Reading fiction is highly 【小题1】 (benefit), and there are scientific studies to back this up. A recent study 【小题2】 (publish) in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that people who grow up reading fiction have a richer and more complex worldview than those 【小题3】 don’t.

Reading fiction develops your 【小题4】 (imagine), which allows you to be more creative and helps you with your problem-solving skills. Moreover, the ability to imagine things influences everything a person does, 【小题5】 (think) about their profession and creates, regardless of their profession. All you need to do to work on this skill is to expose yourself 【小题6】 a great novel.

Reading fiction improves your mental health. Reading improves people’s mood 【小题7】 (great) and brings it to a pleasurable state. Moreover, research suggests that regular readers are relatively mentally healthy, 【小题8】 (show) lower stress levels and higher self-esteem than non-readers.

Reading fiction helps process your emotions. According to InDaily, when a person indirectly experiences 【小题9】 event associated with an emotion, for example, if they read about what happens to a character and how they feel about it, the same region of the brain is triggered (触发，激发) as if they’d experienced the event 【小题10】 (them).

—Have you been watching the Euro 2012 football tournament?

—Just a bit. Why, 【小题1】 you?

—Of course！I’ve really started to like football since I came to London. Just think, a year ago, I was still in Montreal and didn’t know anything about it.

—Well, I’m from New Jersey. Americans aren’t so into football. Actually, we call it soccer.【小题2】 Americans say “football”, what we mean is American rules football. I’ve 【小题3】 (be) here two years now, and I still get 【小题4】 (confuse) when people call soccer “football”.

—I know all about America. For you, “football” means the sport 【小题5】 those big guys wear helmets and violently run into each other.

—Yeah. Americans prefer 【小题6】 (watch) sports that are fast, like basketball. I think basketball players are the greatest athletes on earth. 【小题7】 they can do just amazes me. But when I watch a soccer match, I just get bored. There aren’t enough goals.

—Well, I see what you’re saying, 【小题8】 there’s so much 【小题9】 (much)to “soccer”, 【小题10】   you call it, than goals. There’re a lot of strategies involved. And in a tournament like the Euro 2012, it’s fascinating to see how the different countries have different styles of playing.

Can Indoor Plants Really Purify (净化) the Air?

Plants are very important to human life. Through photosynthesis (光合作用), they transform carbon dioxide into fresh oxygen. They 【小题1】 (believe) to remove toxins (毒素) from the air we breathe — but is this true?

One famous NASA experiment 【小题2】 (publish) in 1989 has found indoor plants can clean the air by removing pollutants 【小题3】 cause cancer. Later research has found soil micro-organisms in the potted plant also 【小题4】 (play) a part in cleaning indoor air.

Based on this research, some scientists say house plants are effective natural air purifiers, and the bigger and leafier the plant, the better. 【小题5】, however, say the evidence that plants can effectively accomplish this feat (功绩) is far from conclusive.

“There are no definitive studies to show that 【小题6】 (have) indoor plants can significantly increase the air quality in your home,” According to Luz Claudio, a professor of environmental medicine and public health. “There’s no question that plants are capable of removing volatile (易挥发的) chemical toxins from the air under laboratory conditions,” says Claudio. But in your home or office space, the idea that putting a few plants together 【小题7】 purify your air doesn’t have much hard science to support it.

Most research efforts so far, including the NASA study, placed indoor plants in small, sealed environments to assess how much air-purifying power they have. “But those studies aren’t really applicable to what happens in house, 【小题8】 in many cases, the air in your home completely turns over — that is, exchanges places with outdoor air — once every hour. In most instances, air exchange with the outside has a 【小题9】 (great) effect on indoor air quality than plants.” says Stanley Kays, a professor of horticulture (园艺学).

Disappointed as many people may be by what Kays said, the professor also believes 【小题10】 house plants are beneficial. Studies have shown plants can knock out stress and make people feel happier. More research shows spending time around nature has a positive effect on a person’s mood and energy levels.