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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 bestselling 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 socialising 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 prioritizing out activities so that we spend most time on the things we really want to you re a writer, that means-- 20 -- writing.

Direction: Write an essay based on the chart below. In your essay, you should1) describe and interpret the chart, and 2) give your comments.Write your answer in about 150 words on the ANSWER SHEET. (15 points)健康素养（health literacy）是指个人获取和理解基本健康信息和服务，并运用这些信息和服务做出正确决策，以维护和促进自身健康的能力。健康素养水平指具备基本健康素养的人在总人群（15-69岁城乡居民）中所占的比例。

Directions: Read the following text and answer the questions by choosing the most suitable subheading from the list A-G for each numbered paragraphs (41-45). There are two extra subheadings which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)Net-zero rules set to send cost of new homes and extensions soaringNew building regulations aimed at improving energy efficiency are set to increase the price of new homes, as well as those of extensions and loft conversions on existing ones.The rules, which came into effect on Wednesday in England, are part of government plans to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. They set new standards for ventilation, energy efficiency and heating, and state that new residential buildings must have charging points for electric vehicles.The moves are the most significant change to building regulations in years, and industry experts say they will inevitably lead to higher prices at a time when a shortage of materials and high labour costs are already driving up bills.Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders, a trade group for small and medium-sized builders, says the measures will require new materials, testing methods, products and systems to be installed. “All this comes at an increased cost during a time when prices are already sky high. Inevitably, consumers will have to pay more,” he says.Gareth Belsham, of surveyors Naismiths, says “people who are upgrading, or extending their home, will be directly affected. The biggest changes relate to heating and insulation,” he says. “There are new rules concerning the amount of glazing used in extensions, and any new windows or doors must be highly insulated.”Windows and doors will have to adhere to higher standards, while there are new limits on the amount of glazing you can have to reduce unwanted heat from the sun.Thomas Goodman, of My Job Quote, a site which sources quotes, says this will bring in new restrictions for extensions. “Glazing on windows, doors and roof lights must cover no more than 25% of the floor area to prevent heat loss,” he says.As the rules came into effect last Wednesday, property developers were rushing to file plans just before the deadline, according to Belsham. Any plans submitted before that date are considered to be under the previous rules, and can go ahead as long as work starts before 15 June next year.Builders which have costed projects, but have not filed the paperwork, may need to go back and submit fresh estimates, says Marcus Jefford of Build Aviator, which prices projects.Materials prices are already up 25% in the last two years, according to figures from the Construction Products Association. How much overall prices will increase as a result of the rule changes is not clear. “While admirable in their intentions, they will add to the cost of housebuilding at a time when many already feel that they are priced out of homeownership,” says Jonathan Rolande of the National Association of Property Buyers. “An average extension will probably see around £3,000 additional cost thanks to the new regs.”John Kelly, a construction lawyer at Freeths law firm, believes prices will eventually come down. But not in the immediate future. “As the marketplace adapts to the new requirements, and the technologies that support them, the scaling up of these technologies will eventually bring costs down, but in the short term, we will all have to pay the price of the necessary transition.” he says.However, the long-term effects of the changes will be more comfortable and energy-efficient homes, adds Andrew Mellor. “Homeowners will probably recoup that cost over time in energy bill savings. It will obviously be very volatile at the moment, but they will have that benefit over time.”

