over the past decade, many companies had perfected the art of creating automatic behaviors - habits - among consumers. These habits have helped companies earn billions of dollars when customers eat snacks, apply lotions and wipe counters almost without thinking, often in response to a carefully designed set of daily cues.
“There are fundamental public health problems, like hand washing with soap, that remain killers only because we can’t figure out how to change people’s habits,” Dr. Curtis said. “We wanted to learn from private industry how to create new behaviors that happen automatically.”
The companies that Dr. Curtis turned to - Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever - had invested hundreds of millions of dollars finding the subtle cues in consumers’ lives that corporations could use to introduce new routines.
If you look hard enough, you’ll find that many of the products we use every day - chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, antiperspirants, colognes, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins - are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of canny advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity-preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands.
A few decades ago, many people didn’t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs,and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals,slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.
“Our products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.”
Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in tying certain behaviors to habitual cues through relentless advertising. As this new science of habit has emerged, controversies have erupted when the tactics have been used to sell questionable beauty creams or unhealthy foods.
31.According to Dr.Curtis,habits like hand washing with soap________.
[A] should be further cultivated
[B] should be changed gradually
[C] are deepiy rooted in history
[D] are basically private concerns
32.Bottled water,chewing gun and skin moisturizers are mentioned in Paragraph 5 so as to____
[A] reveal their impact on people’habits
[B] show the urgent need of daily necessities
[C]indicate their effect on people’buying power
[D]manifest the significant role of good habits
33.which of the following does NOT belong to products that help create people’s habits?
[A]Tide
[B]Crest
[C]Colgate
[D]Unilver
34.From the text wekonw that some of consumer’s habits are developed due to _____
[A]perfected art of products
[B]automatic behavior creation
[C]commercial promotions
[D]scientific experiments
35.the author’sattitude toward the influence of advertisement on people’s habits is____
[A]indifferent
[B]negative
[C]positive
[D]biased
Text4
Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than representative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them.
But as recently as in 1986, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of strauder v. West Virginia,the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws.
The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898,it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty. Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personlly asked to have their names included on the jury list. This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home, and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s.
In 1968, the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act, ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury.This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community. In the landmark 1975 decision Taylor v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level. The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconstitutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors.
36.From the principles of theUS jury system,welearn that ______
[A]both litcrate and illiterate people can serve on juries
[B]defendants are immune from trial by their peers
[C]no age limit should be imposed for jury service
[D]judgment should consider the opinion of the public
37.The practice of selecting so-called elite jurors prior to 1968 showed_____
[A]the inadcquavy of antidiscrimination laws
[B]the prevalent discrimination against certain races
[C]the conflicting ideals in jury selection procedures
38.Even in the 1960s,women were seldom on the jury list in some states because_____
[A]they were automatically banned by state laws
[B]they fell far short of the required qualifications
[C]they were supposed to perform domestic duties
[D]they tended to evade public engagement
39.After the Jury Selection and Service Act was passed.___
[A]sex discrimination in jury selection was unconstitutional and had to be abolished
[B]educational requirements became less rigid in the selection of federal jurors
[C]jurors at the state level ought to be representative of the entire community
[D]states ought to conform to the federal court in reforming the jury system
40.in discussing the US jury system,the text centers on_______
[A]its nature and problems
[B]its characteristics and tradition
[C]its problems and their solutions
[D]its tradition and development
Part B
Directions
Read the following text and decide whether each of the statements is true or false. Choose T if the statement is true or F it the statement is not true. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET1.(10 points)
Copying Birds May Save Aircraft Fuel
Both Boeing and Airbus have trumpeted the efficiency of their newest aircraft. The 787 and 350 respectively . Their clever designs and lightweight composites certainly make a difference . But a group of researchers at Stanford University , led by Ilan Kroo , has suggested that airlines could take a more naturalistic approach to cutting jet-fuel use and it would not require them to buy new aircraft.
The answer, says Dr Kroo , lies with birds . Since 1914, scientists have known that birds flying in formation-a V-shape-expend less energy. The air flowing over a bird’s wings curls upwards behind the wingtips . a phenomenon known as upwash. Other birds flying in the upwash experience reduced drag, and spend less energy propelling themselves . Peter Lissaman, an aeronautics expert who was formerly at Caltech and the University of Southern California ,has suggested that a formation of 25 birds might enjoy a range increase of 71%.
When applied to aircraft, the principles are not substantially different . Dr Kroo and his team modeled what would happen if three passenger jets departing from Los Angeles, San Francisco and I as Vegas were to assemble over Utah, assume an inverted V-formation occasionally change places so all could have a turn in the most favourable positions , and proceed to London. They found that the aircraft consumed as much as 15% less fuel (coupled with a reduction in carbon-dioxide output). Nitrogen-oxide emissions during the cruising portions of the flight fell by around a quarter.
There are , of course , knots to be worked out . One consideration is safety , or at least the perception of it . Would passengers feel comfortable travelling in companion? Dr Kroo points out that the aircraft could be separated by several nautical miles , and would not be in the intimate groupings favoured by display teams like the Red Arrows , A passenger peering out of the window might not even see the other planes. Whether the separation distances involved would satisfy air-traffic-control regulations is another matter, although a working group at the International Civil Aviation Organisation has included the possibility of formation flying in a blueprint for new operational guidelines.
It remains to be seen how weather conditions affect the air flows that make formation flight more efficient. In zones of increased turbulence, the planes’ wakes will decay more quickly and the effect will diminish. Dr Kroo says this is one of the areas his team will investigate further. It might also be hard for airlines to co-ordinate the departure times and destinations of passenger aircraft in a way that would allow them to gain from formation flight. Cargo aircraft, in contrast, might be easier to reschedule, as might routine military flight.
As it happens, America’s armed forces are on the on case already. Earlier this year the country’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency announced plans to pay Boeing to investigate formation flight, though the programme has yet to begin . There are reports that some military aircraft flew in formation when they were low on fuel during the Second World War ,but Dr Lissaman says they are unsubstantiated. “My father was an RAF pilot and my cousin the skipper of a Lancaster lost over Berlin,”he adds. So he should know.
41. Findings of the Stanford University researchers will promote the sales of new Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
42. The upwash experience may save propelling energy as well as reducing resistance.
43. Formation flight is more comfortable because passengers can not see the other plans.
44. The role that weather plays in formation flight has not yet been clearly defined.
45. It has been documented that during World War Ⅱ, America’s armed forces once tried formation flight to save fuel.
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