Банк заданий ЕГЭ по английскому языку - страница 229
Вопросы
Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12-18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.
Forming a habit
Waking up at the crack of dawn and going for a run might feel intimidating when you start trying to make it a habit. Weaving a significant new activity such as this into your regular routine obviously takes determination and time – but how much time is really needed to make that habit stick?
One popular idea suggests that it takes 21 days to solidify a habit. A three-week time frame might sound easily reachable to someone making a resolution on New Year’s Day. Then people tend to feel extra motivated to start a new habit or kick an old one. Yet every January 21 very few people can boast that they have kept their resolutions. One survey showed that only 9 percent stuck to their goals in 2023.
Recent research has shown that this idea is actually a myth. A hallmark 2009 study on habit creation found that habits developed in a range of 18 to 254 days; participants reported taking an average of about 66 days to reliably incorporate one of three new daily activities – eating a piece of fruit with lunch, drinking a bottle of water, or running for 15 minutes before dinner. Consistent daily repetition was the biggest factor influencing whether it would become part of an automatic daily routine.
The type of activity is also a factor. Teaching yourself a completely new skill or process obviously takes longer than remembering to drink more water in the morning. A 2015 study found that new gym-goers had to exercise at least four times a week for six weeks in order to develop an exercise habit. And last year, machine-learning models analysed vast amounts of data on repeated observations of a behaviour and evaluated different variables that may influence a person’s decision to continue that behaviour. The results showed that creating a handwashing habit took a few weeks, compared with the half year it took for people to develop an exercise habit. Handwashing, the study noted, is less complex than exercising and offers more opportunities to practise. The researchers also suggested that habit formation depends on the effort that a person puts into practising an activity, and on the presence of environmental cues that would remind them to carry out the behaviour.
When it comes to keeping a resolution, it can be hard to stay motivated once the initial excitement of a “new year, new me” subsides. This can easily lead to lapsing or even dropping the activity completely after a couple of weeks. Creating a specific plan to perform an activity (for example, “study Spanish grammar for 20 minutes, three times a week”) and having some type of accountability (an app tracker or a like-minded friend) can help monitor progress and push you to keep going. Additionally, people are more inclined to keep a resolution that they are interested in doing, rather than one that they simply believe they should do.
Rewards are great motivators, but people often make the mistake of delaying gratification. For example, they treat themselves to a shopping trip on Saturday after going to the gym all week. A reward is far more effective if received during the task. For instance, a person with an exercise goal could watch a newly released movie while running on the treadmill instead of waiting until the end of the week. Researchers in 2014 had people listen to popular audiobooks that could only be accessed at the gym during the experiment and they found that the participants initially went 51 percent more frequently than the control group.
So don’t kick yourself if you didn’t reach your goal by the 21st of this month, or even by the end of February. As long as you keep at an activity, you will get better at it – no matter how long it takes.
The author provides the New Year’s resolutions example to prove that …
The pronoun it in paragraph 3 (whether it would become part of an automatic daily routine) refers to a(n) …
The word subside in paragraph 5 (once the initial excitement of a “new year, new me” subsides) most probably means…
Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 12-18. В каждом задании запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.
Video games as social spaces
I imagine most parents of gamers have hollered to their children to stop playing games and be with people. Their children seem totally secluded, sitting all alone, and staring blankly at a screen for hours at a time. Children need to talk to each other, to have conversations, to get out into the world. That’s how we make friends, parents assert. I often hear parents say that video games don’t count as healthy communication; their kids aren’t talking about anything real when they play, they’re just talking about the game or yelling at one another.
Two researchers studied exactly this in 2006. They looked at over 5,800 messages sent while playing an online multiplayer game and examined whether these messages were socio-emotional or task-oriented. Socio-emotional messages are ones which help players connect with one another, such as “Thanks for the help,” and “Wow, that was funny.” Task-oriented messages are focused on the game itself, such as “How do you open this door?”
They found that there were more than 3.2 times as many socio-emotional messages as task-oriented ones. Additionally, these emotion-based messages were over 2.6 times more likely to be positive than negative. That means that, contrary to parents’ fears, the vast majority of the messages people sent while playing were used to interact with others in a positive way. Although the method of communication is different, the messages sent and connections built are the same.
Even if players were to only spend time talking about the game itself, games would still be a great way to bond with other people. Lots of families have weekly “game nights” in which they play board games to spend time with one another. I spent a few hours playing card games with my family last week and, even though most of the conversation was centered on the games themselves, it was undeniably a bonding experience.
Many teens go to each other’s homes to play video games in the same room. Shared experiences like these are so good at helping people connect that some therapists even use tabletop games as group therapy. In fact, research has shown that many people who meet while playing games online do end up spending time with those people.
There is also evidence to suggest that video games can be safe places to experiment with social interactions for vulnerable people, such as the ones with autism spectrum disorders or those with social anxiety. Video games and other online spaces are “safe” for these individuals because they allow people to communicate when they want to, with little or no pressure to respond and without requiring them to be in the same physical space with others.
Successful conversations require a wide variety of skills that many take for granted, such as reading body language, understanding tone of voice, maintaining eye contact, and rapidly responding to information. Online video games can allow players to talk to others and make friends at their current ability level, even when they are not emotionally or physically able to leave their homes. This can help build the skills and confidence necessary to try it in person.
Children and teens are spending more and more time playing video games online with their friends. For most, this is a positive experience, allowing them to communicate with others even when they are unable to physically be with them. This unconventional method of communication is helpful in fostering connections while building the skills and confidence necessary to interact face-to-face. Video games are a large part of the lives of young people and should be recognized as a source of social support.
The word secluded in paragraph 1 (Their children seem totally secluded) most probably means …
