Loneliness is like a disease, and what's worse, it's contagious. It can spread from one person to another, according to the recent research that stresses the power of one person's emotions to affect even people they don't know. The new analysis, involving 4,793 people who were interviewed every two years between 2005 and 2015, showed that a friend of a lonely person was 52% more likely to develop feelings of loneliness by the time of the next interview. A friend of that person was 25% more likely, and a friend of a friend of a friend was 15% more likely. ''Loneliness is not just the property of an individual. It can be transmitted across people--even people you don't have direct contact with," said John T. Cacioppo, a psychologist of University of Chicago who led the study published in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Loneliness has been linked to medical problems, including depression, sleep problems and generally poorer physical health. Identifying some of the causes could help reduce the emotion and improve health, experts said. Although the study did not examine how loneliness spreads, Cacioppo said another research has provided clues. "Let's say for whatever reason you get lonely. You then interact with other people in a more negative fashion. That puts them in a negative mood and makes them more likely to interact with other people in a negative fashion and they _ their social ties and become lonely," Cacioppo said. According to Cacioppo, loneliness spread more easily among women than men, perhaps because women were more likely to express emotions. Lonely people become less and less trusting others. This makes it more and more difficult for them to make friends--and more likely that society will reject them. Therefore, it is important to recognize and deal with loneliness. Cacioppo emphasizes people who have been pushed to the edges of society should receive help to repair their social networks. The word " minimize" in Paragragh 5 is closest in meaning to . A) increase B) reduce C) create D) keep
B
Most airlines go all out to ensure their passengers have the best possible flight experience. Now, Europe's low-budget airline, easyJet, wants to extend the positive experience beyond the plane ride with "Sneakairs"--smart shoes that allow visitors to explore new cities and towns without ever looking at a map. To transform Sneakairs from an ordinary shoe to a tour guide, all the wearer has to do is enter his or her desired destination into the easyJet smartphone app. A built-in GPS will determine the wearer's starting location while the Google Maps navigation tool will help chart the best route. Whenever a change of direction is necessary, the app will communicate with the appropriate shoe via the Bluetooth and cause it to vibrate . For example, if the wearer needs to turn right, he/she will feel the sensation in the right shoe. Should the user miss the turn, the smart shoes will both vibrate at the same time, reminding him/her to change course. Visitors that wander off the suggested path or decide to take a break for a cup of coffee or a meal have nothing to worry about. The smart app will automatically determine the new location and chart out a new route, once the desired destination is reached. Sneakairs will vibrate three times to inform the user of the arrival and then go back to being ordinary shoes--until their navigation services are needed again! Sneakairs is certainly not the first navigation shoe in the market. However, easyJet is the first airline to offer them to passengers just as they are about to land in an unknown city. However, before Sneakairs can go mainstream, the easyJet team still needs to make some adjustments. Among the challenges that need to be addressed is the smart shoe's three-hour battery life, which is hardly enough for a tourist to catch all the delights a new or town has to offer! The airline easyJet designed Sneakairs in order to _ . A) help people exercise with better shoes B) attract more people to choose easyJet C) make sure their passengers have the best possible flight experience D) provide passengers with further pleasant experience beside their flight
D
Q: The general objective of public interest advertising is to inform, persuade, or remind people about the particular idea, cause, or philosophy being advertised. This kind of advertising is often used by non-business institutions, such as schools, hospitals and charity organizations. We also see advertising by associations. In addition, we witness millions of dollars' worth of advertising placed by government organizations. Much government advertising announces the availability of such valuable government services as consumer assistance, welfare aid, or career guidance. However, with the resource available to it, the government can also use advertising techniques for propaganda purposes. Many state governments use advertising to attract new businesses, tourists, or workers to aid their economy. Because of the fact that public interest advertising is nonprofit, the words it uses are much more different from the other 3 kinds of advertising. Its purpose is not to urge readers to spend their money, but to disseminate a kind of concept or advocate a social ethic. The headline of public interest advertising also acts as a role of attraction. The average words of them are 10.6, and most of them are curious headlines (60%) and emotional headlines (30%). We can know from the statistics that attracting the reader is still a main task for the headline of public interest advertising, because only when the readers feel the advertising will benefit them (no matter physically or mentally) should they have the patience to read it further--that's the rule of all the advertisements. I also notice that only 10% of those advertisements include their advertiser's brand, which shows that the public interest advertisements do not aim to propagandize any company or organization. Straight-line body copy is the most frequently used form--which is 50% of the 20 ads. 75% of those ads have used imperative sentences. Most of these sentences are urging readers to take action immediately for others or social ethics. All these data show the... What can we learn from the passage? A) Public interest advertising encourages people to buy goods. B) Public interest advertising sometimes forces concepts upon the public. C) We cannot see any advertiser's brand in public interest advertisements. D) The words of public interest advertisements are mostly emotional.
A: D
Q: Oprah Winfrey is not just a very successful TV personality in the US, she is also a woman who has encouraged millions. For those people, her life and her success are a good example. She has struggled with many of the challenges that we all face, and she has changed her life. Her message is powerful: I did it, and so can you. Oprah Winfrey is a black woman whose becoming famous is an encouraging story. She was born on January 29, 1954 in a small village in America. Her patents were very poor. For her family, life seemed to hold no promise. But there was nothing that could stop Oprah. She was an extremely bright girl at school. She asked her kindergarten teacher to let her go to school sooner and she also skipped the second grade of primary school . Her life from the age of six till about fourteen was very hard. For many women such difficulty would be too heavy to bear . But not for Oprah. When she was fourteen, Oprah went to live with her father. Her father showed her how hard work and discipline could lead to self-improvement. Oprah listened to her father, and a few years later she won a college scholarship that allowed her to go to university. Two years later, after graduation, she started working for television. For more than ten years she worked for different TV stations across the country. In 1984, she moved to Chicago, where she became the host of a talk show called "AM Chicago". When Oprah started, "AM Chicago" had few listeners. By September of the next year, the show was so successful that it was given a new name: 'The Oprah Winfrey Show". Oprah Winfrey's story encourages many people to believe that success and happiness in life are within reach for everyone. What does Oprah Winfrey mean by saying "I did it"? A) I managed to over come the challenges. B) I encouraged many people who want to succeed. C) I created many chances to help people. D) I was respected as a source of strength.
A: A