题目内容
While residents of wealthy nations tend to have greater life satisfaction, new research shows that those living in poorer nations report having greater meaning in life.
These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological science, suggest that meaning in life may be higher in poorer nations as a result of greater religiosity (笃信宗教). As countries become richer, religion becomes less central to people’s lives and they lose a sense of meaning in life.
“Thus far, the wealth of nations has been almost always associated with longevity, health, happiness or life satisfaction,” explains psychological scientist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia. “Given that meaning in life is an important aspect of overall well-being, we wanted to look more carefully at differential patterns, correlates (相关物), and predictors for meaning in life.”
Oishi and colleague Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated life satisfaction, meaning, and well-being by examining data from the 2007 Gallup World Poll, a large-scale survey of over 140,000 participants from 132 countries. In addition to answering a basic life satisfaction question, participants were asked: “Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?” and “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”
The data revealed some unexpected trends: “Among Americans, those who are high in life satisfaction are also high in meaning in life,” says Oishi. “But when we looked at the societal level of analysis, we found a completely different pattern of the association between meaning in life and life satisfaction.”
When looking across many countries, Oishi and Diener found that people in wealthier nations were more educated, had fewer children, and expressed more individualistic attitudes compared to those in poorer countries — all factors that were associated with higher life satisfaction but a significantly lower sense of meaning in life.”
The data suggest that religiosity may play an important role: Residents of wealthier nations, where religiosity is lower, reported less meaning in life and had higher suicide rates than poorer countries.
According to the researchers, religion may provide meaning to life to the extent that it helps people to overcome personal difficulty and cope with the struggles of working to survive in poor economic conditions:
“Religion gives a system that connects daily experiences with the coherent whole (连贯的整体) and a general structure to one’s life … and plays a critical role in constructing meaning out of extreme hardship,” the researchers write.
Oishi and Diener hope to reproduce these findings using more comprehensive measures of meaning and religiosity, and are interested in following countries over time to track whether economic prosperity gives rise to less religiosity and less meaning in life.
1.Which of the following questions couldn’t the participants have answered?
A. Does your life have a purpose or meaning?
B. Do you have relatives living abroad?
C. Are you satisfied with your everyday life?
D. Is religion involved in your daily life?
2.Which of the following statements is true?
A. Those who have higher life satisfaction usually have lower sense of meaning in life.
B. People in wealthier nations were more educated, have fewer children and express less individualistic attitudes compared to those in poorer countries.
C. Religion may provide meaning to life in that people can get strong support from it in face of hardship.
D. Wealthy people are more likely to commit suicide than poor people.
3.What can be inferred from the passage?
A. The poorer a country is, the more religious its people are.
B. Economic prosperity gives rise to less religiosity and less meaning in life.
C. If you want to find meaning in life, you must practice a religion.
D. Meaning in life doesn’t have much to do with the amount of wealth one possesses.
4.The main purpose of the passage is to explain the possible reason why __________.
A. greater life satisfaction leads to lower sense of meaning
B. residents of poorer nations enjoy greater meaning in life
C. residents of poorer nations are so religious
D. residents of wealthy nations have greater life satisfaction
请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。
The back-to-school season is upon us, and once again, parents across the country have loaded their kids’ backpacks up with snack packs and school supplies. It’s a good moment to reflect on what else we should be giving our kids as they head off to school.
American parents are feeling particularly anxious about that question this year. The educational process feels more than ever like a race, one that starts in pre-school and doesn’t end until your child is admitted to the perfect college. Most parents are more worried than they need to be about their children’s grades, test scores and IQ. And what we don’t think about enough is how to help our children build their character—how to help them develop skills like perseverance, optimism, responsibility, and self-control, which together do more to determine success than S.A.T. scores or I.Q.
There is growing evidence that our anxiety about our children’s school performance may actually be holding them back from learning some of these valuable skills. If you’re concerned only with a child’s G.P.A., then you will likely choose to minimize the challenges the child faces in school. With real challenge comes the risk of real failure. And in a competitive academic environment, the idea of failure can be very scary, to students and parents alike.
But experiencing failure is a critical part of building character. Recent research by a team of psychologists found that adults who had experienced little or no failure growing up were actually less happy and confident than those who had experienced a few significant setbacks in childhood. “Overcoming those obstacles,” the researchers assumed, “could teach effective coping skills, help engage social support networks, create a sense of mastery over past adversity, and foster beliefs in the ability to cope successfully in the future.”
