first impressions, thin slices of experience ranging from a glimpse of a photo to a five-minute interaction, and deliberation can be not only extraneous but intrusive. In one study of the ability she dubbed “thin slicing.” The late psychologist Nalini Ambady asked participants to watch silent 10-second video clips of professors and to rate the instructor’s overall effectiveness. Their ratings correlated strongly with students’ end-of-semester ratings.Another set of participants had to count backward from 1,000 by nines as they watched the clips,occupying their conscious working memory. Their ratings were just as accurate, demonstrating the intuitive nature of the social processing.Critically, another group was asked to spend a minute writing down reasons for their judgment,before giving the rating. Accuracy dropped dramatically.Ambady suspected that deliberation focused them on vivid but misleading cues, such as certain gestures of utterances, rather than letting the complex interplay of subtle signals form a holistic impression. She found similar interference when participants watched 15-second clips of pairs of people and judged whether they were strangers, friends, or dating partners.Other research shows we're better at detecting deception and sexual orientation from thin slices when we rely on intuition instead of reflection.“It’ s as if you’re driving a stick shift," says Judith Hall,a psychologist at Northeastern University, "and if you start thinking about it too much, you can' t remember what you' re doing.But if you go on automatic pilot, you’re fine.Much of our social life is like that."Thinking too much can also harm our ability to form preferences College students' ratings of strawberry jams and college courses aligned better with experts' opinions when the students weren't asked to analyze their rationale. And people made car-buying decisions that were both objectively better and more personally satisfying when asked to focus on their feelings rather than on details,but only if the decision was complex — when they had a lot of information to process.Intuition's special powers are unleashed only in certain circumstances. In onestudy, participants completed a battery of eight tasks, including four that tappedreflective thinking (discerning rules, comprehending vocabulary) and four that tappedintuition and creativity (generating new products or figures of speech).Then they rated the degree to which they had used intuition (“gut feelings,” “hunches,” “my heart”).Use of their gut hurt their performance on the first four tasks,as expected, and helped them on the rest Sometimes the heart is smarter than the head.Other research shows we re better at detecting deception and sexual orientation from thin slices when we rely on intuition instead of reflection. "It' s as if you' redriving a stick shift," says Judith Hall, a psychologist at Northeastern University,"and if you start thinking about it too much, you can't remember what you're doing. But if you go on automatic pilot, you re fine. Much of our social life is like that." Thinking too much can also harm our ability to form preferences College students ratings ofstrawberry jams and college courses aligned better with experts' opinions when the students weren't asked to analyze their rationale.And people made car-buying decisions that were both objectively better and more personally satisfying when asked to focus on their feelings rather than on details, but only if the decision was complex-when they had a lot of information to process.1. Nalini Ambady’s study deals with (  ).2.In Ambady’s study, rating accuracy dropped when participants( ).3.Judith Hall mentions driving to mention that( ).4.When you are making complex decisions, it is advisable to( ).5.What can we learn from the last paragraph?

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It’s not difficult to set targets for staff. It is much harder, _1_, to understand their negative consequences. Most work-related behaviors have multiple components. _2_ one and the others become distorted.Travel on a London bus and you’ll _3_ see how this works with drivers. Watch people get on and show their tickets. Are they carefully inspected? Never. Do people get on without paying? Of course! Are there inspectors to _4_ that people have paid? Possibly, but very few. And people who run for the bus? They are _5_. How about jumping lights? Buses do so almost as frequently as cyclists.Why? Because the target is _6_. People complained that buses were late and infrequent. _7_, the number of buses and bus lanes were increased, and drivers were _8_ or punished according to the time they took. And drivers hit these targets. But they _9_ hit cyclists. If the target was changed to _10_, you would have more inspectors and more sensitive pricing. If the criterion changed to safety, you would get more _11_ drivers who obeyed traffic laws. But both these criteria would be at the expense of time.There is another _12_: people became immensely inventive in hitting targets. Have you _13_ that you can leave on a flight an hour late but still arrive on time? Tailwinds? Of course not! Airlines have simply changed the time a _14_ is meant to take. A one-hour flight is now ballad as a two-hour flight.The _15_ of the story is simple. Most jobs are multidimensional, with multiple criteria. Choose one criterion and you may well _16_ others. Everything can be done faster and made cheaper, but there is a _17_. Setting targets can and does have unforeseen negative consequences.This is not an argument against target-setting. But it is an argument for exploring consequences first. All good targets should have multiple criteria _18_ critical factors such as time, money, quality and customer feedback. The trick is not only to _19_ just one or even two dimensions of the objective, but also to understand how to help people better _20_ the objective.

