雅思阅读第031套P2-Optimism and Health
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2below.
Optimism and Health
Mindset is all. How you startthe year will set the template for the rest, and two scientifically backedcharacter traits hold the key: optimism and resilience (if the prospect leavesyou feeling pessimistically spineless, the good news is that you cansignificantly boost both of these qualities).
Faced with 12 months ofplummeting economics and rising human distress, staunchly maintaining a rosyview might seem deludedly Pollyannaish. But here we encounter the optimismparadox. As Brice Pitt, an emeritus professor of the psychiatry of old age atImperial College, London, told me: “Optimists are unrealistic. Depressivepeople see things as they really are, but that is a disadvantage from anevolutionary point of view. Optimism is a piece of evolutionary equipment thatcarried us through millennia of setbacks.”
Optimists have plenty to behappy about. In other words, if you can convince yourself that things will getbetter, the odds of it happening will improve - because you keep on playingthe game. In this light, optimism “is a habitual way of explaining yoursetbacks to yourself”, reports Martin Seligman, the psychology professor andauthor of Learned Optimism. The research shows that when times get tough,optimists do better than pessimists - they succeed better at work, respondbetter to stress, suffer fewer depressive episodes, and achieve more personalgoals.
Studies also show that beliefcan help with the financial pinch. Chad Wallens, a social forecaster at theHenley Centre who surveyed middle-class Britons’ beliefs about income, hasfound that “the people who feel wealthiest, and those who feel poorest,actually have almost the same amount of money at their disposal. Theirattitudes and behaviour patterns, however, are different from one another.”
Optimists have something elseto be cheerful about - in general, they are more robust. For example, a studyof 660 volunteers by the Yale University psychologist Dr. Becca Levy found thatthinking positively adds an average of seven years to your life. Other Americanresearch claims to have identified a physical mechanism behind this. A HarvardMedical School study of 670 men found that the optimists have significantlybetter lung function. The lead author, Dr. Rosalind Wright, believes thatattitude somehow strengthens the immune system. “Preliminary studies on heartpatients suggest that, by changing a person’s outlook, you can improve theirmortality risk,” she says.
Few studies have tried toascertain the proportion of optimists in the world. But a 1995 nationwidesurvey conducted by the American magazine Adweek found that about half thepopulation counted themselves as optimists, with women slightly more apt thanmen (53 per cent versus 48 per cent) to see the sunny side.
Of course, there is noguarantee that optimism will insulate you from the crunch’s worst effects, butthe best strategy is still to keep smiling and thank your lucky stars. Because(as every good sports coach knows) adversity is character-forming - so long asyou practise the skills of resilience. Research among tycoons and businessleaders shows that the path to success is often littered with failure: a recordof sackings, bankruptcies and blistering castigation. But instead of curlinginto a foetal ball beneath the coffee table, they resiliently pick themselvesup, learn from their pratfalls and march boldly towards the next opportunity.
The American PsychologicalAssociation defines resilience as the ability to adapt in the face ofadversity, trauma or tragedy. A resilient person may go through difficulty anduncertainty, but he or she will doggedly bounce back.
Optimism is one of the centraltraits required in building resilience, say Yale University investigators inthe. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology. They add that resilient people learnto hold on to their sense of humour and this can help them to keep a flexibleattitude when big changes of plan are warranted. The ability to accept your lotwith equanimity also plays an important role, the study adds.
One of the best ways to acquireresilience is through experiencing a difficult childhood, the sociologist StevenStack reports in the Journal of Social Psychology. For example, short men areless likely to commit suicide than tall guys, he says, because shorties developpsychological defence skills to handle the bullies and mickey-taking that theirlack of stature attracts. By contrast, those who enjoyed adversity-free youthscan get derailed by setbacks later on because they’ve never been inoculatedagainst aggro.
If you are handicapped byhaving had a happy childhood, then practising proactive optimism can help youto become more resilient. Studies of resilient people show that they take morerisks; 'they court failure and learn not to fear it.
And despite beingthick-skinned, resilient types are also more open than average to otherpeople. Bouncing through knock-backs is all part of the process.
It’s about optimisticrisk-taking - being confident that people will like you. Simply smiling andbeing warm to people can help. It’s an altruistic path to self-interest - andif it achieves nothing else, it will reinforce an age-old adage: hard times canbring out the best in you.
SECTION 2: QUESTIONS 14-26
Questions 14-17
Complete the summary belowusing NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from Reading Passage 2 foreach answer.
A study group from YaleUniversity had discovered that optimism can stretch one's life length by 14 _________________ years. Andanother group from Harvard thinks they have found the biological basis -optimists have better 15 _________________ becausean optimist outlook boosts one's 16 _________________. The studyon 17 _________________ wascited as evidence in support of this claim.
Questions 18-22
Complete each sentence with thecorrect ending A-H.
18 _____________ Brice Pitt believes
19 _____________ Theresearch at Henley Centre discovers
20 _____________ Thestudy conducted by Adweek finds
21 _____________ TheAnnual Review of Clinical Psychology reports
22 _____________ Steven Stack says in his report
A
material wealth doesn't necessarily create happiness.
B
optimists tend to be unrealistic about human evolution.
C
optimism is advantageous for human evolution.
D
adversity is the breeding ground of resilience.
E
feelings of optimism vary according to gender.
F
good humour means good flexibility.
G
evenness of mind under stress is important to building resilience.
H
having an optimistic outlook is a habit.
Questions 23-26
Do the following statementsagree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage?
In boxes 23-26 onyour answer sheet write
YES
if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO
if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN
if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
23 _________________ The benefits of optimism on health have been long known.
24 _________________ Optimists have better relationships with people than pessimists.
25 _________________ People with happy childhoods might not be able to practise optimism.
26 _________________ Resilient people are often open, and even thickskinned.
答案
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