<531 15 지문>

6-1
Over time, the meaning of marriage began to change. In 1933, sociologist William Ogburn observed that personality was becoming more
important in mate selection. In 1945, sociologists Ernest Burgess and Harvey Locke noted the growing importance of mutual affection and
understanding in marriage. What these sociologists had observed was a fundamental shift in marriages in the U.S.: Husbands and wives were
coming to expect greater emotional satisfaction from one another. As this trend intensified, intimacy became the core of marriage. At the same
time, as society grew more complex and impersonal, Americans came to view marriage as a solution to the tensions that society produced. This
new form, “companionate marriage,” contributed to divorce, for it encouraged people to expect that their spouses would satisfy “each and
every need.” Consequently, sociologists say, marriage became an “overloaded institution.”

6-2
Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and a host of other professional and paraprofessional caregivers are in effect the gatekeepers to the health care
system. Gatekeeping of this sort would have been unnecessary in pre-modern societies, in which the family circle of someone thought to be
ailing could directly contact the medicine man/woman, who would come to the home and do whatever was considered appropriate. In many
cases, the medicine man/woman would be part of the local community or family circle and would know about the problem without having to
be specifically notified. But as societies became larger and more heterogeneous, and as medical practice became a privileged body of expertise
that could be exercised only by those who have extensive and exclusive training, there have come to be many more steps between the “sick”
person and his or her treatment.

6-3
Competition acts not only to strain our existing relationships to the breaking point, but also to prevent them from developing in the first place.
Camaraderie and companionship — to say nothing of genuine friendship and love — scarcely have a chance to take root when we are defined as
competitors. In the workplace, one tries to remain on friendly terms with one’s colleagues, but there is guardedness, a part of the self held in
reserve; even when no rivalry exists at the moment, one never knows whom one will have to compete against next week. We are forced to be
aware of the upcoming competition. I was recently told that extended training seminars for computer programmers are sometimes set up as
contests: one’s ultimate status and salary are determined by how many programs one produces. The result, according to one reluctant
participant, is that friendships are nipped in the bud because each person must try to outdo the others. Performing artists similarly find it hard
to enjoy each other’s company since they may audition for the same part or position.

7-1
All language, whether spoken or written, is representational. A single letter or word outside of its context tells us almost nothing. To understand
the letter or word, we need to see it as part of a meaningful pattern, positioned within a series of letters abstracting a pattern of language. The
pattern of letters together makes a word and its sound evokes the actual thing, thought, or idea it represents. But by itself the word tells only
part of the story. We need more and logically connected words to fully understand a message. So we link the word with other words and create
a chain in a recognizable pattern to make a sentence and complete a thought. And only by stringing many sentences together into a story within
a complete context can we have greater insight and understanding into larger themes.

7-2
As a person goes through life reading, observing, and learning through experiences, lessons and ideas begin to accumulate. Like a body of water
dammed up, these ideas, lessons, and insights are stored in the memory. There they move about, each having the potential to encounter
another and spawn further lessons, insights, and ideas. Then one day, as this person wrestles with a problem or tries to compose a work of art,
the flow of creative thoughts begins. Out they flow, as if the dam that had held them in place had been breached. They rush into this person’s
conscious mind and seem to be coming from powers far beyond and greater than this person believes her capabilities to be. Yet these ideas
were there all along, stored away until a problem or creative challenge presented itself and needed expression.
7-3
Culture takes into account not only the actions but also the collective values of its members. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of culture
requires that members observe well beyond their own limited perspectives. A good example of this can be found using the famous Indian
legend of the three blind men who came upon an elephant and tried to describe what they found. One approached and touched the elephant’s
trunk, and identified it as a snake; another touched the elephant’s tail, and announced that it was a branch; and the third man found the
elephant’s ear, and called it a leaf. None could agree on what the elephant looked like since each lacked the perspective of the others. So it is
with culture — each person within a school or a district will have a different perspective on the culture of the organization; some may be close in
their perspectives, and some may have vastly different views. We become so embedded in our views of culture that, much like the three blind
men describing the elephant, it would be difficult to imagine anything outside of our current perspectives.

-1-
8-1
Police departments in England and the United States, especially in Chicago, have installed thousands of closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras in areas
that are at risk for crime. In July 2003, the Chicago Police Department positioned remote-controlled and viewable cameras. Each camera was
equipped with flashing blue lights on top to ensure that its highly visible presence would inform the public that the area was under police
surveillance. Do these measures really work? After a careful review of 41 studies, Brandon Welsh and David Farrington found that CCTV
interventions have a small but desirable effect on reducing area crime and are more effective in reducing crime in England, where there is a high
level of public support for the use of CCTV cameras in public settings to prevent crime, than in the United States, where people are wary of the
“Big Brother is watching you” implications of monitoring via surveillance technology.