Teenagers are paradoxical. That’s a mild and detached way of saying something that parents often express with considerably stronger language. But the paradox is scientific as well as personal. In adolescence, helpless and dependent children who have relied on grown-ups for just about everything become independent people who can take care of themselves and help each other. At the same time, once cheerful and compliant children become rebellious teenage risk-takers, often to the point of self-destruction. Accidental deaths go up dramatically in adolescence. A new study published in the journal Child Development, by Eveline Crone of the University of London and colleagues, suggests that the positive and negative sides of teenagers go hand in hand. The study is part of a new wave of thinking about adolescence. For a long time, scientists and policy makers concentrated on the idea that teenagers were a problem that needed to be solved. The new work emphasizes that adolescence is a time of opportunity as well as risk. The researchers studied “prosocial” and rebellious traits in more than 200 children and young adults, ranging from 11 to 28 years old. The participants filled out questionnaires about how often they did things that were altruistic and positive, like sacrificing their own interests to help a friend, or rebellious and negative, like getting drunk or staying out late. Other studies have shown that rebellious behavior increases as you become a teenager and then fades away as you grow older. But the new study shows that, interestingly, the same pattern holds for prosocial behavior. Teenagers were more likely than younger children or adults to report that they did things like unselfishly help a friend. Most significantly, there was a positive correlation between prosociality and rebelliousness. The teenagers who were more rebellious were also more likely to help others. The good and bad sides of adolescence seem to develop together. Is there some common factor that underlies these apparently contradictory developments? One idea is that teenage behavior is related to what researchers call “reward sensitivity”. Decision-making always involves balancing rewards and risks, benefits and costs. “Reward sensitivity” measures how much reward it takes to outweigh risk. Teenagers are particularly sensitive to social rewards—winning the game, impressing a new friend, getting that boy to notice you. Reward sensitivity, like prosocial behavior and risk-taking, seems to go up in adolescence and then down again as we age. Somehow, when you hit 30, the chance that something exciting and new will happen at that party just doesn’t seem to outweigh the effort of getting up off the couch.1. According to paragraph 1 children growing into adolescence tend to .2. It can be learned from paragraph 2 that Crone’s study .3. What does Crone’s study find about prosocial behavior?4. It can be learned from the last two paragraphs that teenagers .5. What is the text mainly about?

The Internet may be changing merely what we remember, not our capacity to do so, suggests Columbia University psychology professor Betsy Sparrow. In 2011, Sparrow led a study in which participants were asked to record 40 factoids in a computer (“an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain,” for example). Half of the participants were told the information would be erased, while the other half were told it would be saved. Guess what? The latter group made no effort to recall the information when quizzed on it latter, because they knew they could find it on their computers. In the same study, a group was asked to remember both the information and the folders it was stored in. They didn’t remember the information, but they remembered how to find the folders. In other words, human memory is not deteriorating but “adapting to new communications technology,” Sparrow says.In a very practical way, the Internet is becoming an external hard drive for our memories, a process known as “cognitive offloading.” Traditionally, this role was fulfilled by data banks, libraries, and other humans. Your father may never remember birthdays because your mother does, for instance. Some worry that this is having a destructive effect on society, but Sparrow sees an upside. Perhaps, she suggests, the trend will change our approach to learning from a focus on individual facts and memorization to an emphasis on more conceptual thinking—something that is not available on the Internet. “I personally have never seen all that much intellectual value in memorizing things,” Sparrow says, adding that we haven’t lost our ability to do it.Still other experts say it’s too soon to understand how the Internet affects our brains. There is no experimental evidence showing that it interferes with our ability to focus, for instance, wrote psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons. And surfing the web exercised the brain more than reading did among computer-savvy older adults in a 2008 study involving 24 participants at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angels.“There may be costs associated with our increased reliance on the Internet, but I’d have to imagine that the overall benefits are going to outweigh those costs,” observes psychology professor Benjamin Storm. “It seems pretty clear that memory is changing, but is it changing for the better? At this point, we don’t know.”1. Sparrow’s study shows that with the Internet, the human brain will .2. The process of “cognitive offloading” .3. Which of the following would Sparrow support about the Internet?4. It is indicated in Paragraph 3 that how the Internet affects our brains .5. Neither Sparrow nor Storm would agree that .

