How many of a random string of numbers—say 1593657292759381380473—do you think you will be able to immediately remember? Some scientists say that you should be able to remember about seven of them.【G1】__________________

For the random numbers, you could for example remember it as one, five, nine, three. In this case, each individual number counts as a unit.【G2】________________

So, when scientists say that you can keep a certain number of things in working memory, these individual things can be of varying size, complexity, and importance. Either way, working memory is small but really important.

What is working memory? Working memory is your brain’s dashboard. It’s the place you can temporarily put information while your brain decides whether or not it is worth the effort to put it some-where more permanent, like your long-term memory.

As it turns out, different senses have different dashboard capacity.【G3】__________________Because of this, it is important to look at different types of working memory separately.

To make matters even more complicated, each and every person has a different ability to keep things in working memory.【G4】_________________

But, why are some people able to keep more in their working memory than others? New research by a team of scientists at Simon Fraser University has shed light on why some people may be able to keep more things on their brain dashboards than others. The research team, led by psychology professor John McDonald and doctoral student John Gaspar, learned about differences in visual memory by recording people’s brain waves and tracking how they paid attention.

Attention and memory are inextricably linked. By paying attention to an object, you increase its representation in the brain and make it easier to remember. But making something easier to remember is only one aspect of attention. Paying attention also means ignoring all of the distracting information in our world.【G5】___________________According to John Gaspar, “This indicates that it might not be about how much relevant information you can remember but instead it might be about how good are you at ignoring irrelevant information.”

This fit well with the scientists’ previous research, which had already demonstrated that the human brain has distinct processes for locking attention onto relevant information and for suppressing irrelevant information.

[A] However, these differences are not just about how much information people cram into their heads at once, but they’re also about how much people can keep out,

[B] These individual differences in working memory capacity are important because they have been shown to strongly predict things like intelligence; more working memory capacity generally equals more intelligence.

[C] More precisely, since a paper from the 1950s, called “The magical number seven, plus or minus two”, some have suggested that the capacity of our working memory is typically somewhere between five and nine things—units or chunks of information.

[D] This means that how much you can remember seems to depend on whether, for example, someone says something to you or shows something to you.

[E] There are three separate stages of memory—sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory—and the stage model of memory is often used to explain the basic structure and function of memory.

[F] However, you will be able to remember more of the number if you parse it differently; fifteen, nine-ty-three, sixty-five, seventy-two. Both of these count as four units, the information is just combined differently.

[G] And this is where people differ significantly. In the study, people who had low working memory capacities were unable to suppress important, distracting information.

About half of all medical patients get a drug, in any given year, that could interact with their genes and cause serious side effects. Inexpensive gene tests, as yet only available in a few hospitals, could avoid these life-threatening problems.

Tailoring treatments to genetic makeup is part of the futuristic vision of personalized medicine, where all care is custom-fit to an individual’s DNA.【G1】____________Although total human genome sequencing costs $1,000, getting drug-gene results on a few hundred genes at St. Jude costs about half that much for each patient. “The era of precision medicine is upon us,” says Dan Roden, assistant vice chancellor for personalized medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “The low-hanging fruit here is pharmacogenomics.”

Unfortunately this fruit is being plucked by only a handful of hospitals.【G2】___________The sad result, advocates say, is that people are getting sick needlessly. Between 5 and 30 percent of the global population is estimated to have the same troublesome gene variant and it affects how well people respond to multiple medications, not just voriconazole. Roughly 50 percent of hospital patients get a drug in any one-year period that could cause serious side effects because of that person’s genetic makeup, according to analyses from St. Jude and Vanderbilt.

