The economist George Akerlof found himself faced with a simple task: mailing a box of clothes from India, where he was living, to America. The clothes belong to his friend and colleague Joseph Stieglitz, Akerlof was eager to send the box off. But he delayed dealing with it, week after week. This went on for more than eight months and it was only shortly before Akerlof himself returned to America that he managed to mail this box: another friend happened to be sending some things back to the U.S., and Akerlof was able to add the box to the shipment. Given the vagaries of intercontinental mail, it is possible that Akerlof made it back to the United States before Stieglitz' s shirt. Even Nobel-winning economists procrastinate ! Akerlof saw this familiar experience as mysterious. He actually intended to send the box to his friend, yet, as he wrote in a paper called "procrastination and obedience", "each morning for over eight months I woke up and decided that the next morning would be the day to send the Stieglitz box.", but act never arrived. He realized that procrastination might be more than just a bad habit, and it might be something important about the limits of human rational thinking and that it could teach useful lessons about phenomena as substance abuse and savings habits. Since his essay about procrastination was published, it became a buzz word among the academia, like philosophers, psychologists and economists: academies and college students may be especially prone to putting things off. But the study of this subject isn't just a case of eggheads rationalizing their slacking. From another angle, this issue illustrates the fluidity of human identity and the complicated relationship human beings have to time. A central figure in this subject argues that dragging our heels is as fundamental as the shape of time and could well be called basic human impulse, but the anxiety about dragging seems to have emerged in early modern era, as early as eighteenth century. Procrastination is also a surprisingly costly one. Each year, Americans waste hundreds of millions of dollars because they don't file their taxes on time. 70% of patients suffering from glaucoma risk of blindness because they don't use their eye-drops regularly. Procrastination also inflicts major costs on businesses and governments. The recent crisis of the euro was aggravated by the German government's hesitation. And the decline of the American auto industry, exemplified by the bankruptcy of G.M., was due in part to executives' inclination for delaying tough decisions.

单选题 From the first paragraph, we can learn_____.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】解析：根据题干关键词定位到文章第一段。A项“阿克洛夫很难把他朋友的衣服从印度寄到美国”，文章指出“阿克洛夫在邮寄东西方面没有什么困难，只是他一直在拖延”，故 A项错误。B项“印度的货运服务使简单的事情变得复杂”并未在原文中提及，故错误。C项 “阿克洛夫在他的朋友的衣服邮到之前到达了美国”，其是对该段最后一句话的错误解读，文章用的是推测的口吻，故错误。D项“阿克洛夫推迟了邮寄他朋友的衣服，直到8个月后”，符合原文含义，故选D。

单选题 What is the meaning of the word "procrastinate"?

单选题 In Paragraph 2 and 3, we can learn the things demonstrated through procrastination EXCEPT

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】解析：根据题干关键词定位到文章二、三段。由this issue illustrates the fluidity of hu man identity and the complicated relationship human beings have to time可推断出B、C项正确。由第二段的procrastination might be more than just a bad habit，and it might be something important about the limits of human rational thinking可推断出A项“理性思考的局限性”正确。D项“人们有关缺乏的倾向”未在文中提及，故选D。