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Weighing yourself regularly is a wonderful way to stay aware of any significant weight fluctuations. _1_, when done too often, this habit can sometimes hurt more than it _2_. As for me, weighing myself every day caused me to shift my focus from being generally healthy and physically active to focusing _3_ on the scale. That was bad to my overall fitness goals. I had gained weight in the form of muscle mass, but thinking only of _4_ the number on the scale, I altered my training program. That conflicted with how I needed to train to _5_ my goals. I also found that weighing myself daily did not provide an accurate _6_ of the hard work and progress I was making in the gym. It takes about three weeks to a month to notice any significant changes in your weight _7_ altering your training program. The most _8_ changes will be observed in skill level, strength and inches lost. For these _9_, I stopped weighing myself every day and switched to a bimonthly weighing schedule _10_. Since weight loss is not my goal, it is less important for me to _11_ my weight each week. Weighing every other week allows me to observe and _12_ any significant weight changes. That tells me whether I need to _13_ my training program. I use my bimonthly weigh-in _14_ to get information about my nutrition as well. If my training intensity remains the same, but I’m constantly _15_ and dropping weight, this is a _16_ that I need to increase my daily caloric intake. The _17_ to stop weighing myself every day has done wonders for my overall health, fitness and well-being. I’m experiencing increased zeal for working out, since I no longer carry the burden of a _18_ morning weigh-in. I’ve also experienced greater success in achieving my specific fitness goals, _19_ I’m training according to those goals, not the numbers on a scale. Rather than _20_ over the scale, turn your focus to how you look, feel how your clothes fit and your overall energy level.

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Wholesale prices in July rose more sharply than expected and at a faster rate than consumer prices,(1)hat businesses were still protecting consumers (2) the full brunt (冲击) of higher energy costs.The Producer Price Index,(3)  measures what producers receive for goods and services, (4)  1 percent in July. The Labor Department reported yesterday. Double (5)  economists had been expecting and a sharp turnaround from flat prices in June. Excluding (6)  and energy. the core index of producer prices rose 0.4 percent, (7)  than the 0.1 percent that economists had (8)  . Much of that increase was a result of an (9)  increase in car and truck prices.On Tuesday, the Labor Department said the (10)  that consumers paid for goods and services in July were (11)  0.5 percent over all, and up 0.1 percent, excluding food and energy.(12) the overall rise in both consumer and producer prices  (13)  caused by energy costs, which increased 4.4 percent n the month. (Wholesale food prices (14)  0.3 percent in July.  (15)  July 2004, Wholesale prices were up 4.6 percent, the core rate (16)  2.8 percent, its fastest pace since 1995.Typically, increases in the Producer Price Index indicate similar changes in the consumer index (17)  businesses recoup (补偿) higher costs from customers. (18) for much of this expansion, which started (19)  the end of 2001, that has not been the (20) . In fact, many businesses like automakers have been aggressively discounting their products.

