新视野大学英语视听说教程 4 Unit 8-12

VI.  Further Listening and Speaking
Task1: Confident enough to control your fate?
Script
Some people are born with the belief that they are masters of their own lives. Others feel they are at the mercy of fate. New research shows that part of those feelings are in the genes¹.
Psychologists have long known that people confident in their ability to control their fates are more likely to adjust well to growing old than those who feel they drift on the currents of fate.
Two researchers who questioned hundreds of Swedish twins report that such confidence, or lack of it, is partly genetic² and partly drawn³ from experience.
They also found that the belief in blind luck—a conviction that chance plays a big role in life—is something learned in life and has nothing to do with heredity.
The research was conducted by Nancy Pedersen, a professor of psychology⁴ at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The results were recently published in the United States in the Journal of Gerontology.
People who are confident of their ability to control their lives have an “internal locus⁵ of control”, and have a better chance of being well adjusted in their old age, said Pedersen. An “external locus of control”,believing that outside forces determine the course of life, has been linked to depression in latter years, she said.
“We are trying to understand what makes people different. What makes some people age slowly and others have a more difficult time?” she said.
The study showed that while people have an inborn⁶ tendency toward independence and self-confidence, about 70 percent of this personality trait is affected⁷ by a person’s environment and lifetime experiences.
Pedersen’s studies, with various collaborators, investigate the aging process by comparing sets of twins, most of whom were separated at an early age.
The subjects were drawn from a list first compiled about 30 years ago, registering all twins born in Sweden since 1886. The complete list, which was extended in 1971, has 95,000 sets of twins.

1. Which of the following is concerned with blind luck?
2. Which of the following is related to an external locus of control?
3. According to the passage, what is true of one’s inborn tendency towards self-confidence?
4. What subjects were mostly used in Pedersen’s studies?
5. What is the main idea of the passage?

Keys: 1.A  2.B  3.C  4.C  5.D

1 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

2 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

3 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

4 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

5 locus   

n.中心

参考例句：

• Barcelona is the locus of Spanish industry.巴塞罗那是西班牙工业中心。
• Thereafter,the military remained the locus of real power.自此之后，军方一直掌握着实权。

6 inborn   

adj.天生的，生来的，先天的

参考例句：

• He is a man with an inborn love of joke.他是一个生来就喜欢开玩笑的人。
• He had an inborn talent for languages.他有语言天分。

7 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。