Doctors are not accustomed to making medication choices using genetics.【G3】_______________

If clinicians would consider genetics, here is what they could learn about prescribing the common painkiller codeine. Typically the body produces an enzyme called CYP2D6 that breaks down the drug in-to its active ingredient, morphine, which provides pain relief. Yet as many as 10 percent of patients have genetic variants that produce too little of the enzyme, so almost no codeine gets turned into morphine. These people get little or no help for their pain. About 2 percent of the population has the reverse problem.【G4】______________________

These types of drug-gene interactions explain some long-standing medical mysteries. As early as 510 B.C. Greek mathematician Pythagoras found that when some people ate a particular type of bean they would get hemolytic anemia, a potentially deadly condition in which red blood cells are destroyed and removed from the bloodstream.【G5】____________________That very same genetic variant—which can be spotted with to-day’s gene tests—also predisposes patients to hemolytic anemia if they take several drugs now on the market, including rasburicase, a medication often given to patients with leukemia

[A] Thousands of years later, researchers conclude that many such drug-gene interactions—both severe and subtle—could be avoided by taking different doses of the drugs or turning to substitutes.

[B] They have too many copies of the gene that produces the enzyme, leading to overproduction. For them, a little codeine can quickly turn into too much morphine, which can lead to a fatal overdose.

[C] Another big obstacle to wider use of the test is the lack of a prescribing road map. Many doctors were educated in an era before such testing was available so they do not even think to order them.

[D] Remarkably, part of that vision—genetic drug matching, called pharmacogenomics—is already turned into reality in St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The hospital tests patients for some genes that affect which drugs—and what doses—would work best in their body.

[E] Lack of insurance coverage for the tests, along with confusion among doctors about what to do with the genetic data, is preventing the exams from being widely used.

[F] Now researchers discovered why that reaction occurred: these people inherit genetic variants that lead to a deficiency in the production of an enzyme called glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), which normally prevents red blood cell destruction.

[G] What they have done, for decades, is to look at easily observed factors such as a patient’s age and weight and kidney or liver functions. They also considered what other medications a patient is taking and any personal preferences.

What are you doing when you aren’t doing anything at all? If you said “nothing”, then you have just passed a test in logic and failed in neuroscience. Researchers have recently discovered that while some areas of our brains light up when we perform mental tasks, other areas go dark. This dark network is off when we seem to be on, and on when we seem to be off. If you climbed into a MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine and lay there quietly, waiting for instructions from a technician, the dark network would be as active as a beehive. But the moment your instructions arrived and your task began, the bees would freeze and the network would fall silent.【G1】___________

The human body moves forward in time at the rate of one second per second whether we like it or not. But the human mind can move through time in any direction and at any speed it chooses. Our ability to imagine the pleasures of Super Bowl Sunday or remember the excesses of Christmas Eve is a fairly recent evolutionary development. We are a race of time travelers, capable of visiting the future or revisiting the past whenever we wish. If our neural time machines are damaged by illness, age or accident, we may become trapped in the present.【G2】____________________

Why did evolution design our brains to go wandering in time? Perhaps it’s because an experience is a terrible thing to waste. Moving around in the world exposes organisms to danger, so as a rule they should have as few experiences as possible and learn as much from each as they can.【G3】_________________When we are busy having experiences—herding children, signing checks, battling traffic—the dark network is silent, but as soon as those experiences are over, the network is awakened, and we begin moving across the landscape of our history to see what we can learn—for free.

【G4】_____________________Just as pilots practice flying in flight simulators, the rest of us practice living in life simulators, and our ability to simulate future courses of action and preview their consequences enables us to learn from mistakes without making them.

Perhaps the most startling fact about the dark network isn’t what it does but how often it does it. Neuroscientists refer to it as the brain’s default mode, which is to say that we spend more of our time away from the present than in it.【G5】_______________________________We stay just long enough to take a message and then we slip off again to the land of other time, our dark networks come into active.

[A] Time travel allows us to pay for an experience once and then have it again and again at no additional charge, learning new lessons with each repetition.

[B] For decades, scientists have believed that the brain possesses an internal clock that allows it to keep track of time. Now a new study proposes a new model in which a series of physical changes to the brain’s cells helps the organ to monitor the passage of time.

[C] Traveling backward buys us many trials for the price of one, but traveling forward allows us to dispense with trials entirely.

[D] When we appear to be doing nothing, we are clearly doing something. But what? The answer, it seems, is time travel.

[E] People typically overestimate how often they are in the moment because they rarely take notice when they take leave. It is only when the environment demands our attention—a dog barks, a child cries, a telephone rings—that our mental time machines switch themselves off and deposit us with a bump in the here and now.