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American farmers have been complaining of labor shortages for several years now. Given a multi-year decline in illegal immigration, and a similarly sustained pickup in the U.S. job market, the complaints are unlikely to stop without an overhaul of immigration rules for farm workers.Efforts to create a more straightforward agricultural-workers visa that would enable foreign workers to stay longer in the U.S. and change jobs within the industry have so far failed in Congress. If this doesn’t change, American businesses, communities and consumers will be the losers.Perhaps half of U.S. farm laborers are undocumented immigrants. As fewer such workers enter the U.S., the characteristics of the agricultural workforce are changing. Today’s farm laborers, while still predominantly born in Mexico, are more likely to be settled, rather than migrating, and more likely to be married than single. They are also aging. At the start of this century, about one-third of crop workers were over the age of 35. Now, more than half are. And crop picking is hard on older bodies.One of the debated cure for this labor shortage remains as implausible as it has been all along: Native U.S. workers won’t be returning to the farm.Mechanization is not the answer either—not yet at least. Production of com, cotton, rice, soybeans and wheat have been largely mechanized, but many high-value, labor-intensive crops, such as strawberries, need labor. Even dairy farms, where robots currently do only a small share of milking, have a long way to go before they are automated.As a result, farms have grown increasingly reliant on temporary guest workers using the H-2A visa to fill the gaps in the agricultural workforce. Starting around 2012, requests for the visas rose sharply; from 2011 to 2016 the number of visas issued more than doubled.The H-2A visa has no numerical cap, unlike the H-2B visa for non-agricultural work, which is limited to 66,000 annually. Even so, employers frequently complain that they aren’t allotted all the workers they need. The process is cumbersome, expensive and unreliable. One survey found that bureaucratic delays led H-2A workers to arrive on the job an average of 22 days late. And the shortage is compounded by federal immigration raids, which remove some workers and drive others underground.In effect, the U.S. can import food or it can import the workers who pick it. The U.S. needs a simpler, streamlined, multi-year visa for agricultural workers, accompanied by measures to guard against exploitation and a viable path to U.S. residency for workers who meet the requirements. Otherwise growers will continue to struggle with shortages and uncertainty, and the country as a whole will lose out.1.What problem should be addressed according to the first two paragraphs?2.One trouble with U.S. agricultural workforce is(  ).3.What is the much-argued solution to the labor shortage in U.S. farming?4.Agricultural employers complain about the H-2A visa for its (  ).  5.Which of the following could be the best title for this text?

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Copying Birds May Save Aircraft FuelBoth Boeing and Airbus have trumpeted the efficiency of their newest aircraft, the 787 and A350 respectively. Their clever designs and lightweight composites certainly make a difference. But a group of researchers at Stanford University, led by Ilan Kroo, has suggested that airlines could take a more naturalistic approach to cutting jet-fuel use, and it would not require them to buy new aircraft.The answer, says Dr. Kroo, lies with birds. Since 1914, scientists have known that birds flying in formation—a V-shape—expend less energy. The air flowing over a bird’s wings curls upwards behind the wingtips, a phenomenon known as upwash. Other birds flying in the upwash experience reduced drag, and spend less energy propelling themselves. Peter Lissaman, an aeronautics expert who was formerly at Caltech and the University of Southern California, has suggested that a formation of 25 birds might enjoy a range increase of 71%.When applied to aircraft, the principles are not substantially different. Dr. Kroo and his team modeled what would happen if three passenger jets departing from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas were to assemble over Utah, assume an inverted V-formation, occasionally change places so all could have a turn in the most favourable positions, and proceed to London. They found that the aircraft consumed as much as 15% less fuel (coupled with a reduction in carbon-dioxide output). Nitrogen-oxide emissions during the cruising portions of the flight fell by around a quarter.There are, of course, knots to be worked out. One consideration is safety, or at least the perception of it. Would passengers feel comfortable traveling in companion? Dr. Kroo points out that the aircraft could be separated by several nautical miles, and would not be in the intimate groupings favoured by display teams like the Red Arrows. A passenger peering out of the window might not even see the other planes. Whether the separation distances involved would satisfy air-traffic-control regulations is another matter, although a working group at the International Civil Aviation Organisation has included the possibility of formation flying in a blueprint for new operational guidelines.It remains to be seen how weather conditions affect the air flows that make formation flight more efficient. In zones of increased turbulence, the planes’ wakes will decay more quickly and the effect will diminish. Dr. Kroo says this is one of the areas his team will investigate further. It might also be hard for airlines to co-ordinate the departure times and destinations of passenger aircraft in a way that would allow them to gain from formation flight. Cargo aircraft, in contrast, might be easier to reschedule, as might routine military flights.As it happens, America’s armed forces are on the case already. Earlier this year the country’s Defence Ad-vanced Research Projects Agency announced plans to pay Boeing to investigate formation flight, though the pro-gramme has yet to begin. There are reports that some military aircraft flew in formation when they were low on fuel during the Second World War, but Dr. Lissaman says they are unsubstantiated. “My father was an RAF pilot and my cousin the skipper of a Lancaster lost over Berlin,” lie adds. So he should know. (534 words)1.Findings of the Stanford University researchers will promote the sales of new Boeing and Airbus aircraft.2.The upwash experience may save propelling energy as well as reducing resistance.3.Formation flight is more comfortable because passengers can not see the other plans.4.The role that weather plays in formation flight has not yet been clearly defined.5.It has been documented that during World War II, America’s armed forces once tried formation flight to save fuel.

