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.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? |
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. |
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. |
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 |
Many people turn to doctors or self-help books, but they forget a great thing that could help them fight illness: their friends.
Researchers are only now starting to pay attention to the importance of friendship in health. A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends. A large 2007 study showed an increase of nearly 60 percent in the danger for obesity among people whose friends gained weight. And last year, Harvard researchers reported that strong social ties(关系) could improve brain health as we age.
"In general, the role of friendship in our lives isn’t well realized, " said Rebecca, a professor at the University of North Carolina. "Friendship has a bigger effect on our psychological (心理的) health than family relationships. "
While many friendship studies are about the close relationships of women, some research shows that it can do good to men too. In a six-year study of 736 middle-aged men, having friendships reduces the risk of heart disease. Only smoking was as important a danger factor (因素) as having little social support.
The exact reason why friendship has such a big effect isn’t clear. While friends can send a sick person to the hospital or pick up medicine, the advantages go well beyond physical help. Friendship clearly has a big psychological effect."People with stronger friendships feel like there is someone they can turn to, " said Karen, a doctor. "The message of these studies is that friends make your life better. "The three studies in paragraph 2 show that _____.
| A．old people need friends the most |
| B．friends can help us lose weight |
| C．social ties have something to do with health |
| D．having more friends makes us healthier |
What do Rebecca’s words in paragraph3 mean?
| A．Friendship is more important to women than to men. |
| B．What people need most is a friend’s care. |
| C．Friendship is more important than family relationship |
| D．The value of friendship hasn’t been fully understood. |
The author mentioned smoking in the text to discuss ________.
| A．the cause of heart attack |
| B．the danger of having no friends |
| C．smoking is bad for men |
| D．Friends’ influence on habits |
Which of the following has the closest meaning to the underlined word "obesity "?
| A．fatness | B．unhappiness |
| C．excitement | D．Health |
Welcome to the Electronic (电子设备的) Village to find new ways of language teaching and learning.
| Electronic Village Program (Thursday, June 18, 2015) |
|
| Nearpod ❖ 9:00 am to 10:00 am ❖ Room 501 Nearpod is a software program that creates a rich context (语境) for students to learn vocabulary. The worker will show how to use it. |
TEO ❖ 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm ❖ Room 502 Our students come from different backgrounds but they all want to learn on-line. The presenter will use examples from his first on-line class to explain how any teacher can begin teaching on-line with TEO. |
| Kahoot ❖ 10:30 am to 11:30 am ❖ Room 601 Kahoot software can be used to create grammar tests which can be graded on a network. It can provide students with feedback (反馈). |
Prezi ❖ 3:30 pm to 4:20 pm ❖ Room 602 Uses of Prezi in listening and speaking courses attract students' attention to speaking more fluently. The worker will show how students speak fluently on many topics, including introducing family, friends, and hobbies. |
Nearpod can be used to ______.
| A．offer grammar tests |
| B．teach listening on-line |
| C．help vocabulary learning |
| D．gain fluency in speaking |
If you want to improve your speaking skills, you can go to____________.
| A．Room 501 | B．Room 502 | C．Room 601 | D．Room 602 |
Which of the following can assess(评估) your grammar learning?
| A．Nearpod | B．Kahoot | C．TEO | D．Prezi |
A teacher who wants to learn on-line teaching is expected to arrive by ______.
| A．9:00 am | B．10:30 am |
| C．2:00 pm | D．3:30 pm |
Mary Allen was my best friend-like the sister I ever had. We did everything together: piano lessons, movies, swimming, and horseback riding.
When I was 13, my family moved away. Mary and I kept in touch through letters and we saw each other on special occasions(场合)- like my wedding and Mary’s. Soon we were busy with children and moving to new homes, and we wrote less often. One day a card that I sent came back stamped "Address Unknown ".
Over the years, I thought of Mary often. I wanted to share stories of my children and then grandchildren. And I needed to share my sadness when my brother and then mother died. There was an empty place in my heart that only a friend like Mary could fill.
One day I was reading the newspaper when I noticed a photo of a young woman who looked a lot like Mary and whose last name was Wagman--Mary’s married name. "There must be thousands of Wagman. "I thought, but I wrote to her anyway.
She called as soon as she got my letter. "Mrs Tobin!" she said excitedly. "Mary Allen Wagman” is my mother. Minutes later I heard a voice recognized immediately,even after 40 years. We laughed and cried and caught up on each other’s lives.
