雅思阅读模拟题：Can Scientists Tell Us: What happiness is?

大家在备考雅思考试的过程中可以多做雅思模拟题，了解自己的雅思水平，分析自己的薄弱项，新东方在线雅思在本文为大家带来的是雅思阅读模拟题：Can Scientists Tell Us: What happiness is?大家可以练习练习。

Can Scientists Tell Us: What happiness is?

A Economists accept that if people describe themselves as happy, then they are happy. However, psychologists differentiate between levels of happiness. The most immediate type involves a feeling —pleasure or joy. But sometimes happiness is a judgment that life is satisfying, and does not imply an emotional state. Esteemed psychologist Martin Seligman has spearheaded an effort to study the science of happiness. The bad news is that we're not wired to be happy. The good news is that we can do something about it. Since its origins in a Leipzig laboratory 130 years ago, psychology has had little to say about goodness and contentment. Mostly psychologists have concerned themselves with weakness and misery. There are libraries full of theories about why we get sad, worried, and angry. It hasn't been respectable science to study what happens when lives go well. Positive experiences, such as joy, kindness, altruism and heroism, have mainly been ignored. For every 100 psychology papers dealing with anxiety or depression, only one concerns a positive trait.

B A few pioneers in experimental psychology bucked the trend. Professor AliceIsen of Cornell University and colleagues have demonstrated how positive emotions make people think faster and more creatively. Showing how easy it is to give people an intellectual boost, Isen divided doctors making a tricky diagnosis into three groups: one received candy, one read humanistic statements about medicine, one was a control group. The doctors who had candy displayed the most creative thinking and worked more efficiently. Inspired by Isen and others, Seligman got stuck in. He raised millions of dollars of research money and funded 50 research groups involving 150 scientists across the world. Four positive psychology centres opened, decorated in cheerful colours and furnished with sofas and baby-sitters. There were get-togethers on Mexican beaches where psychologists would snorkel and eat fajitas, then form 'pods' to discuss subjects such as wonder and awe. A thousand therapists were coached in the new science.

C But critics are demanding answers to big questions. What is the point of defining levels of happiness and classifying the virtues? Aren't these concepts vague and impossible to pin down? Can you justify spending funds to research positive states when there are problems such as famine, flood and epidemic depression to be solved? Seligman knows his work can be belittled alongside trite notions such as 'the power of positive thinking'. His plan to stop the new science floating 'on the waves of self-improvement fashions' is to make sure it is anchored to positive philosophy above, and to positive biology below.

D And this takes us back to our evolutionary past. Homo sapiens evolved during the Pleistocene era (1.8 m to 10, 000 years ago), a time of hardship and turmoil. It was the Ice Age, and our ancestors endured long freezes as glaciers formed, then ferocious floods as the ice masses melted. We shared the planet with terrifying creatures such as mammoths, elephant-sized ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats. But by the end of the Pleistocene, all these animals were extinct. Humans, on the other hand, had evolved large brains and used their intelligence to make fire and sophisticated tools, to develop talk and social rituals. Survival in a time of adversity forged our brains into a persistent mould. Professor Seligman says: 'Because our brain evolved during a time of ice, flood and famine, we have a catastrophic brain. The way the brain works is looking for what's wrong. The problem is, that worked in the Pleistocene era. It favoured you, but it doesn't work in the modern world. '

E Although most people rate themselves as happy, there is a wealth of evidence to show that negative thinking is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. Experiments show that we remember failures more vividly than successes. We dwell on what went badly, not what went well. Of the six universal emotions, four anger, fear, disgust and sadness are negative and only one, joy, is positive. (The sixth, surprise, is neutral. According to the psychologist Daniel Nettle, author of Happiness, and one of the Royal Institution lecturers, the negative emotions each tell us 'something bad has happened' and suggest a different course of action.

F What is it about the structure of the brain that underlies our bias towards negative thinking? And is there a biology of joy? At Iowa University, neuroscientists studied what happens when people are shown pleasant and unpleasant pictures. When subjects see landscapes or dolphins playing, part of the frontal lobe of the brain becomes active. But when they are shown unpleasant images a bird covered in oil, or a dead soldier with part of his face missing, the response comes from more primitive parts of the brain. The ability to feel negative emotions derives from an ancient danger-recognition system formed early in the brain's evolution. The pre-frontal cortex, which registers happiness, is the part used for higher thinking, an area that evolved later in human history.

Questions 14-20

The Reading Passage has eight paragraphs A-H. Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-H, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.

14 An experiment involving dividing several groups one of which received positive icon

15 Review of a poorly researched psychology area

16 Contrast being made about the brains' action as response to positive or negative stimulus

17 The skeptical attitude that the research seemed to be a waste of fund

18 a substance that produces much wanting instead of much liking

19 a conclusion that lasting happiness are hardly obtained because of the nature of brains

20 One description that listed the human emotional categories.

Questions 21-25

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using NO MORE THAN FOUR WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 21-25 on your answer sheet.

A few pioneers in experimental psychology study what happens when lives go well. Professor Alice divided doctors, making a tricky experiment, into three groups: besides the one control group, the other two either are asked to read humanistic statements about drugs, or received 21 ________ . The latter displayed the most creative thinking and worked more efficiently. Since critics are questioning the significance of the 22________ for both levels of happiness and classification for the virtues. Professor Seligman countered in an evolutional theory: survival in a time of adversity forged our brains into the way of thinking for what's wrong because we have a 23 ________ .

There is bountiful of evidence to show that negative thinking is deeply built in the human psyche. Later, at Iowa University, neuroscientists studied the active parts in brains to contrast when people are shown pleasant and unpleasant pictures. When positive images like 24 ________ are shown, part of the frontal lobe of the brain becomes active. But when they are shown unpleasant image, the response comes from 25________ of the brain.

Questions 26

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write your answers in boxes 26 on your answer sheet.

According to Daniel Nettle in the last two paragraphs, what is true as the scientists can tell us about happiness ?

A Brain systems always mix liking and wanting together.

B Negative emotions can be easily get rid of if we think positively.

C Happiness is like nicotine we are craving for but get little pleasure.

D The inner mechanism of human brains does not assist us to achieve durable happiness.

Answer keys

14 B

15 A

16 F

17 C

18 G

19 H

20 E

21 candy

22 definition

23 catastrophic brain

24 landscapes or dolphins playing

25 (more) primitive parts

26 D