studies have found that people do better on cognitive tasks when faced with red rather than blue or green; others show the opposite. The idea is that if you repeatedly have a particular experience surrounded by a certain colour, then you eventually begin to associate that color with the way you were feeling or behaving. A school career spent reading your teacher's red writing circling your mistakes forever makes you link red with danger. Blue meanwhile is more likely to be associated with calmer situations like marvelling at a big blue expanse of sky.

　　Of course there will always be exceptions --- the comment from the teacher saying "well done" is also written in red. It is true that people do make different associations with different colors, but whether this translates into behaving in a certain way or succeeding at a particular task is a different question.

　　In 2009 researchers tried to clarify the situation. They sat their participants at computer screens colored blue, red or "neutral" and tested them on various tasks. With a red screen people did better on tasks requiring attention to detail, but when the screen was blue they did better on creative tasks. In practice this might be tricky. In a classroom you might want to think creatively some of the time and pay attention to detail at others.

　　However, when another team tried to repeat the study with a larger group of people in 2014, the effect of color disappeared. The initial study consisted of just 69 people. In this new, bigger study, of 263 volunteers, background color made no difference.

　　So colors might well have an effect, but so far those effects have been difficult to demonstrate consistently and sometimes don't seem to exist at all.

58. What's the major function of the first paragraph?

A. To present a widely held view B. To raise a question of behavior change

C. To introduce the theme of the passage D. To summarize the whole passage

59. The author mentions the exception in Paragraph 3 in order to show _____.

A. there are exceptions to every rule B. people tend to associate colors with behaviors

C. colors don't necessarily mean particular behaviors

D. colors do matter to those who desire success

60. It can be concluded from the results of the studies in 2009 and 2014 that _____.

A. the research findings are practical in indoor decoration

B. solid evidence is inadequate to prove how colors affect us

C. a larger study may help confirm colors' effects on our behaviors

D. walls should be painted different colors depending on different tasks

四、任务型阅读

Regret is as common an emotion as love or fear, and it can be nearly as powerful. We feel it

when we either blame ourselves for things that turned out badly, or long to undo a choice we made

in the past. The effect regret has on our lives and how we deal with regret are equally important.

In some cases, regret can be disastrous. In 1995, a British man who regularly played one set

of lottery numbers forgot to renew his ticket during the week that his numbers came up. He was so

filled with regret and self-blame that he committed suicide. While this is an extreme consequence

of regret, it can have many other lesser effects on the mind and body that can still seriously affect

our lives.

According to recent research, women have more regrets about romantic relationships than

men do-not surprising, since women "value social relationships more than men". In collectivist

culture where many aspects of life are arranged, people feel less regret, since many choices were