Thinking about the future isn’t special skill. Actually, everyone does it all the time. We schedule future activities and appointments on our calendars. We make to-do lists, a promise to ourselves of how we will spend our future time and energy. We look up the weekend’s weather. We make predictions about the results of sporting events. We practice, study and train for upcoming events that matter to us. We daydream about events we’re eagerly looking forward to. We worry about others.

Most of this common future thinking is about the near future: the next few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or maybe even the next few years of our lives. Little time is spent thinking about what our lives will be like or what actions we should prepare to take in the far future: ten years, twenty years, or even fifty years from now. This kind of far-future thinking is the domain of professional futurists.

Futurists are trained to imagine distant realities that seem impossible to others: technologies that don’t exist yet, great changes to laws, strange diseases most likely to infect us in the year 2031. Why indeed think about such distant futures? Are there psychological and social benefits to imagining the world, and our lives, decades in advance? And if so, what does it take to become good at imagining the far future?

These were the fascinating questions that we recently explored with other futurists. I was personally inspired by the discussions, and learned a lot about how futurists imagine the future of life. They specifically wanted to use their imaginations to make the world a better place. Another big benefit for me was that this way of thinking is a skill that can be taught. Society would benefit greatly if we all learned the valuable skills that enable us to think about what things would be like in the future.

1.The writer gives many examples in the first paragraph to __________.

A. draw readers' attention B. explain the topic

C. entertain readers D. tell readers the main idea of the passage

2.The underlined word, "domain", in the second paragraph can be replaced by “_________”.

A. understanding B. choice

C. field D. rule

3.Which of the following things might a futurist think about?

A. The result of sporting event being held.

B. The weather of the coming weekend.

C. A new technology widely used in daily life.

D. A life-threatening disease that doesn't exist yet.

4.What does the writer want to tell us in the last paragraph?

A. The way futurists imagine the future of life is interesting.

B. Society will benefit a lot if we all train ourselves to think as a futurist.

C. It is impossible for us to think about future things as futurists.

D. The idea of using imagination to make the world a better place is ridiculous.

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