[F] For example, damage to a specific region within the brain can produce a memory deficit in which the patient loses knowledge about “living things” (e.g. dogs, lions, birds) but maintains knowledge about other categories (e.g. inanimate objects such as furniture and utensils).

[G] Alzheimer’s disease, for instance, specifically attacks the dark network, stranding many of its victims in an endless now, unable to remember their yesterdays or envision their tomorrows.

[A] Make arrangement before you pursue

[B] Watch your body language at a job interview

[C] Put your interviewer at ease

[D] Don’t be careless—watch the small stuff

[E] Prove you are the one the employers are looking for

[F] Do volunteer job to keep practicing your skill

[G] Never leave a gap between jobs in your resume

While searching for jobs, one of the best things you can do is to examine your job search with a critical eye: Is your resume really a good advertisement for your skills? Does your nail-biting habit turn off prospective employers? Do you tend to make your interviewers a little nervous? Some of the most important elements of a successful job search are details. Here are some tips to follow and details to consider.

【G1】_______________________________________________

Developing and following a plan at the beginning of a job search has a significant impact on its success. Setting “process goals” to keep you on track toward your larger career goals. Process goals aren’t big-picture objectives. They’re “roll up your sleeves and make it happen” objectives. Maybe you set a goal of making 10 phone calls a day or writing for two hours each day.

【G2】_________________________________________________

Many job seekers may have gaping holes in their resumes through no fault of their own—they wanted work but just couldn’t find it. One possible solution: volunteering part time. Volunteering tells potential employers that you are an energetic, compassionate person who, even when faced with problems of your own, never missed any opportunities. Volunteering also says that you didn’t let your skills go to waste.

【G3】_______________________________________________

Employers are looking for the candidate with the best knowledge and experience, but rarely do they hire for work skills at the expense of social skills. If you lack self-awareness, it shows. And it doesn’t look good. Even in the critical small talk before the interview, make eye contact when you’re speaking, smile when it’s appropriate, and look alert. Most of all, don’t kick the desk, check your cell phone, play with your pen, stare off into space, or bite your nails.

【G4】_______________________________________________

Most job seekers are prepared to follow the tone set by their interviewer. But that may not be your best plan. In fact, a great many interviewers hate interviewing. They know they’re not good at it, and they are dealing with strangers and asking questions to fill a job with which they are unfamiliar. A job seeker can gain an edge by staying friendly, listening carefully, using body language to indicate amiability, and stressing that he or she gets along with colleagues.

【G5】_________________________________________

The small stuff is not always a deal-breaker in other areas of life, but it often is when it comes to hiring. When you’re on a job search, a small blunder can take on far greater importance than it would in most contexts. Here’s what can happen in a hiring manager’s head when a job candidate makes a noticeable mistake: “She told me she would send me this writing sample Monday, but then she sent it on Tuesday without acknowledging the delay. This might be out of character for her, everyone screws up occasionally. But if I ignore this possible red flag and hire her, and then she turns out to be scattered and bad with deadlines, I’m going to be kicking myself for not having paid attention to this sign now.”

[A] For crowdfunding to work, the project needs to capture the public imagination. And not all academics are comfortable with self-promotion. But with academics under increasing pressure to show how they are engaging the public with their work, crowdfunding certainly ticks the right boxes. Petts worked with the crowdfunding platform Dig Ventures, which refers to its work as “citizen science”. He was joined by some of his backers on the Lindisfarne dig and shared finds online, in real time. “You couldn’t get a better example of public engagement,” he says.

[B] But it’s early days and difficult to predict the scale and impact of crowdfunding campaigns for academic research, says Cox. In most cases, the amounts involved are minuscule compared with what the big research councils are offering and involve mainstream crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo rather than specialists such as CrowdScience and DigVentures, which take a cut of the money raised. And there is certainly some way to go before crowdfunding can begin to replace the S5bn the UK government has set aside in the budget for this year.

[C] When Professor Dave Goulson decided to study the impact of pesticides on bees, he didn’t rate his chances of getting funding from one of the big research councils. Instead he turned to the public, raising almost ￡8,000 through crowdfunding. Archaeologist Dr David Petts, from Durham University, has also used crowdfunding, raising almost &25,000 to fund a project on Lindisfarne, off the Northumberland coast.

