life, social skills and networking are easily as powerful as talent and hard work.

　　"If a person has lots of friends, it means that he or she has the ability to get along with others in all kinds of different situations," said Xu Yanchun, 17, from Nantou High School in Shenzhen, who totally agreed with the recent finding. "Also, friends always help each other. They not only create wider social circles for you but lift your mood when you feel bad," said Xu. She believed that all this helps you "earn a higher salary".

　　Maybe that's why some people think the younger generations are in the age of Friendalholism (交友狂症). A woman even complained that the networking website Facebook's 5,000-friend limit was too low for her large number of social contacts.

　　But what does a friend mean? Should friends be regarded as a form of currency（货币）?

　　"Call me uncoil, but I think of a friend as an actual person with whom I have an actual history and whom I enjoy actually seeing. It seems, however, that this is no longer the definition (定义) of 'friend'." said Meghan Daum, who works with The Los Angeles Times in the US.

　　Daum dislikes the idea that quantity trumps quality in the age of friendaholism. She thought the idea of friendship, at least among the growing population of Internet social networkers, was to get as many of not-really-friends as possible. For example, a friend might be someone you might know personally but who could just as easily be the friend of a friend of some other Facebook friend you don't actually know. Although she agreed that social ties grease (润滑) the wheels of life, she also warned, "Too bad one thing money can't buy is a real friend."

8. What will be needed if you are to achieve success according to the researchers?

A. Social skills, friends, good mood and fortune.

B. Social skills, talent, hard work and facebook.

C. Social skills, networking, potential and fortune.

D. Social skills, networking, talent and hard work.

9. What can friends do in the eyes of Xu Yanchun?

A. They can help you with your schoolwork.

B. They teach you how to make more money.

C. They introduce their friends to you.

D. They help you to get rid of sadness and cheer up.

10. We learn that Meghan Daum's attitude towards friends is somewhat _____.

A. up-to-date B. traditional C. confused D. optimistic

11. What does the word "trumps" in the last paragraph mean?

A. is worse than B. is equal to C. is better than D. is similar to

　　If a woman has an extra piece of cake, don't blame it on greed, blame it on her brain.

Scientists have found that women's brains react to food very differently-and much more strongly-than men's. Academics found that decades of dieting pressure on women and advertising have programmed certain parts of the female brain to react strongly when faced with