It’s easy to dismiss as absurd the federal government’s ideas for plugging the chronic funding gap of our national parks. Can anyone really think it’s a good idea to allow Amazon deliveries to your tent in Yosemite or food trucks to line up under the redwood trees at Sequoia National Park? But the administration is right about one thing: U.S. national parks are in crisis. Collectively, they have a maintenance backlog of more than $12 billion. Roads, trails, restrooms, visitor centers and other infrastructure are crumbling. But privatizing and commercializing the campgrounds would not be the panacea that the Interior Department’s Outdoor Advisory Committee would have us believe. Campgrounds are a tiny portion of the overall infrastructure backlog, and concessionaires in the parks hand over, on average, only about 5% of their revenues to the National Park Service. Moreover, increased privatization would certainly undercut one of the major reasons why 300 million visitors come to the parks each year: to enjoy nature and get a respite from the commercial drumbeat that overwhelms daily life. The real problem is that the parks have been chronically starved of funding. We conducted a comprehensive survey examining how U.S. residents view their national parks, and we found that Americans place a very high value on them—whether or not they actually visit them. The peer-reviewed economic survey of 700 U.S. taxpayers, conducted by mail and internet, also found that people would be willing to pay a significant amount of money to make sure the parks and their programs are kept intact. Some 81% of respondents said they would be willing to pay additional taxes for the next 10 years to avoid any cuts to the national parks. The national parks provide great value to U.S. residents both as places to escape and as symbols of nature. On top of this, they produce value from their extensive educational programs, their positive impact on the climate through carbon sequestration, their contribution to our cultural and artistic life, and of course through tourism. The parks also help keep America’s past alive, working with thousands of local jurisdictions around the country to protect historical sites—including Ellis Island and Gettysburg—and to bring the stories of these places to life. The parks do all this on a shoestring. Congress allocates only $3 billion a year to the national park system—an amount that has been flat since 2001 (in inflation-adjusted dollars) with the exception of a onetime boost in 2009 as part of the Obama stimulus package. Meanwhile, the number of annual visitors has increased by more than 50% since 1980, and now stands at 330 million visitors per year.1. What problem are U.S. national parks faced with .2. Increased privatization of the campground may .3. According to para. 5, most respondents in the survey would .4. The national parks are valuable in that they .5. It can be concluded from the text that the national park system .

In the quest for the perfect lawn, homeowners across the country are taking a shortcut—and it is the environment that is paying the price. About eight million square metres of plastic grass is sold each year but opposition has now spread to the highest gardening circles. The Chelsea Flower Show has banned fake grass from this year’s event, declaring it to be not part of its ethos. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), which runs the annual show in west London, says it has introduced the ban because of the damage plastic grass does to the environment and biodiversity. Ed Horne, of the RHS, said: “We launched our sustainability strategy last year and fake grass is just not in line with our ethos and views on plastic. We recommend using real grass because of its environmental benefits, which include supporting wildlife alleviating flooding and cooling the environment.” The RHS’s decision comes as campaigners try to raise awareness of the problems fake grass causes. A Twitter account, which claims to “cut through the greenwash” of artificial grass, already has more than 20,000 followers. It is trying to encourage people to sign two petitions, one calling for a ban on the sale of plastic grass and another calling for an “ecological damage” tax on such lawns. They have gathered 7,276 and 11,282 signatures. However, supporters of fake grass point out that there is also an environmental impact with natural lawns, which need mowing and therefore usually consume electricity or petrol. The industry also points out that real grass requires considerable amounts of water, weed killer or other treatments and that people who lay fake grass tend to use their garden more. The industry also claims that people who lay fake grass spend an average of £500 on trees or shrubs for their garden, which provides habitat for insects. In response to another petition last year about banning fake lawns, which gathered 30,000 signatures, the government responded that it has “no plans to ban the use of artificial grass”. It added: “We prefer to help people and organizations make the right choice rather than legislating on such matters. However, the use of artificial grass must comply with the legal and policy safeguards in place to protect biodiversity and ensure sustainable drainage, while measures such as the strengthened biodiversity duty should serve to encourage public authorities to consider sustainable alternatives.”1. The RHS thinks that plastic grass .2. The petitions mentioned in Paragraph 3 reveal the campaigners’ .3. In Paragraph 4, supporters of fake grass point out .4. What should the government do with regard to artificial grass?5. It can be learned from the text that fake grass .

Here’s a common scenario that any number of entrepreneurs face today: you’re the CEO of a small business, and though you’re making a nice 1, you need to find a way to take it to the next level. What you need to do is 2 growth by establishing a growth team. A growth team is made up of members from different departments within your company, and it harnesses the power of collaboration to focus 3 on finding ways to grow. Let’s look at a real-world 4. Prior to forming a growth team, the software company BitTorrent had 50 employees working in the 5 departments of engineering, marketing and product development. This brought them good results until 2012, when their growth plateaued. The 6 was that too many customers were using the basic, free version of their product. And 7 improvements to the premium, paid version, few people were making the upgrade. Things changed, 8, when an innovative project-marketing manager came aboard, 9 a growth team and sparked the kind of 10 perspective they needed. By looking at engineering issues from a marketing point of view, it became clear that the 11 of upgrades wasn’t due to a quality issue. Most customers were simply unaware of the premium version and what it offered. Armed with this 12 the marketing and engineering teams joined forces to raise awareness by prominently 13 the premium version to users of the free version. 14, upgrades skyrocketed, and revenue increased by 92 percent. But in order for your growth team to succeed, it needs to have a strong leader. It needs someone who can 15 the interdisciplinary team and keep them on course for improvement. This leader will 16 the target area, set clear goals and establish a time frame for the 17 of these goals. The growth leader is also 18 for keeping the team focused on moving forward and steering them clear of distractions. 19 attractive new ideas can be distracting, the team leader must recognize when these ideas don’t 20 the current goal and need to be put on the back burner.

