Scientists who study happiness have evidence (证据) to show that being kind to others can result in happiness. Acts as simple as buying a cup of coffee for someone can lift a person’s mood, for example. Everyday life is full of chances for such actions, yet people do not always make the most of them.

In studies, behavioral scientist Nicholas Epley and I examined a possible explanation: people who do kind acts underestimate (低估) how much the ones receiving kindness value their behavior.

In the experiments (实验), about 1, 000 people were asked to do some actions to make someone else feel good. We asked both the person performing (执行) the kind act and the one receiving it to answer some questions. The performers were asked to report their own experience and to guess how the receivers might feel. We wanted to understand how valuable people considered these acts to be, so both the performer and receiver had to rate (评分) how “big” the act seemed. In all cases, we compared the performer’s expectations of the receiver’s mood with the receiver’s actual (实际的) experience.

For one, both performers and receivers experienced more positive (积极的) moods. For another, the receivers felt much better than the kind performers expected. The receivers also rated these acts as “bigger” than the people performing them did.

At first, we studied acts of the kindness done for familiar people, such as friends, classmates or family. But we found that performers underestimated their positive influences on strangers as well. In one experiment, performers in a public park gave away hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day to people that just happened to be nearby. Again, the kind act brought more happiness than the performers expected.

These findings suggest that what might seem small could matter a great deal to the person we do it for. Considering these warm actions can improve our own mood and brighten the day of another person, why not choose kindness when we can?

①In December 2021, people in Shenzhen found that water ran more slowly from their taps. The government said the city was facing its most serious water shortage (短缺) ever.

②Some other cities in the southern part of China, like Chengdu and Guangzhou, are also becoming “thirst”. The Paper reported. Compared (相比) with northern areas, southern areas have more rain and are close to more rivers and lakes. So why are they still short of water?

③ In big cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou, populations are growing fast. As a result, people and factories need more and more water. Each person in Shenzhen has less than 200 cubic meters (立米) of water each year. It’s 1/12 of the country’s average (平均水平). According to the United Nations, it is an “absolute water shortage” (极度缺水) when the number is below 500 cubic meters.

④Climate (气候) change is making the water problem worse. For example, most cities in Guangdong depend on the Dongjiang River as their main source (来源) of water. In 2021, the river s reported to be drying up. Because of climate change, there’s also less snow in the mountains of Tihet. The snow has long been the source of water for many areas in China. Those mountains might provide less water in the future.

⑤ There are other reasons for water shortages. For example, water pollution makes it harder to get clean drinking water. Factories and farms don’t use water in right ways. Some cities have enough rainfall, but don’t have big lakes or reservoirs (水库) to store water. The water just goes into the sea.

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The weather is closely related to our life. It is all around us all the time. 【小题1】 . We cannot control it, but it often controls how and where we live, what we do, what we wear and what we eat. Read this passage and learn something about the weather.

【小题2】 The weather is just the state of the atmosphere(大气)at any time, such as temperature, wind, rain, sun, etc.

【小题3】 As we know, not every place on the earth gets the same amount of sunlight. Some places get more sunlight. So it's warmer in those places. 【小题4】 Then those places have colder temperatures. These differences in temperature make the air and water move around the earth. The movement helps to take the heat energy from the sun across the earth.

【小题5】 Climate(气候)is a place's weather over a long time. The weather changes from day to day and even from hour to hour. It can be sunny in the morning, cold and wet in the afternoon. But the climate changes very slowly over lots of years.