外刊英语阅读汇编-2027届高三英语二轮阅读理解专项练习（八）

外刊英语阅读汇编

2026-2027 高三英语二轮阅读理解专项

篇目目录

Passage1 人与自我・心理学习：拖延的本质是情绪逃避

（素材：National Geographic）

Passage2 人与自我・青少年健康：晚睡损害青少年认知能力

（素材：NYT Upfront）

Passage3 人与自然・城市生态：城市野化绿化恢复生物多样性

（素材：Royal Society）

Passage4 人与社会・低碳文化：二手书籍循环的价值与校园实践

（素材：Ergodebooks）

一、阅读理解

Passage 1  Why People Procrastinate Is Not Laziness

Most students label themselves lazy when they put homework and important tasks off until the last minute. But new psychological studies prove procrastination has little to do with poor self-control. Instead, it is an emotional protection strategy of the human brain.

When facing boring, difficult or stressful tasks, our brain’s short-term comfort system takes control. It chooses fun short-term activities such as scrolling short videos to escape uncomfortable negative feelings brought by hard work. People delay assignments not because they cannot manage time well, but because they fear failure, anxiety or the pain of tough challenges.

A team of psychologists carried out a tracking experiment on high school students. Two groups were given the same complex writing task. Group One was told to accept their uneasy feelings before starting work; Group Two was asked to push themselves without allowing any negative mood. The first group finished their tasks much earlier and with higher

quality. Those who refused to face anxiety kept delaying for days.

Many people try to beat procrastination by making tight timetables, yet this method seldom works. Experts offer a simpler solution: stop blaming yourself for delays. Accept that stress is normal before hard work, and divide big tasks into tiny 10-minute parts. Small starting steps lower mental pressure and stop the brain’s escape reaction.

Procrastination is a natural brain response rather than a bad character flaw. Recognizing its emotional root helps students form steady study habits and reduce unnecessary delay in daily schoolwork.

Questions

1.What is the real cause of procrastination according to the study?

A. Lack of time management skills

B. Brain’s escape from uncomfortable emotions

C. Students’ natural laziness and low self-control

D. Too many short-video distractions in daily life

2.What difference appeared between the two student groups in the experiment?

A. Group Two finished tasks much faster

B. Group One felt greater anxiety all the time

C. Group One completed work earlier and better

D. Group Two refused to take part in the task

3.Why do strict timetables fail to stop procrastination?

A. They only solve time problems instead of emotional pressure

B. They take too much time to make every day

C. They require students to finish all tasks at once

D. They ignore the importance of short entertainment

4.What suggestion do psychologists give to deal with delay?

A. Make extremely tight daily schedules

B. Blame oneself heavily after putting tasks off

C. Split hard work into short small parts

D. Avoid any negative feelings completely

5.What is the main idea of the passage?

A. Effective ways to make perfect study timetables

B. Procrastination comes from emotional escape, not laziness

C. How short videos affect teenagers’ learning efficiency

D. Experiments on students’ self-control ability

 

Passage 2  Late Sleep Harms Teenagers’ Brain Performance

Most teenagers stay up late for homework or social media, thinking they can recover lost sleep on weekends. Research from Cambridge and Fudan University points out that small daily sleep loss slowly weakens students’ reading, logic and memory ability.

The research tracked over 3,000 teens aged 13 to 18. Volunteers wore sleep trackers to record their rest length and bedtime. Three sleep groups were divided by their daily rest hours. Students sleeping less than 7 hours each night scored much lower in vocabulary, reading and problem-solving tests than those going to bed slightly earlier. Brain scans showed late sleepers had weaker neural connections related to memory storage.

Teenagers’ bodies produce melatonin（睡眠激素）two hours later than adults during puberty. Their natural biological clock pushes them to fall asleep after 11 p.m. If schools start classes too early, young people cannot get the 8 to 10 hours of sleep experts suggest. Screen light before bed further stops melatonin production and delays sleep time.

Many students believe weekend sleep can make up for weekday tiredness, but scientists say this cannot fix long-term brain damage caused by daily sleep shortage. Practical advice includes putting phones outside bedrooms at night and taking 20-minute exercise every afternoon to