8-2
The positive effect of repeated exposure seems to arise from an inborn discomfort that we feel around strange and unfamiliar things, an inner
programming that warns us that the strange can be dangerous and should be avoided. As children, we are taught not to talk to strangers, and
even as adults we are not likely to respond positively to a stranger who, approaching us on the street and introducing himself, says that he
would like to get acquainted. Most of us are likely to assume that the stranger is crazy, drunk, trying to sell us something, convince us of
something, or even hurt us. If, however, we have seen the same stranger every day in the supermarket, on the bus, or in the elevator, we are
likely to respond differently. After a number of such casual encounters, if the person were to ask our opinion on the weather or the political
situation, chances are that we would respond positively and willingly continue the conversation, possibly the acquaintance. Repeated exposure
tells us that the person is not dangerous, so we can relax and enjoy the encounter, with our liking of him/her increasing.

8-3
It is interesting to attend to the shift in pronouns. While the steel worker uses “I” when talking about activities that did or would make him
proud and provide him with satisfaction (“I would be tempted to kick the carpenter ... I got tiny satisfaction when I loaded the truck”), he shifts
to “you” when talking about what manual labor in a steel mill is like. (“You can’t take pride anymore ... It’s hard to take pride in a bridge you’re
never going to cross ... In a steel mill, forget it. You don’t see where anything goes.”) Implicitly, there is less distance between the self and the
activity when the activity is more meaningful. Reading through what they said as a whole, moreover, it is noteworthy that the worker almost
never refers to “we” when discussing work. There is no natural community of which he feels a part. In conclusion, how the steel worker talks
about work reveals as much about the distance of his self from his work and from others at work as does the content of what he says.

9-1
Never in the history of humanity has the individual had so much personal power, and so much freedom to choose. Thanks to affordable home
computers and the Internet, individuals can now equip themselves with the kind of reach, power, and influences previously reserved for large
corporations. In another sense and context, “power” is being reclaimed from national utility companies as personal turbines give domestic
consumers an undreamed-of independence from the electricity grid. On the healthcare front, networks of small community clinics, linked into
the “digital skin” of the Internet, will increasingly take the place of overcrowded, under-resourced state hospitals. Think “small” and personal —
and look for network effects to create maximum resonance and growth.
9-2
In our current scientific thinking, light is considered a form of energy. There are many other forms of energy, including kinetic energy and nuclear
binding energy, all of which have in common that we can detect them as a result of their effects on matter. The effect of light on a detector is
such a case, while a collision between two moving cars — two chunks of matter that in their violent encounter convert kinetic energy into a
change of matter — presents another example of the same process. A closer examination of the effects of energy on matter has led scholars to
the profound insight that it is energy — and energy alone — that can make matter change. It makes sense, therefore, to define ‘energy’ as
anything that can change matter, either its structure or its movements, including making it more, or less, complex.

9-3
It might sound pretty straightforward to ask which hospital provides the best care. But hospitals can be rated on any of a bewildering variety of
considerations, including inpatient volume, staffing levels, and specialty practices. Likewise, we could keep it simple and just look at death rates,
as some experts do. Of all the things we’d like to see happen during a hospital stay, avoiding death is usually at the top of the list. But death
rates don’t simply depend on the quality of treatment rendered by a hospital; they can also depend on how sick or old or poor the population
served by the hospital is, the extent to which a hospital takes on more difficult cases, the hospital’s ability to administer higher-risk treatments,
and even a hospital’s tendency to discharge patients prematurely so that more of them will die elsewhere. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services attempts to adjust its published hospital death rates for many of these factors, but that doesn’t fix the problem — most
hospitals simply end up with fairly similar rates, making the list of little use.

-2-
10-1
Westerners take the now-familiar rules of perspective drawing for granted. We all can see straight lines receding to a common point on the
horizon in the background, and we interpret this formalism as “real” even though perspective drawings are often grossly distorted in the same
way shadows are. There is, however, nothing intrinsically obvious about perspective. Anthropologists have found that many aboriginal peoples
have difficulty interpreting our 2-D depictions of 3-D objects, and artists, too, must learn the conventions. Indeed, much modern abstract art,
including that of Bridget Riley, explores the issues of working within an explicitly flat world, emphasizing the ways in which masses, colors, and
shapes interact differently than they do in our 3-D sensory world. Cubist art also explored the contrasts between a multitude of complementary
views of a 3-D object and the limitations of 2-D depiction.

