Exhausted and unhappy, you still have to squeeze a smile to your friends, or teachers. That's just life, you may think. But new research suggests that putting on a fake smile can worsen people's mood and even lower work efficiency. Lead researcher Brent Scott with other researchers studied a group of bus drivers for two weeks. They tried to find out what happened when the drivers were involved in "surface acting" or fake smiling, and the opposite, "deep acting" which means people put on real smiles by recalling pleasant memories or thinking about their current situation more positively. The results showed that on days when drivers were forced to smile, they felt depressed and didn't want to work. On days when they smiled due to positive thoughts, their mood improved a lot as well as their work efficiency. The research goes against the popular belief among companies that employees should be cheerful to customers at all times. They include employees of shops, banks, call center workers and others who have face-to-face contact with members of the public. "Smiling for the sake of smiling can lead to emotional exhaustion and coldness, and that's bad for the organization," Scott told the Daily Mail. The study also showed that women were harmed more by fake smiling than men. Their mood and work performance both worsened more. But they were helped more by deep acting -- their mood became better and they worked more efficiently. However, while deep acting seemed to improve mood in the short term, Scott says it's not a long-term solution for unhappiness. "There have been some suggestions that if you do this over a long period that you start to feel inauthentic ," Scott said. "You may be trying to cultivate positive emotions, but at the end of the day you may not feel like yourself anymore." We can conclude from the article that the researchers think that _ . A) people should be true to their feelings B) smiling helps to put people in a good mood and become more efficient C) it is unnecessary to cultivate positive emotions D) deep acting can improve mood in the long run
A
(The Daily Mail) David Thomas failed all his maths exams and left school with no qualifications, yet this 30 - year - old fire - fighter has just gone into the Guinness Book of Records by reciting from memory 22,500 digits of the mathematical constant, pi(p). After five months of training, in which he spent ten hours a day memorizing a quarter of a million digits, David Thomas took part in a 16 - hour mental battle.Witnesses watched in awe as Thomas set a new European record, earning the title 'Most Powerful Memory in the Western Hemisphere'. David says, "When I was at school I was hopeless.I could' t remember anything, but now I can remember more facts than anyone in Europe." So how does Thomas do it? "One night I was watching a TV programme about an interview with a man called Dominic O'Brien, who had been the world memory champion five times.He used to be a gambler, and he wasn't particularly successful until he developed his own mnemonics, or mental memory aid, for each card in order to remember which cards had already been dealt and which ones hadn't." Thomas became fascinated by O'Brien's theory that anyone can improve their memory by using specialized techniques.These techniques involve linking everything to familiar people or objects. "If you want to remember a phone number for example, you have to give the numbers life.Sometimes I associate a number with a person.Number 10 for me is always the Prime Minister (who lives at number 10 Downing Street) ," explained David.If David is trying to remember facts he also links them to an image."For instance, if I was trying to memorize the name 'Tom Cruise' , I would think of his film Top Cun, and that leads me to images of guns and cruise missiles." is soon going to appear on TV's Record Breakers, and this week he is teaching memory training and speed - writing at Huddersfield University.His fees are PS600 a day.He is sure that the future holds a lot more for him than a job as a fire - fighter. We learn that before setting a new European record, Thomas A) liked playing cards B) trained hard in memory C) believed he could succeed D) received a good school education
B
*Question*
Once when I was six years old I saw an amazing picture in a book called True Stories from Nature about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. In the book it said:"Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole without chewing it. After that they are not able to move and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion ." I thought deeply then over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. I showed my work to the grown-ups and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered:"Frighten? Why should anyone be frightened by a hat?" My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing. I drew the inside of the boa constrictor so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. That's my Drawing Number Two. The grown-ups' response this time was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of ba constrictors whether from the inside or the outside and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why at the age of six I gave up what might have been a great painter. I had been _ by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. So then I chose another profession and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable. In the course of this life I have had lots of chances to meet with a great many people. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them. Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried... Which of the following statements is true? A) The writer could have become a pilot if encouraged when young. B) The writer finally changed his opinion of grown-ups. C) The writer has been showing his two pictures to others ever since. D) The writer felt nobody could have really understood him.
**Answer**
D