Unit 4 Sharing Language points课时作业

第一节 阅读理解

Alarming headlines suggest one in four teenage girls in the UK are self-haring, motivated by sex discrimination and pressure to look good in a selfie(自拍) society. These stories come from a report by UK charity The Children's Society, based on an ongoing survey of 11,000 children aged 14. Among the girls, 22 percent said they had self-harmed while boys 9 percent.

　　But while the team self-harm improves images of teenagers cutting themselves, that may, thankfully, be only the most extreme end of a broader ranger. In this survey, participants were merely asked if they had "hurt themselves on purpose in any way".

　　Some could have answered yes for things like punching(击拳) a wall in dissatisfaction or deliberately getting falling-down drunk. Others could have thought the question included mental hurt. Such self-destructive behavior would naturally be of concern to parents, but wouldn't be that unusual for teenagers. Max Davie, a health promotion officer, does believe that self-harm among teens is somewhat on the rise---but thinks the question in this survey was not specific enough to reveal its real universality.

　　The latest headlines join an ongoing account about a mental health crisis in today's youth. Some blame cutbacks in social services, while others point to loosening of sexual standards putting teens at risk. For those cautious of new technologies, it is social media or the latest popular computer games.

　　But such reports also deserve some skepticism. Claims of high rates of depression are usually based on surveys with very loose, non-medical criteria. Thankfully, clinical depression is still rare in this age group.

In fact, a different and regularly repeated survey has found no change in 11-to-15-year-olds' happiness with life as a whole between 1995 and 2016. Nor did their satisfaction with their appearance change, which makes it strange to blame the sefie culture for the apparent self-harm increase. This survey, called Understanding