11.Want to add some hours to your day?Ok,you probably can't change the fabric of time.But a new study suggests that the way you feel about your goal can change your concept of time and that some simple strategies could make you feel less rushed.
In a series of experiments,Jordan Etkin,a professor of marketing at Duke,and her co-authors,Loannis Evangelidis and Jennifer Aaker,looked at what happens when people see their goals as conflicting with one another.In one,they asked some participants to list two of their goals that they felt were in conflict,and others simply to list two of their goals.Those who were forced to think about conflicting aims felt more time pressure than those who weren't.In another experiment,the researchers gave participants a similar prompt regarding goal conflict,but this time measured their anxiety levels as well as their attitudes toward time.They found that participants who thought about conflicting goals had more anxiety than those who didn't,and that this,in turn,led to feelings of being short on time.
"Stress and anxiety and time pressure are closely linked concepts,"D.Etkin explained."When we feel more stress and anxiety in relation to our personal goals,that manifests as a sense of having less time."
Technological advances that allow people to do lots of things at once may increase the feeling of goal conflict,she said.
"I think the easier it is for us to try to deal with a lot of these things at the same time,"
She said"the more opportunity there is for us to feel this conflict between our goals."
She isn't the first to suggest that actual busyness isn't the only thing that can make us Feel busy At the Atlantic,Derek Thompson wrote that"as a country,we're working less than we did in the 1960s and 1980s."He offered a number of possible reasons some Americans still feel so overworked,including"the fluidness ffl±) of work and leisure."As he put it:
"The idea that work begins and ends at the office is wrong.On the one hand,flexibility is nice,On the other,mixing work and leisure together creates an always-on expectation that makes it hard for white-collar workers to escape the shadow of work responsibilities."
And Brigid Schulte writes in her 2014 book Overwhelmed:How to Work,Love,and Play When No One Has the Time that some researchers believe"time has no sharp edges.What often matters more than the activity we're doing at a moment in time,they have found,is how we feel about it.Our concept of time is indeed,our reality."
Fortunately,Dr.Etkin and her team did find ways of making us feel better about time-or,at least,of reducing the negative influence of goal conflict.When participants performed a breathing exercise that reduced their anxiety,the impact of such conflict o n their perception of time was less pronounced.Reframing anxiety as excitement (by reading the phrase"I am excited!"aloud several times) had a similar effect.
Breathing and reframing may not solve everyone's time problems-Ms.Schulte writes that some Americans are indeed working more than they used to.She cites the work of the sociologists Michael Hout and C aroline Hanley,who have"found that working parents combined put in 13 more hours a week on the job in 2000 than they did in 1970.That's 676 hours of additionally paid work a year for a family.And that's on top of all the unpaid hours spent caring for children and keeping the house together."Sometimes,we may feel short on time because we actually are.However,Dr.Etkin believes her findings suggest we may"have the ability to influence our experience of time more than we think we do."
"We're all going to have times in our lives when our goals seem to be in more conflict than others,"she said.But with techniques like the ones her team tested,"we really can help ourselves feel like we have more time."
58.What makes people feel rushed today?A
A.Goal conflict.B.High pressure.C.Too much expectation.D.Lack of exercise.
59.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?D
A.Most people are having less work to do nowadays.
B.People under a lot of stress have a better sense of time.
C.Technological advances allow people to feel less stressed.
D.The flexibility of work increases white-collar workers'pressure.
60.The underlined sentence"Our concept of time is,indeed,our reality."meansC
A.we should make full use of time
B.we value time more than the way we live
C.we can feel better about time if we want to
D.we don't have the time to enjoy life in reality.
分析 本文属于人生感悟类阅读,作者通过这篇文章向我们讲述路不同的人对时间的不同理解,一项新的研究表明你对你的目标的感觉可以改变你的时间概念,我们需要正确面对时间.
解答 58.A 细节理解题,根据第二段They found that participants who thought about conflicting goals had more anxiety than those who didn't,and that this,in turn,led to feelings of being short on time.可知目标冲突会给人们造成更多的焦虑,进而导致人们感到自己很忙,故选A.
59.D 细节理解题,根据第七段On the one hand,flexibility is nice,On the other,mixing work and leisure together creates an always-on expectation that makes it hard for white-collar workers to escape the shadow of work responsibilities."可知工作的灵活性增加了白领工人的压力,会使他们感到有无处可逃的压力,故选D.
60.C 推理判断题,根据第八段 that some researchers believe"time has no sharp edges.What often matters more than the activity we're doing at a moment in time,they have found,is how we feel about it.Our concept of time is indeed,our reality."可知研究人员认为时间是没有界限的在没有感觉到时间的情况下,人们依然可以去工作,去爱,所以时间的真正意义在于人们如何感受,故选C.
点评 考查学生的细节理解和推理判断能力.做细节理解题时一定要找到文章中的原句,和题干进行比较,再做出正确选择.在做推理判断题时不要以个人的主观想象代替文章的事实,要根据文章事实进行合乎逻辑的推理判断.