[D] But while such projects capture the public imagination, are they as credible as other academic studies? As Sarah Main, director of the UK’s Campaign for Science and Engineering says, putting together a proposal to attract the public may not be as “scientifically robust” as an application to a panel of experts. Not necessarily, says Joe Cox, senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth’s business school, who has researched the motivations behind crowdfunding. He points to a study by the US academic Ethan Mollick of decisions by a panel of judges from research councils, versus the public, and found “a remarkable degree of similarity” in their decision-making.

[E] Squeezed research budgets led both researchers to crowdfunding, which uses the internet to find individuals and organisations to pledge money for specific projects. “It’s increasingly hard to get money from traditional funding bodies, particularly the smaller pots of money,” says Petts. And research councils are increasingly risk-averse, he adds. “They’re not comfortable with funding where it’s not clear whether you’ll get a result.”

[F] As it stands, crowdfunding may be best used to test early-stage research. “If you’re successful in raising money via this mechanism and you’ve got a ready-made group of people who are interested in funding your work,” says Cox. “That’s a fantastic starting point.” But after Brexit, if academics lose European research funding, crowdfunding could come into its own.

[G] While crowdfunding may be quick “it isn’t money for nothing”, as Petts points out. Most academics need to offer incentives to backers and also have to push their project hard on social media. And while “writing half a page of text, making a video and doing some tweeting” is more fun than submitting a formal research bid, it is still time-consuming, says Goulson. While his efforts on social media attracted support from big environmental organisations, he spent as much time on his crowdfunding project as he would have on a formal research bid.

【G1】→【G2】→G→【G3】→D→【G4】→【G5】

[A] Airbnb is fighting the ruling with a lawsuit. Its main argument in defending its position as complementary rather than in opposition to hotels is that its average host provides this service in the home they live in, and only when they are away. In London, for example, Airbnb has described its average host as someone who opens up their home for about 50 nights and earns ￡3,500 per year by doing so. In addition, almost three quarters of the listings are outside the main tourist areas and in places where there aren’t enough hotels.

[B] On the other hand, when they asked people who had heard of but not yet used sharing websites such as Airbnb, the one thing these people said they needed to start sharing was training. With this as the primary reason for not sharing, Airbnb’s complementary approach—providing hosts with information and helping them with a variety of issues—from fire safety or taxation, to how to provide a better service to guests, has helped the company do well in many cities, making the controversies in New York, Barcelona and Berlin rare events.

[C] As is shown in another research project on how start-ups can enter highly regulated markets, Airbnb’s collaborative approach to city officials and local communities—communicating with the local authorities and providing them with useful information about, for example, the growth of tourism—is the only sensible route for a company that is dependent on local regulation. But it will always be weighed against the voice and collective power of the incumbents whose revenues they threaten—as is the case in New York.

[D] Thus, these individuals are not multiple homeowners trying to evade taxes. A local law change enacted last year means that Londoners do not have to file taxes for renting their rooms or homes for up to 90 days, earning up to ￡7,500 annually.

[E] In a recent survey developed jointly between Warwick University and Imperial College in the U.K, the authors looked at individuals’ attitudes toward the sharing economy, using a large sample that is representative of the British population. Their results confirm that the majority of sharing economy users and providers in the U.K. have an average income below ￡40,000 and use or offer these ser-vices once every few months.

[F] Airbnb is in the middle of a legal battle with the state of New York to combat a new law against short-term rentals. It follows a bill, recently signed by New York governor Andrew Cuomo, that will fine tenants or landlords for renting out their apartments for less than 30 days. The aim is to pre-vent people from converting their apartments into hotels without paying tax, by which they offend the vested interest of hoteliers.

[G] Airbnb’s experience in New York also highlights that the degree of friction it faces also depends on the extent to which hotels launch an offensive against these new services. In New York, for in-stance, the Hotel Association of New York City announced in the last year that Airbnb caused a U.S. $2 billion loss to their business, urging its members to engage in collective action against the company. This has resulted in tremendous pressure on city officials to ban the service.

【G1】→【G2】→E→【G3】→【G4】→G→【G5】