An art exhibition and a robot show are to be held on Sunday, and your friend David asks you which one he should go to. Write him an email to: 1) make a suggestion, and 2) give your reason(s). Write your answer in about 100 words on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not use your own name in your email; use “Li Ming” instead. (10 points)

In the late 18th century, William Wordsworth became famous for his poems about nature. And he was one of the founders of a movement called Romanticism, which celebrated the wonders of the natural world. Poetry is powerful. Its energy and rhythm can capture a reader, transport them to another world and make them see things differently. Through carefully selected words and phrases, poems can be dramatic, funny, beautiful, moving and inspiring. No one knows for sure when poetry began but it has been around for thousands of years, even before people could write. It was a way to tell stories and pass down history. It is closely related to song and even when written it is usually created to be performed out loud. Poems really come to life when they are recited. This can also help with understanding them too, because the rhythm and sounds of the words become clearer.

An 18th-century statesman Edmund Burke once said, “All that is needed for the triumph of a misguided cause is that good people do nothing.” One such cause now seeks to end biomedical research because of the theory that animals have rights to rule out their use in research. Scientists need to respond forcefully to animal rights advocates, whose arguments are confusing the public and thereby threatening advances in health knowledge and care. Leaders of the animal rights movement target biomedical research because it depends on public funding, and few people understand the process of health care research. Hearing allegations of cruelty to animals in research settings, many are perplexed that anyone would deliberately harm an animal.For example, a grandmotherly woman setting up an animal rights booth at a recent street fair was distributing brochures that encouraged readers not to use anything that comes from or is tested in animals—no meat, no fur, no medicines. Asked if she opposed immunizations, she wanted to know if vaccines come from animal research. When assured that they do, she replied, “Then I would have to say yes.” Asked what happen when epidemics return, she said, “Don’t worry, scientists will find some way by using computers.” Such well-meaning people just don’t understand.Scientists must communicate their message to the public in a compassionate, understandable way—in human terms, not in the language of molecular biology. We need to make clear the connection between animal research and a grandmother’s hip replacement, a father’s bypass operation, a baby’s vaccinations, and even a pet’s shots. To those who are unaware that animal research was needed to produce these treatments, as well as new treatments and vaccines, animal research seems wasteful at best and cruel at worst.Much can be done. Scientists could “adopt” middle school classes and present their own research. They should be quick to respond to letters to the editor, lest animal rights misinformation go unchallenged and acquire a deceptive appearance of truth. Research institutions could be opened to tours, to show that laboratory animals receive humane care. Finally, because the ultimate stakeholders are patients, the health research community should actively recruit to its cause not only well-known personalities such as Stephen Cooper, who has made courageous statements about the value of animal research, but all who receive medical treatment. If good people do nothing, there is a real possibility that an uninformed citizenry will extinguish the precious embers of medical progress.36. The author begins his article with Edmund Burke’s words to _____.37. Misled people tend to think that using an animal in research is .38. The example of the grandmotherly woman is used to show the public’s _.39. The author believes that, in face of the challenge from animal rights advocates, scientists should _.40. From the text we learn that Stephen Cooper is _____.

