At 88, I remain a competitive runner. The finish line of my life is drawing close, and I hope to reach it having given the best of myself along the way. I’ve been training my body to meet the demands of this final stretch. But, I wonder, should I have asked more of my mind?
If I didn’t exercise, I would release the hungry beasts that seek their elderly prey on couches, but not in the gym. The more I sweated, the more likely it was my doctor would continue to say, “Keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll see you next year.” My mind, on the other hand, seems less willing to give in to discipline. I have tried internet “brain games”, solving algebraic problems flashing past and changing the route of virtual trains to avoid crashes. But these never approach my determination to remain physically fit as I move deeper into old age.
Despite having many friends in their 70s, 80s and 90s, I’ve been far too slow to realize that how we respond to aging is a choice made in the mind, not in the gym. Some of my healthiest friends carry themselves as victims abused by time. Other friends, many whose aching knees and hips are the least of their physical problems, find comfort in their ability to accept old age as just another stage of life to deal with. I would use the word “heroic” to describe the way they cope with aging.
One such friend recently called from a hospital to tell me a sudden brain disease had made him legally blind. He interrupted me as I began telling him how terribly sorry I was, “Bob, it could have been worse. I could have become deaf instead of blind.”
Despite all the time I spend lifting weights and exercising, I realized I lack the strength to have said those words. It suddenly struck me I’ve paid a price for being a “gym rat.” If there is one characteristic common to friends who are aging with a graceful acceptance of life’s attacks, it is contentment. Aging had to be more than what I saw in a mirror.
But rather than undertaking a fundamental change in the way I face aging, I felt the place to begin would be to start small. A recent lunch provided a perfect example.
I’ve always found it extremely difficult to concentrate when I’m in a noisy setting. At this lunch with a friend in an outdoor restaurant, a landscaper began blowing leaves from underneath the bushes surrounding our table. Typically, after such a noisy interruption, I would have snapped, “Let’s wait until he’s finished!” then fallen silent. When the roar eventually faded, my roar would have drained (消耗) the conversation of any warmth. It troubled me that even a passing distraction could so easily take me from enjoying lunch with a good friend to a place that gave me no pleasure at all. I wanted this meal to be different.
My years in gyms had taught me to shake off pains and other distractions, never permitting them to stop my workout or run. I decided to treat the noise this way. I continued talking with my friend, challenging myself to hear the noise, but to hold it at a distance. The discipline so familiar to me in the gym - this time applied to my mind - proved equally effective in the restaurant. It was as though I had taken my brain to a mental fitness center.
Learning to ignore a leaf blower’s roar hardly equips me to find contentment during my passage into ever-deeper old age. But I left the lunch feeling I had at least taken a small first step in changing behavior that stood in the way of that contentment.
Could I employ that same discipline to accept with dignity the inevitable decline awaiting me like the finish line? Hoping that contentment will guide me as I make my way along the path yet to be traveled.
1.The author’s question in Paragraph 1 implies that ________.
A.he has never believed the necessity of mind training
B.he has realized he should mentally prepare for aging
C.he feels regret for not sharpening his thinking skills
D.he feels unsatisfied with the result of the brain games
2.The author uses his friends as examples to ________.
A.stress aging is an unavoidable stage of life to face
B.indicate that people see life from many different angles
C.prove it’s significant to be surrounded with positive friends
D.show it’s important to take health seriously in a sensible way
3.What can we learn from the author’s friend mentioned in Paragraph 4?
A.He fears that his illness will become worse.
B.He takes physical illnesses as they come.
C.He needs to find a way through those hardships.
D.He sees life as a series of disappointments.
4.After that recent lunch, the author realized that ________.
A.distractions were not uncommon in everyday life
B.the restaurant was not an ideal place for eating
C.his roar had spoiled the friendly conversation
D.he had made small changes to adapt to aging
5.What’s the author’s attitude towards exercising in the end?
A.Doubtful. B.Indifferent. C.Positive. D.Ambiguous.
6.Which of the following could be the best title for the passage?
A.Old age curse and blessing B.The secret to aging well
C.Benefits of regular exercise D.Never too old to learn
In the famous musical My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle, the poor daughter of a dustman who speaks with a thick Cockney accent, becomes the unwitting (不知晓的) target for a bet between two phonetics scholars. By the end of the musical, Doolittle is able to pronounce all of her words like a member of the British elite, fooling everyone at an embassy ball about her true origins.
It’s hard to imagine a version of My Fair Lady set in the U.S. because, unlike the British, Americans seem either unwilling or unable to honestly acknowledge their own social class. But a new set of scientific studies conducted by Michael Krauss and his colleagues at Yale University show that Americans find it easy to make distinctions about other people’s social class just by listening to them speak.
In one study, the researchers asked 229 people to listen to 27 different speakers who varied in terms of their age, race, gender and social class. The participants heard each speaker say a total of seven different words. Based on just this short audio, participants were able to correctly identify which speakers were college-educated 55 percent of the time-more than what would be expected by chance. A major limitation of this study, however, was that it used college education as a criterion for social class.
Then in another experiment, 302 participants were asked to either listen to or read transcripts (文本) from 90 seconds of recorded speech in which the speakers talked about themselves without explicitly mentioning anything about their social class. Participants were asked to judge what they thought the social classes of the speakers were by using a 10-rung ascending (上升的) ladder of increasing income, education and occupation. They found that participants who heard the audio recordings were more accurate in judging where the speakers fell in terms of their social status.
To show whether these inferences have real-world consequences, Kraus and his colleagues ran another experiment. They recruited 274 participants, all of whom had past hiring experience, to either listen to the audio or read a transcript of the content. The findings showed that participants were able to accurately judge the social class of the candidates and that this effect was stronger for participants who had heard the audio recordings. In addition, participants judged the higher-class candidates as more competent, a better fit for the job and more likely to be hired.
Taken together, this research suggests that despite our discomfort about the topic, Americans are able to easily detect one another’s social class from small snippets of speech. Moreover, we use this information to discriminate against people who seem to be of a lower social class. This research identifies social class as another potential way that employers may discriminate against candidates, perhaps without even realizing it.
1.The author introduces his topic by______.
A.making a comparison
B.justifying an assumption
C.explaining a phenomenon
D.relating the plot of a musical
2.What do the experiments suggest?
A.Participants tend to make objective judgments.
B.The content rather than the speaking style is reliable.
C.One’s social class can be inferred from how they speak.
D.Education and income are the main criteria for social status.
3.According to the passage, judgments about the way people talk_____.
A.disagree with the facts
B.affect hiring decisions
C.favour competent people
D.hardly provide reference
4.What can be learned from the last paragraph?
A.Americans are slow to judge social classes.
B.People in a low social class lose jobs easily.
C.Social-class discrimination is hard to address.
D.Speech can create social-class discrimination.