Now the empty place in my heart is filled. And there’s one thing that Mary and I know for sure: We don’t lose each other again. I want to find Mary ______________ .
| A．to share my stories | B．to share my sorrow |
| C．to fill the empty in my heart | D．all of the above |
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．We never see each other again when I moved away when I was 13. |
| B．I find my friend in the newspaper |
| C．It is 40 years since we last saw each other |
| D．My friend’s husband is Mr Tobin |
The best title of the passage is ________
| A．My Good Friend | B．Friend Like the brother |
| C．An Important Friend | D．Friends Again- Forever |
The popularity of farmers’ markets combined with concerns over food security is making the number of school leavers taking agriculture courses increase rapidly, according to a study.
Large numbers of 16- to 18-year-olds are going to study subjects such as agriculture, food and gamekeeping despite having no background in farming. Jeanette Dawson, principal of Bishop Burton College, said women were also taking up courses at an increasing rate.
She said it was related to a series of food scandals (丑闻)such as the discovery of horsemeat in frozen meals stocked by major supermarkets.
But the movement was also promoted by an increased awareness of the importance of local food and produce, she said. The number of students taking courses in “land-based subjects” has increased by a quarter in the last 12 months alone – from 5,138 to 6,482.
Mrs. Dawson said there were a lot of young people who weren’t from farming backgrounds. But there had been a growth in the number of them accessing agriculture programes with a view to a career in the industry. She said agriculture was an “applied science, with the great outdoors as its laboratory”. And it was increasingly seen as an attractive job for school leavers.
“I never underestimate (低估) the ability of teenagers to pick up on it. The more it is in the media, the more it interests young people. Whenever I go in my local pub, it has on the blackboard where the sausages (香肠) are from. Everyone is interested in buying local food and knowing where their food is from.
The comments were made as Bishop Burton prepares to expand, with a ￡I3 million project to build a new campus in Lincolnshire. The site – due to open in September 20l5 – will be the college’s second in the county, in addition to one at nearby Riseholme.What is making large numbers of students take agriculture courses?
| A．Agriculture is very important to a country. |
| B．People are increasingly concerned about food security. |
| C．Many colleges are offering agriculture courses. |
| D．Agriculture is an applied science. |
The example of horsemeat in the third paragraph illustrates(证明) the necessity of_________ .
| A．protecting animals |
| B．strengthening food safety |
| C．protecting the environment |
| D．forming healthy eating habits |
What does the writer mainly discuss in the passage?
| A．Why the government should strengthen agriculture. |
| B．How to strengthen food safety. |
| C．Why agriculture courses are becoming popular among students. |
| D．How to do well in agriculture courses. |
The historical documentary, Mr. Deng Goes to Washington, which was first shown in the capital on May 12, not only reveals the details of an attempted assassination(刺杀) of Deng, but is also the first time that animated (动画的) images of China’s leaders have appeared on the silver screen. The film tells the story of Deng’s nine-day visit to the US in 1979, only a month after China established diplomatic(外交的) relations with the US for the first time after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Lv Muzi, the film’s producer, said the film includes 12 animated sequences of Deng, drawn in French, American and Japanese styles, as well as China’s traditional shadow puppetry(皮影) style.
Hu Yuchen, who has drawn cartoons for leaders including former premier, Wen Jiabao, is the artist behind the animated images of Deng. Among the three versions of images he drew, director, Fu Hongxing, chose to use the version which was moderately realistic.
“Deng’s animated images are not static(静止的) in the film. When he’s at meetings, the images are more serious, and when he’s at a party, he’s portrayed in a more lively way,” said Zhu.
For the young animator, animation can tell the story of that period of history better to younger viewers. “At first glance, animation may seem simple, but in reality, we need to do a large amount of homework, like checking what dishes were served at a dinner or what paintings were displayed in a particular room.” Zhu said he and the team went through a lot of historical documents and reviewed video clips (录像片段) in the process of creation.
Fu said the film is in honor of Deng’s contribution to China as well as his influence on generations of Chinese people. Production was completed last year, which marked the l10th anniversary of Deng’s birth and also the 35thanniversary of Sino-US diplomatic relations.Mr. Deng Goes to Washington uses all of the following styles EXCEPT_______ .
| A．French and American styles |
| B．Japanese style |
| C．traditional Chinese style |
| D．Korean style |
What does the underlined word in the fourth paragraph, “portrayed “, probably mean?
| A．painted. | B．acted. |
| C．imagined. | D．decorated. |
Which of the following is NOT true about the documentary?
| A．The version of Deng’s image that was chosen was moderately realistic. |
| B．This is the first time a documentary has been made of a Chinese leader. |
| C．The animator did lots of work in the process of creation. |
| D．It contains 12 animated sequences of Deng. |
Why was the documentary made ?
| A．To help younger viewers remember that period of history. |
| B．To honor Deng’s contribution to China. |
| C．To entertain the Chinese people |
| D．To emphasize the importance Sino-US diplomatic relations. |