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The power and ambition of the giants of the digital economy is astonishing —Amazon has just announced the purchase of the upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.5bn, but two years ago Facebook paid even more than that to acquire the WhatsApp messaging service, which doesn't have any physical product at all. What WhatsApp offered Facebook was an intricate and finely detailed web of its users' friendships and social lives.Facebook promised the European commission then that it would not link phone numbers to Facebook identities, but it broke the promise almost as soon as the deal went through. Even without knowing what was in the messages, the knowledge of who sent them and to whom was enormously revealing and still could be. What political journalist, what party whip, would not want to know the makeup of the WhatsApp groups in which Theresa May's enemies are currently plotting? It may be that the value of Whole Foods to Amazon is not so much the 460 shops of owns, but the records of which customers have purchased what.Competition law appears to be the only way to address these imbalances of power. But it is clumsy. For one thing, it is very slow compared to the pace of change within the digital economy. By the time a problem has been addressed and remedied it may have vanished in the marketplace, to be replaced by new abuses of power. But there is a deeper conceptual problem, too. Competition law as presently interpreted deals with financial disadvantage to consumers and this is not obvious when the users of these services don't pay for them. The users of their services are not their customers. That would be the people who buy advertising from them — and Facebook and Google, the two virtual giants, dominate digital advertising to the disadvantage of all other media and entertainment companies.The product they're selling is data, and we, the users, convert our lives to data for the benefit of the digital giants. Just as some ants farm the bugs called aphids for the honeydew they produce when they feed, so Google farms us for the data that our digital lives yield. Ants keep predatory insects away from where their aphids feed; Gmail keeps the spammers out of our inboxes. It doesn’t feel like a human or democratic relationship, even if both sides benefit.1.According to Paragraph1, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for its(  ).2.Linking phone numbers to Facebook identities may (  ).  3.According to the author, competition law (  ).  4.Competition law as presently interpreted can hardly protect Facebook users because (  ).  5.The ants analogy is used to illustrate(  ).

