In the New York Times article Do You Find It Easier to Make New Friends Online or In Person seven sentences have been removed. Choose the sentence A-I which best fits the corresponding gap 1-7. There is one sentence you do not need to use. 0 is an example.
According to the Pew Research Center, 57 percent of American teenagers age 13 to 17 say they have made a friend online — say (0) while browsing social networks like Instagram or playing a game like Call of Duty. Have you made good friends online? Meanwhile, in a recent Education Life piece, one researcher suggests that young people have unique chances to make new friends at times (1) … when many people are entering a new environment.
How do you tend to make friends, whether in “real life” or online? In “Making Friends in New Places,” Nicholas A. Christakis writes:
Freshman year is critical, (2) … . American students have the luxury of a long horizon to settle on good classes, select a major and chart a career; there’s plenty of time to make academic mistakes and recover from them. But it’s important to set off on the right foot in one respect: making friends.
At the start of freshman year, (3) …, when customary rules about social interactions are suspended, and when it seems perfectly normal for someone to sit down next to you at lunch or in class and strike up a conversation.
Social inhibitions tend to dissolve (4) … . Think of adults on a cruise, teenagers at a summer camp, or Chaucer’s garrulous pilgrims, chatting and revealing volumes about themselves. The bond is all the more guaranteed when facing a shared hardship — say, the boredom of freshman orientation sessions or the stress of placement exams.
But after that critical window, (5) … . In my experience, which includes serving as master of a residential college at both Yale and Harvard, this tends to occur about three weeks in. Attitudes begin to solidify. Friendships become fixed. And behaviors that initially seemed open and generous might come to feel forced, or even a little creepy.
It turns out that we are hard-wired to seek and make friends in novel, stressful circumstances. Students naturally assemble themselves into elaborate social networks — and not just Snapchat, Tumblr, Facebook or Twitter: (6) … .
In fact, studies that my colleagues and I have conducted of face-to-face social networks of college students and of the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania (7) … . Whether in a college dormitory or on the African savanna, living as they might have 10,000 years ago, people form the same sort of network — one or two best friends, in a group of five to six close friends, within a still broader group of 150 people.
And the intricate structure of these friendship webs is similar too. The networks we form obey certain mathematical and sociological rules, and they have profound influence on our lives.
A a curtain begins to fall on the welcoming social scene
B but not for the reasons most students (and their parents) imagine
C like the start of a new school year
D our modern technology is merely put into the service of more ancient and powerful impulses
E reveal that, in fundamental ways, they are not very different
F there’s a window of opportunity
G when a group of strangers enters a new environment
H whether you like it or not, it’s bound to happen
I
Photo: The New York Times
KEY:
1C 2B 3F 4G 5A 6D 7E
