【题目】 Can We Learn More by Trusting than by Not Trusting?

Most of us have been burned by misplaced trust. These experiences lead us to believe that people are too trusting.

But in fact we don't trust enough. A survey about trust in the United States has found that interpersonal trust, a measure (测量) of whether people think others are in general trust worthy is at its lowest in nearly 50 years.

If people are more trustworthy, why don't we trust more?

When you trust someone, you end up working out whether your trust is justified (证明合理) or not. A child next door asks if he can visit your place. If you accept you will find out whether or not he's a good neighbor. A classmate advises you to adopt a new reading method. If you follow the advice you will find out whether the new method works better than the one you were used to.

However, when you don't trust someone. You never find out whether you should trust them. If you don't invite the child over, you won't know whether he would have made a good neighbor or not. If you don't follow your classmate's advice, you won't know if the new method is in fact superior.

This information means that we learn more by trusting than by not trusting. Moreover, when we trust, we learn not only about specific persons, we learn more generally about the type of situations in which we should or shouldn't trust. We get better at trusting.

When our trust is disappointing, the coats are visible (明显的), and our reaction (反应) changes from trouble all the way to hopelessness. The benefit that we've learnt from our mistake is easy to overlook. However, the costs of not trusting someone we could have trusted are invisible. We won't know about the friendship we could have built if we don't let that child go into our place. We won't realise how useful some advice would have been if we don't use our classmate's tip about the new reading method.

Giving people a chance isn't only the moral (道德的) thing to do. It's also the smart thing to do.

1The writer mentions the survey about trust in the United States in Paragraph 2 to show that ________.

A.Americans are popularB.the measure is unbelievable

C.interpersonal trust is importantD.people are short of enough trust

2We can ________ to make us get better at trusting.

A.try to refuse other people's help

B.change our feelings of disappointment

C.find out the balance between trust and mistrust

D.make a smart decision and give people a chance

3What can we learn from the passage?

A.The friendship between friends is trustworthy.

B.The costs of mistaken mistrust are largely hidden.

C.We can get more from not trusting than from trusting.

D.It is unlikely that people are less trustworthy than before.

4What is the writer's main purpose in writing this passage?

A.To stress we should trust other people.

B.To question all the experiences of misplaced trust.

C.To introduce some of the trust that can bring us benefits.

D.To discuss which situation we should or shouldn't trust in.

【题目】 Do you know what makes you happy or do you just think you know? At first, these two questions look the same. If you think something makes you happy, then it makes you happy. You know yourself, don't you?

Write a list of all the things that make you happy. How many of them are fun? Most of them? So if you spend your time doing all these fun things, you'll be really happy, won't you?

Well, maybe not. For most people, fun isn't enough for real happiness, Paul Dolan wrote a book called Happiness by Design. He thinks happiness comes from both pleasure and purpose. If most of the things on your list are about pleasure, that is what you think makes you happy. But you also need activities with purpose.

If you're a student, your job is studying and passing exams. It's easy to do well in subjects you like, but subjects you don't like are less motivating. They're not fun for you, but you have to study them so you need to find purpose. An A in a subject you hate won't help the world. But can you be part of a study team with friends? Each person can study one part until they understand it and then teach it to the rest of the group. The purpose becomes helping the team.

Go back to your list of things that make you happy. How many of them are activities that bring purpose? Can you add any? Remember, some activities might bring both pleasure and purpose.

Now you need to design a happy life. Paul Dolan believes people should "decide, design, do." First decide what brings you pleasure and purpose, then, don't just think about these activities, fill your life with them. For example, you might love riding a bike but never have time to do it. So ride to school or the library or the shops. If you live too far away, take your bike on the bus or train. Get off early and ride the rest of the way. If you go in the car, put it in the back, stop a few kilometres away and ride the rest. Or move somewhere you can ride more. Some parts of our lives are good or bad luck, but we can still design the rest to make more happiness.

1According to Paul Dohn happiness is from both ________.

A.patience and luckB.pleasure and purpose

C.subjects and gradesD.conditions and decisions

2What does the word "motivating" in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A.Encouraging.B.Helpful.C.Disappointing.D.Valuable.

3Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?

A.Destroying HappinessB.Enjoying Happiness

C.Creating HappinessD.Delivering Happiness

【题目】Travel in the Future

These days, if you want to travel from New York to Beijing, the flight takes about 16 hours. You also have to wait at the airport, and sometimes you have to transfer (换乘) onto a different airplane. If you add all of that extra time, the trip takes at least 20 hours. But in the future, the trip from New York to Beijing might only take two hours.

Right now, a company is developing something called ET3, which stands for "evacuated tube (真空管) transport technology". Here's how it works. A tube goes all the way from New York to Beijing. The tube is only a few meters wide. Capsules () move through the tube. Six people can sit in one capsule. The capsules use electricity instead of oil. For international travel, the capsules can travel at about 6,500 kilometers per hour. That's much faster than airplanes—most modern airplanes usually only fly at about 800 kilometers per hour.

So how is this possible? How can these capsules travel so fast? The answer is that there is no air inside the tube. When airplanes fly, they have to move through air. The air slows the airplanes down. Because there isn't any air in the ET3 tubes, the capsules are able to move at a very high speed. Also, the capsules are quite light. Each only weighs 183 kilograms.

There are other advantages to ET3. Because it uses electricity, it's quite clean. Also, it's a lot quieter than airplanes and cars. Finally, ET3 tubes and capsules don't require very much building materials.

Of course, ET3 doesn't come into use yet. The technology is still being developed. Developers still have to solve a lot of problems. The biggest problem is that right now ET3 would be far too expensive. In order to make ET3 cheaper, we will need much better technology.

It's exciting to think of how ET3 will change the travel in the future. Who knows? Maybe someday you'll be able to have lunch in New York and dinner in Beijing.

1According to the passage, an ET3 looks more like a ________.

A.spaceshipB.busC.planeD.subway train

2ET3 travels at the very high speed because _________.

A.it is powered by electricity and oilB.it is much lighter than an airplane

C.it moves through a tube without airD.it is made up of fewer capsules

3From the passage, the writer expects that ________.

A.modern technology will be used in airplanesB.ET3 will take the place of airplanes some day

C.less money will be spent for passengers on ET3D.ET3 will change the travel in the future greatly

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