In our contemporary culture, the prospect of communicating with—or even looking at—a stranger is virtually unbearable. Everyone around us seems to agree by the way they cling to their phones, even without a (1)_____ on a subway.

    It’s a sad reality—our desire to avoid interacting with other human beings—because there’s (2)_____ to be gained from talking to the stranger standing by you. But you wouldn’t know it, (3)_____ into your phone. This universal protection sends the (4)_____ : “Please don’t approach me.”

    What is it that makes us feel we need to hide (5)_____ our screens?

    One answer is fear, according to Jon Wortmann, an executive mental coach. We fear rejection, or that our innocent social advances will be (6)_____ as “weird.” We fear we’ll be (7)_____. We fear we’ll be disruptive.

    Strangers are inherently (8)_____ to us, so we are more likely to feel (9)_____ when communicating with them compared with our friends and acquaintances. To avoid this uneasiness, we (10)_____ to our phones. “Phones become our security blanket,” Wortmann says. “They are our happy glasses that protect us from what we perceive is going to be more (11)_____.”

    But once we rip off the band-aid, tuck our smartphones in our pockets and look up, it doesn’t (12)_____ so bad. In one 2011 experiment, behavioral scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder asked commuters to do the unthinkable: Start a (13)_____. They had Chicago train commuters talk to their fellow (14)_____. “When Dr. Epley and Ms. Schroeder asked other people in the same train station to (15)_____ how they would feel after talking to a stranger, the commuters thought their (16)_____ would be more pleasant if they sat on their own,” The New York Times summarizes. Though the participants didn’t expect a positive experience, after they (17)_____ with the experiment, “not a single person reported having been embarrassed.”

    (18)_____ , these commutes were reportedly more enjoyable compared with those without communication, which makes absolute sense, (19)_____ human beings thrive off of social connections. It’s that (20)_____ : Talking to strangers can make you feel connected.

答案精析：形容词辨析题。最后一句话是对全文的总结，前文所表述的所有内容其实就是在说与陌生人交谈能让你感到彼此之间的联系。空格处的词应和冒号后的句子形成呼应。根据冒号后的内容和上下文可推测出此处应表示，其实道理很简单，就是要去和陌生人交谈。故本空应填入simple。

错项排除：A、D两项代入空格后和语义毫无关联，故排除。C项有一定的干扰性，但要注意是否要和陌生人进行交谈是人们主观上的一种选择，与是否合理并没有太大关联，故排除C。

长难句分析：In fact, these commutes were reportedly more enjoyable compared with those without communication, which makes absolute sense, since human beings thrive off of social connections.

本句的主干为…these commuters were…more enjoyable…，为主系表结构。句首的In fact作句子的状语，用于引出之后的结论。compared with…作比较状语，用于引出比较的对象。后面的which引导非限定性定语从句，修饰前面的主句，用于对主句进行补充说明。since引导原因状语从句，用于解释前面which引导的定语从句的原因。

句意为：事实上，报告显示与没有交流的通勤方式相比，和别人交谈的通勤方式更令人愉快，这是毋庸置疑的，因为人类正是在社会联系的基础上发展的。