How did your friend get you to babysit her kids for the weekend, or your sister talk you into hosting the next book club meeting? They probably asked when you were anxious about a work project or stressed about making an impending mortgage payment. Stress, however, isn't traditionally associated with altruism. When self-discipline wanes, such as when you are hurried, hungry or distracted, you are less likely to be helpful to strangers(if you're late for an appointment, you're probably not stopping to help the person who just dropped the contents of his briefcase). That makes intuitive sense: helping someone you are unlikely to ever see again when you feel least in control of your own life isn't likely to be productive. Yet such selfishness seems at odds with the need for cooperation in a social species that relies on support from others for survival. So researchers have suspected that this pattern may only hold true for strangers—and that stress and periods when you feel your life is out of your control might actually increase sacrifice toward loved ones since collaboration with those upon whom you regularly rely is essential for survival. "In communal(公共的)relationships, the habitual behavior is to take care of each other's needs, " says Francesca Righetti, assistant professor of psychology at VU University in Amsterdam. The study, which was published in Psychological Science, involved several experiments in which some participants were intentionally distracted by subtitles(字幕)on a silent video, while others were not. The volunteers were then asked about sacrifices they would make for either a long-term significant other, or a best friend. Those who had to cope with the distraction—a task known to reduce self-control—were more likely to say they would sacrifice for their friends or partners by going out with people they did not like(but whom their partners or friends liked)or by performing an embarrassing task for their loved one. Righetti says that couples often face situations where their interests diverge and one must give up something for the other—like choosing whether to see one partner's friends or deciding on a beach or mountain vacation. "In these situations people need to choose between pursuing their own wishes and sacrificing to promote the well-being of their partner or relationship, " she says. "We found that when people are in a loving relationship, their impulsive response to these types of circumstances is to be nice and benefit their partner even if this is costly for them. " The results confirm what most young children know intuitively—that if you want something from mom or dad, you should hit them when they're distracted by something else. They also resolve what seemed to be a paradox: that good self control is associated with happiness and success, but could be poison for relationships by leading to selfish behavior. It seems there's a balance between what we're ready to give and what we take from our different interactions with people. Self-centeredness, these findings suggest, may apply primarily to strangers. When it comes to people we love, we're willing to suffer.

Topics for composition should be ______ to the experiences and interests of students.

Maybe you could ______ yourself as a waiter and sneak in there.

Read carefully the following excerpt on Internet connections arguments in the US, and then write your response in NO LESS THAN 200 words, in which you should: Summarize the main message of the excerpt, and then comment on whether Internet is a good thing or an evil thing for students. You should support yourself with information from the excerpt. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. The Hunt for Internet Connections Might Be Over Soon So far, two buses in the Coachella Valley Unified School District have Wi-Fi technology. The district is still working on how to best use the technology on buses. The hunt for after-school Internet connections needed to do homework might soon be over for some of the nation's poorest students. The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to include broadband connections in a $1.8 billion federal program that subsidizes telephone services for low-income people. This program isn't reserved for families with school-aged children, but supporters say the change will inevitably help the neediest students get online at home. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the measure to increase Internet access will help solve "the cruelest part of the digital divide." "School-aged kids without broadband access at home are not only unable to complete their homework—they enter the job market with a serious handicap," she said. "And that loss is more than individual. It's a loss to the collective human capital and shared economic future that we need to address." Meanwhile, some Internet safety experts warned that we should be cautious about kids' privacy protection. Criminologist Professor David Wilson from Birmingham City University said, "Children's privacy can be greatly harmed by the Internet. Some websites store information. Some ask them to fill in information which can be sold to other sites for commercial purposes."

______ from the top of the hill, the city takes the round shape with a flowing river through it.

Had Paul received four more votes in the last election, he ______ our chairman now.

Which of the following underlined words does NOT indicate willingness?

The President explained that the purpose of taxation was to______government spending.

"The man preparing the documents is the firm's lawyer" has all the following possible meanings EXCEPT______

{{B}}PART IV CLOZEDecide which of the words given in the box below would best complete the passage if inserted in the corresponding blanks. The words can be used ONCE ONLY.{{/B}}

Can you imagine that the apparently______ man do such nasty things?

There must be someone else who killed the fish. Lily is ______ girl to do such a thing.

We made him our monitor . The underlined part functions as a(n) _____ in the sentence.

What's the chance of______ a general election this year?[2005]

My sister said that her new boyfriend was the living end. The underlined part means ______.

England is justly proud of______ great poets, especially ______ in the 18th century.

These cameras do not take a ______ photograph but a series of images or scans indicating when each athlete crosses the finishing line.

Only by practising a few hours every day ______ be able to master the language.

PASSAGE THREE

Being ______ about food can not only make children suffer from malnutrition but also influence their growth of intelligence.