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The decline in American manufacturing is a common refrain, particularly from Donald Trump. "We don't make anything anymore," he told Fox News, while defending his own made-in-Mexico clothing line.Without question, manufacturing has taken a significant hit during recent decades, and further trade deals raise questions about whether new shocks could hit manufacturing.But there is also a different way to look at the data.Across the country, factory owners are now grappling with a new challenge: instead of having too many workers, they may end up with too few. Despite trade competition and outsourcing, American manufacturing still needs to replace tens of thousands of retiring boomers every years. Millennials may not be that interested in taking their place, other industries are recruiting them with similar or better pay.For factory owners, it all adds up to stiff competition for workers-and upward pressure on wages. "They're harder to find and they have job offers," says Jay Dunwell, president of Wolverine Coil Spring, a family-owned firm, "They may be coming [into the workforce], but they've been plucked by other industries that are also doing an well as manufacturing," Mr. Dunwell has begun bringing high school juniors to the factory so they can get exposed to its culture.At RoMan Manufacturing, a maker of electrical transformers and welding equipment that his father cofounded in 1980, Robert Roth keep a close eye on the age of his nearly 200 workers, five are retiring this year. Mr. Roth has three community-college students enrolled in a work-placement program, with a starting wage of $13 an hour that rises to $17 after two years.At a worktable inside the transformer plant, young Jason Stenquist looks flustered by the copper coils he's trying to assemble and the arrival of two visitors. It's his first week on the job. Asked about his choice of career, he says at high school he considered medical school before switching to electrical engineering. "I love working with tools. I love creating." he says.But to win over these young workers, manufacturers have to clear another major hurdle: parents, who lived through the worst US economic downturn since the Great Depression, telling them to avoid the factory. Millennials "remember their father and mother both were laid off. They blame it on the manufacturing recession," says Birgit Klohs, chief executive of The Right Place, a business development agency for western Michigan.These concerns aren't misplaced: Employment in manufacturing has fallen from 17 million in 1970 to 12 million in 2013. When the recovery began, worker shortages first appeared in the high-skilled trades. Now shortages are appearing at the mid-skill levels."The gap is between the jobs that take to skills and those that require a lot of skill," says Rob Spohr, a business professor at Montcalm Community College. "There're enough people to fill the jobs at McDonalds and other places where you don't need to have much skill. It's that gap in between, and that's where the problem is."Julie Parks of Grand Rapids Community points to another key to luring Millennials into manufacturing: a work/life balance. While their parents were content to work long hours, young people value flexibility. "Overtime is not attractive to this generation. They really want to live their lives," she says.1.Jay Dumwell(  )2.Jason Stenquist (  )  3.Birgit Klohs (  )  4.Rob Spohr (  )  5.Julie Parks (  )

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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dia Mirza and Adrian Grenier have a message for you: It’s easy to beat plastic. They’re part of a bunch of celebrities staring in a new video for World Environment Day—encouraging you, the consumer, to swap out your single-use plastic staples to combat the plastic crisis.My biggest concern with leaving it up to the individual, however, is our limited sense of what needs to be achieved on their own, taking our own bags to the grocery store or quitting plastic straws, for example, will accomplish little and require very little of us. They could even be detrimental, satisfying a need to have “done our bit” without ever progressing onto bigger, bolder, more effective actions—a kind of “moral licensing” that allays our concerns and stops us doing more and asking more of those in charge.While the conversation around our environment and our responsibility toward it remains centered on shopping bags and straws, we’re ignoring the balance of power that implies that as “consumers” we must shop sustainably, rather than as “citizens” hold our governments and industries to account to push for real systemic change. Nowhere in World Environment Day 2018’s key messages is there anything about voting for environmentally progressive politicians, for example. Why not?It’s important to acknowledge that the environment isn’t everyone’s priority—or even most people’s. We shouldn’t expect it to be. In her latest book, Why Could People Do Bad Environmental Things, Wellesley College professor Elizabeth R. De Sombre argues that the best way to collectively change the behavior of large numbers of people is for the change to be structural.This might mean implementing policy such as a plastic tax that adds a cost to environmentally problematic action, or banning single-use plastics altogether. India has just announced it will “eliminate all single-use plastic in the country by 2022.” There are also incentive-based ways of making better environmental choices easier, such as ensuring recycling is at least as easy as trash disposal.De Sombre isn’t saying people should stop caring about the environment. It’s just that individual actions are too slow, she says, for that to be only, or even primary, approach to changing widespread behavior.None of this is about writing off the individual. It’s just about putting things into perspective. We don’t have time to wait. We need progressive policies that shape collective action (and rein in polluting business), alongside engaged citizens pushing for change. That’s not something we can buy.1.Some celebrities star in a new video to(  ).2.The author is concerned that “moral licensing” may (  ).  3.By pointing out our identity as “citizens,” the author indicates that (  ).  4.De Sombre argues that the best way for a collective change should be (  ).  5.The author concludes that individual efforts(  ).

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