We already live in an over-communicated world that will only become more so in the next tech era. We’ve developed technology that gets us so much information that we’ve got cell phones ringing every second. We’ve got computers and laptops. We’ve got personal organizers. And we’re just being bombarded with communication and every advancing technology seems to create more and more communications at us. We are thought of over-whelmed by the information flow.

Research suggests that all the multi-tasking may actually make our brains work better and faster, producing a world-wide increase in IQ up to 20 points and more in recent decades. Is there any real benefit in all these mental gymnastics we now have to go through? We are not becoming a race of global idiots, but many do think certain skills are enhanced and certain are not. You know the ability to make fast decisions, to answer a dozen emails in 5 minutes or to fill out maybe big aptitude text. That’s enhanced.

But when someone is out there with his kids laying in his little league, or something like that, he’s got his cell phone in his pocket, he is always wondering: “Jeez, did I get a voicemail?” This might have negative effects on our own brains patterns. Creativity is something that happens slowly. It happens when your brain is just noodling around, just playing. When it puts together ideas which you haven’t thought of, or maybe you have time to read a book. You are a business person but you have time to read a book about history or about a philosopher and something that happened long ago, or something or some ideas, some default of long ago.

Actually, it might occur to you that you can think of your own business in that way. And so if this mixture of unrelated ideas that feeds your productivity, feeds your creativity, and if your mind is disciplined to answer every email, then you don’t have time for that playful noodling, you don’t have time for those unexpected conjunctions. So I think maybe we are getting smarter in some senses, but over communication is a threat to our creativity and to our reflection.

解析：听力填空选取的这篇文章，主题是关于over communication. 在这个信息充斥的时代，我们的所得和所失。文章第一段提出问题，即We already live in an over-communicated world that will only become more so in the next tech era. 我们已经处在一个沟通过剩的时代，而这一现象此后还会愈演愈烈。第二段论述在沟通过剩的这样一个时代，我们需要同时处理多种事务，使得有一些技能得到增强，而另一些则被削弱了。得到增强的主要是快速决断和某些领域做事效率的提高。但这并不是问题的全部。第三段转而论述沟通过剩给我们带来的一个负面影响即创造力的衰退。第四段联系我们自身的情况，再次论述：沟通过剩对我们的创造力和思考都带来了威胁。
文章条理清晰，观点明确，且主题与我们的日常生活接近，所以理解上应该难度不大。考查词汇多为关于“信息”“科技”“沟通”的词汇，大多也是考生们平时有所涉及的词汇，因此总体难度不大。