10 .
Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once, note that there is one word more than you need.
A. associated B. relaxation C. outlook D. urged E. harmony F. motivated
G. exaggerating H. contrary I. track J. equivalent K. convinced |
In 1865 The Great Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted looked out over the Yosemite Valley and saw a place worth saving. He 1 the California legislature to protect it from crazy development. Olmsted had already designed Central Park City; he was 2 that beautiful green spaces should exist for all people to enjoy. “It is a scientific fact,” he wrote, “that the occasional observation of natural scene of an impressive character…is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect.”
Olmsted was 3 ; his claim was based less on science than on intuition. But it was intuition with a long history. It went back at least to Cyrus the Great, who some 2500 years ago built gardens for 4 in the busy capital of Persia. Paracelsus, the 16th century German-Swiss physician, gave voice to that same intuition when he wrote, “that art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician.” In 1798, sitting on the banks of the River Wye, William Wordsworth marveled at how “an eye made quiet by the power of 5 ” offered relief from “the fever of the world” . American writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Muir inherited that 6 along with Olmsted, they built the spiritual and emotional case for creating the world’s first national parks by claiming that nature had healing powers.
There wasn’t much evidence then—but there is now: 7 by large-scale public health problems such as obesity, depression, and persuasive nearsightedness, all clearly 8 with time spent indoors. Strayer and other scientists are looking with renewed interest at how nature affects our brains and bodies.
In England researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School recently analyzed mental health data from 10000 city dwellers and used high resolution mapping to 9 where the subjects had lived over 18 years. They found that people living near more green space reported less mental distress, even after adjusting for income, education, and employment (all of which are also correlated with health). In 2016 an international team overlaid health questionnaire responses from more than 31000 Toronto residents onto a map of the city, block by block. Those living on blocks with more trees showed a boost in heart and metabolic health 10 to what one would experience from a $20000 gain in income. Lower mortality and fewer stress hormones circulating in the blood have also been connected to living close to green space.
