1 . “Don’t worry; be happy” is more than just song lyrics (歌词). A growing body of evidence supports an association between optimism and healthy aging, but it is unclear how optimism impacts health. When it comes to dealing with day-to-day stressors, such as household chores or arguments with others, a new study has found that being more or less optimistic did not make a difference in how older men emotionally reacted to or recovered from these stressors. However, optimism appeared to promote emotional well-being by limiting how often older men experience stressful situations or changing the way they interpret situations as stressful.
“This study tests one possible explanation, assessing if more optimistic people handle daily stress more constructively and therefore enjoy better emotional well-being,” said corresponding author Lewina Lee. PhD, clinical psychologist at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the VA Boston Healthcare System and assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine.
The researchers followed 233 older men who first finished an optimism questionnaire; 14 years later, they reported daily stressors along with positive and negative moods on eight consecutive (连续不断的) evenings up to three times over an eight-year span. The researchers found more optimistic men reported not only lower negative mood but also more positive mood. They also reported having fewer stressors which was unrelated to their higher positive mood but explained their lower levels of negative mood.
While studies have sustained the idea of optimism as a resource that may promote good health and longevity, we know very little about the underlying mechanisms (机制). “Stress, on the other hand. is known to have a negative impact on our health. By looking at whether optimistic people handle day-to-day stressors differently, our findings add to knowledge about how optimism may promote good health as people age,” says Lee.
1. What may be affected by optimism according to the first paragraph?| A．People’s emotional well-being. | B．Older men’s ability to react. |
| C．The way people treat daily stress. | D．The way that optimism will be researched. |
| A．By making comparisons. | B．By analyzing possible results. |
| C．By presenting different opinions. | D．By showing the course and result. |
| A．Changed. | B．Supported. | C．Expected. | D．Repeated. |
| A．A course plan. | B．A travel brochure. |
| C．A health magazine. | D．A news report. |
I like staying overnight at my Gramma’s house — that is, until Gramma starts telling me how wonderful my cousin Maya is. Then it’s Maya this and Maya that until I don’t ever want to hear another word about her.
That’s why I wasn’t too excited when Gramma called me on the phone to “come on over and bring your pajamas.” When I got there, it was worse than I’d expected. There, in Grandpa’s big leather rocker, sat Maya, all dressed up and formal-looking and wearing fancy shoes as if she’d just been to a party.
“Surprise, Kristen!” Gramma said. “Your cousin Maya and her parents have traveled in from the East Coast on business. Maya gets to stay with us this afternoon.” Gramma chattered away about how excited she’d been for this surprise get-together, and how cousins ought to get to know each other better.
I hung my baseball cap in the closet and set my backpack by the stairway, all the time smiling and nodding as if I’d been waiting forever for this chance to spend an afternoon with Maya. Grandpa’s chair squawked (咯咯叫) as Maya rocked back and forth. It’s the chair I like best in the house, the one I usually sit in. I sat down on the sofa across from her.
Shortly, Gramma went off to the kitchen to “see about some lunch,” she’d said. That left me stuck in the living room with rocking Maya.
She was still small but taller than I’d remembered her from her last visit four years ago. She was good at small talk, though, and was chatting away about how nice it was to see me again. But I could tell that she didn’t really think so. The last time she was here, we’d had hours of fun together building caves out of Gramma’s sofa pillows.
After that, I’d heard about her only through Gramma’s tales. Maya taking piano lessons. Maya learning math. Maya, Maya, Maya. Now Maya was here, looking great with the latest haircut and a fancy dress.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Glancing down at my jeans and my old sneakers, I wished I hadn’t come.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“How do you know all these things about me?” I asked.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . A new study published by Dan Johnson of Washington and Lee University shows experimentally that reading fiction increases empathy (共情).
The participants were asked to read a short story and report their mood. Then, in a staged accident, the experimenter knocked over several pens and recorded whether the participants helped pick them up. They found that the more people were transported into the story, the more likely they were to help pick up the dropped pens. Those who engaged more deeply with the fictional characters also showed more empathy for the real-life person.
Empathy, like patience appears to be a character that can be improved with practice. Study has shown the more students read books, especially storybooks, the better they are at understanding the emotions of others. However, researchers at the University of Michigan reported last year that empathy among college students had declined during the past 30 years, with an especially steep drop in the last decade. The reason is plain to see.
It’s important to understand where empathy comes from in the first place. Looking at the evolution of the human mind, it has been suggested that the ability to process hypothetical scenarios (假设情景) of what another person might be thinking provided an advantage to our early ancestors. Empathy may have arisen from one of the most fundamental human characteristics—the ability to cheat.
Storytelling is essentially just a kind of art. Is Harry Potter real? No, but by projecting ourselves into his story, we’re engaging a very real part of our brain. That sense of escape or social participation often is what makes books so enjoyable. Unfortunately, books are falling out of style. The cause of this is partially due to e book sales, which have arisen greatly over the past few years and taken a share out of the physical book market without necessarily indicating a decline in reading.
Even though some of us would like to, we can’t blame the digital retailers for our decreased empathy. In fact, some people probably read more with their more convenient e-readers than ever before with hard copies. It’s the culture of reading in general that needs to change.
1. What did the experiment show?| A．The participants stressed teamwork. | B．The participants were forced to pick up pens. |
| C．A story might have an instructive effect. | D．A person lost in a story paid less attention to real life. |
| A．Limited patience | B．The lack of reading | C．Diverse emotions. | D．The social practice |
| A．The art of lying. | B．The culture of reading |
| C．The escape from the society. | D．The ability to process real information |
| A．Reading stories can increase empathy. | B．Paper books have edges over digital ones. |
| C．Writers play a trick on readers by cheating. | D．College students tend to lack understanding. |