By contrast, when we protect our children from every possible failure—when we call their teachers to get an extension on a paper; when we urge them to choose only those subjects they’re good at—we are denying them those same character-building experiences. As the psychologists Madeline Levine and Dan Kindlon have written, that can lead to difficulties in adolescence and young adulthood, when overprotected young people finally confront real problems on their own and don’t know how to overcome them.
In the classroom and outside of it, American parents need to encourage children to take chances, to challenge themselves, to risk failure. In the meantime, giving our kids room to fail may be one of the best ways we can help them succeed.
Back to School: Why Perseverance Is More Important than Good Grades? | |
Common phenomena | Parents throughout America 1.______ their kids’ backpacks up with snacks and school supplies. |
Many American parents don’t 2._______ enough importance to their kids’ character building. | |
The writer’s 3._________ | Parents should pay more attention to their kids’ character building. |
Evidence and 4._____ findings | Parents’ anxiety about their kids’ performance may 5. them from learning some valuable skills. |
Parents concerned only with a kid’s G.P.A. have a 6. to minimize the challenges the child faces. | |
Adults who have experienced a few significant setbacks in childhood are 7. and more confident than those who haven’t. | |
Denying kids character-building experiences can 8. in difficulties in adolescence and young adulthood. | |
The writer’s suggestions | 9.________ kids to be risk-takers. |
Give kids room to experience 10.____________. | |
What is eco-fashion？Eco-fashion is about making clothes that take into account the environment, the health of consumers and the working conditions of people in the fashion industry. It is a complex phenomenon and the common use of the term covers two aspects of fashion —‘ecological’ and ‘ethical’. Ecological fashion usually refers to textile (织物) and clothing production processes and the environmental issues surrounding them；ethical fashion generally relates to the working conditions involved in the producing processes.
What are the problems with fashion? A closer look at the fashion industry points out many problems that are common practices in the creation of our fashions from the field to the factory. Firstly, the production of textiles pollutes the environment heavily. Cotton-planting uses pesticides；sheep-farming and woolcleaning contribute to global warming；synthetics-making (人造纤维生产) brings about waste which does harm to our environment. Secondly, every stage of clothing production has a significant effect on the environment. They all use a great deal of energy, and some also involve harmful chemicals. In addition to this, there is a lot of waste produced in the process, especially in the form of polluted water. Thirdly, growing consumption levels and our shopping habits further worsen the bad effects. We are now buying clothes in increasing quantities without realizing the scale on which it affects natural environment, and we are also quick to throw away clothes that have been worn only a couple of times.
Then, how to solve the problems? Other industries that design products are ahead of the fashion industry when it comes to choosing sustainable materials, designing for minimum waste, choosing energy efficient manufacturing and creating products for longevity. The fashion industry has been slow to adopt these changes and part of the problem is the very nature of fashion. To a large degree, it is the fashion producers that really have the power and the responsibility to shape our future. There are numerous ways in which these producers can reduce their ecological footprint, from switching to green energy and reducing energy use, through selecting sustainable materials and choosing local suppliers，to recycle and minimize waste. On the other hand，as consumers we can all make contributions by selecting environmentally friendly clothing and reducing clothing consumption.
There is some concern that eco friendly fashions are just a trend that we will eventually grow tired of but we can make sure that doesn't happen. Now many people are beginning to shop for organic food products because the benefits of eating food free of chemicals are straightforward and immediate. They relate directly to our personal health. In fact, choosing eco-fashion can also contribute to our personal health, though it is mostly done by way of keeping the health of the planet.
Why choose eco-fashion? | ||
1.of fashion | Ecological | Textile & clothing production processes; Issues related to2. |
Ethical | Working 3. involved | |
Problems with fashion | Textile 4. | Cotton-planting: use of pesticides; Sheep-farming & wool-cleaning: global warming; Synthetics-making: 5. waste |
Clothing production | Producing a lot of waste; Using harmful chemicals; 6. a great deal of energy | |
Consumption levels & shopping habits | New clothes: bought in increasing quantities Old clothes: 7. away quickly | |
8.to problems | Fashion producers | Ways to recycle and9.waste: Switching to green energy; Reducing energy use; Selecting sustainable materials; Choosing local suppliers |
10. | Selecting environmentally friendly clothing Reducing clothing consumption | |
Choosing eco-fashion can contribute to our personal health. | ||