When an invention is made, the inventor has three possible courses of action open to him: he can give the invention to the world by publishing it, keep the idea secret, or patent it.A granted patent is the result of a bargain struck between an inventor and the state, by which the inventor gets a limited period of monopoly and publishes full details of his invention to the public after that period terminates. Only in most exceptional circumstances is the life-span of a patent extended to alter this normal process of events.The longest extension ever granted was to Georges Valensi; his 1939 patent for color TV receiver circuitry was extended until 1971 because for most of the patent’s normal life there was no color TV to receive and thus no hope of reward for the invention.Because a patent remains permanently public after it has terminated, the shelves of the library attached to the patent office contain details of literally millions of ideas that are free for anyone to use and if older than half a century, sometimes even re-patent. Indeed, patent experts often advise anyone wishing to avoid the high cost of conducting a search through live patents that the one sure way of avoiding violation of any other inventor’s right is to plagiarize a dead patent. Likewise, because publication of an idea in any other form permanently invalidates further patents on that idea, it is traditionally safe to take ideas from other areas of print. Much modern technological advance is based on these presumptions of legal security.Anyone closely involved in patent and inventions soon learns that most “new” ideas are, in fact, as old as the hills. It is their reduction to commercial practice, either through necessity or dedication, or through the availability of new technology, that makes news and money. The basic patent for the theory of magnetic recording dates back to 1886. Many of the original ideas behind television originate from the late 19th and early 20th century. Even the Volkswagen rear engine car was anticipated by a 1904 patent for a cart with the horse at the rear.31. The passage is mainly about ______.32. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?33. Georges Valensi’s patent lasted until 1971 because _.34. The word “plagiarize” in Para. 4 most probably means “”.35. From the passage we learn that _______.

Although GMOs have been in our food supply for 20 years, the controversy has moved to center stage. Recent documentaries and experts on The Doctor Oz Show have fanned the flames. About 75 percent of consumers say they are concerned about the safety of genetically modified food, according to a New York Times survey. Maine and Connecticut recently passed bills requiring labeling of all foods made with GMOs; many other states are considering mandatory labeling. The European Union already requires labeling, and several countries, including France, have banned the planting of genetically modified crops.In a big red flag-raising study, French researchers reported last year in Food and Chemical Toxicology that rats developed huge tumors after living on genetically modified corn for two years. “Genetic engineering can have unintended consequences,” says Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. Artificial genes force plants to produce unnatural proteins, he says, and no one knows how those may affect human health.However, hundreds of other studies have found no trouble with GMOs, says Ruth MacDonald, professor, and chair of food science at Iowa State University. After looking at more than 130 research projects—including animal studies and searches for known toxins or allergens in GMO foods—the European Union concluded that there’s nothing especially risky about them. In September, the editors of Scientific American denounced the efforts to label GMO foods, stating that there’s no proof that so-called genetically modified organisms can endanger people’s health. Adding genes to crops isn’t any more dangerous than traditional breeding, which farmers have done for thousands of years, the American Association for the Advancement of Science declared in 2012. Old methods of modifying crops mixed tens of thousands of genes with unpredictable results. The fact that scientists can now insert single genes into corn or soybeans shouldn’t raise any new alarms, says Fedoroff.There doesn’t appear to be a scientific reason to ban GMO foods from your kitchen to protect your health. But it is healthy to limit your intake of the processed foods that often contain them. And don’t assume that GMO-free packaged food is necessarily healthy. Organic cookies can still contain too much sugar or salt.26. According to the passage, GMO means ___.27. Why has France forbidden the planting of genetically modified crops?28. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?29. What is the author’s attitude towards GMO foods?30. The word “organic” in the last sentence of the last paragraph most probably means .

Although we try our best, sometimes our paintings rarely turn out as originally planned. Changes in the light, the limitations of your painting materials and the lack of experience and technique mean that what you start out trying to achieve may not come to life the way that you expected. Although this can be frustrating and disappointing, it turns out that this can actually be good for you. Unexpected results have two benefits: you pretty quickly learn to deal with disappointment and realise that when one door closes, another opens. You also quickly learn to adapt and come up with creative solutions to the problems the painting presents and thinking outside the box will become your second nature. In fact, creative problem-solving skills are incredibly useful in daily life, with which you’re more likely to be able to find a solution when problem arises.

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.

Write an essay based on the following chart. In your writing, you should1. interpret the chart, and2. give your commentsYou should write at least 150 words on the ANSWER SHEET. (15 points)

Suppose you are planning a campus food festival, write an mail to international students in your university to1. introduce the food festival and2. invite them to participatePlease write your answer on the ANSWER SHEET.Do not use your own name, use “Li Ming” instead. (10 points)

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 .

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 .

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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