10-2
Many of the worst urban environmental problems of industrialized countries have been substantially reduced in recent years. Air and water
quality have improved greatly because of new laws and investments in infrastructure. Wealthy cities generally have good working conditions,
housing and transportation systems. Communicable diseases are rare, and water quality, with modern water treatment facilities, is often better
than that in rural areas, making cities safer places to live. Still, many people regard city life as being more stressful than life in the country or
suburbs. In part this is perceptual Americans generally assume that cities are crime-ridden places, but theft, assault, murder, as well as accidents
and exposure to toxic compounds are often higher, per capita, in rural areas and small towns than in cities.

10-3
Omniscience, the capacity to know everything, sounds as though it could be a useful attribute even though it might give you a headache after a
while. Yet, surprisingly, there are situations in which it would be a real liability and you would be better off without it. The simplest example is
when two people are vying with each other in a confrontation that is a game of “chicken.” Such encounters are characterized by a situation in
which the loser is the first player to “blink.” If neither blinks then there is mutually assured destruction. The clash of two nuclear superpowers is
also an example. Another would be two car drivers heading toward each other at top speed to see who will swerve out of the way first to avoid
the crash. The loser is the first to pull out.
This game of chicken has an unexpected property: omniscience becomes a liability. If your opponents know that you have it then you will always
lose. If you know that your opponent always knows what you will do in the future then this means that you should never pull out of the looming
crash. Your omniscient opponent will know this is your strategy and will have to duck out to avoid being destroyed. If he had not been
omniscient, he could still have counted on you coming to your senses and chickening out before him. Omniscience is powerful if it is held in
secret.
Otherwise it shows us that although a little knowledge is said to be a bad thing, too much can be far worse!

<파워업 3 회 7 지문>

23
The more women go out to work, it has been said, the lower the birthrate will be. The idea is that it’s so much more difficult for parents to raise
children when both parents work full-time. Yet, in some countries, the facts suggest otherwise. Countries with high female labor participation
rates, such as Sweden, tend to have higher fertility rates than Italy and Japan, where fewer women work. Indeed, the decline in fertility has
been greatest in countries where female employment is low. It seems that if female labor participation is supported by the right policies, it need
not reduce fertility. In general, countries in which more women have stayed at home offer less support for working mothers, which causes lower
birth rates. In countries where women and men participate fairly equally in the workforce and childcare services are affordable and widely
available, birthrates do not tend to be lower than average.

24
A group of researchers reported an experiment in which students were asked: “How happy are you with your life in general?” and “How many
dates did you have last month?” For the average person, there is some connection, but not a strong one, between the answers to these
questions. After all, dating is only one part of a complete life. And when students in the experiment were asked these questions in this order,
the correlation between the answers to these questions was not statistically different from 0, but the correlation rose to 0.66 when the order
was reversed with another sample of students. The dating question evidently caused that aspect of life to become relevant and its importance
to be exaggerated when the respondents encountered the more general question about their happiness.
Similar effects were observed when attention was first called to respondents’ marriage or health.

-3-
32
Dreams expand the world. That is why James Allen suggested that “dreamers are the saviors of the world.” If we are to promote the freedom to
dream, we need, first and foremost, a creative environment. But what if the place where you work or study has an environment hostile to
creativity, and you possess little ability to change it? Your best option is to interact with other creative people. Creativity is contagious. Have you
ever noticed what happens during a good brainstorming session? One person throws out an idea, which is used as a springboard to discover
another idea by another person, who finds that someone else has taken his idea in yet another, even better direction. It’s a fact that you begin
to think like the people you spend a lot of time with, so if you want to dream, you ought to spend your time with other dreamers who bring
ideas to whole new levels.

36
Attention is a necessary prerequisite for conscious perception. In fact, you may not perceive something that is right before you unless you are
paying attention to it. But there must be more to the explanation than just that. What if you’re focused completely on one stimulus, and
another stimulus in the environment requires your attention? For example, imagine you are sitting in a library reading a book and someone
shouts, “Is that a fire?” Even though you are paying attention to the book, you still perceive the shout. Indeed, if there were absolutely no
processing of stimuli in the background, it would be necessary to periodically make a conscious decision to scan your surroundings to see if
anything important was happening: Let’s see, is anyone shouting “fire”?

37
Some people think that the “democratization of knowledge” made possible by the Internet means that we no longer need to rely on experts and
can request directly to the collective intelligence of amateurs. As evidence for this, they point to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia ― which is
written largely by amateurs. Its science articles, in particular, are said to be remarkably accurate. However, it is important to note that Wikipedia
is not in the business of content creation, but of summarizing content that has been created elsewhere ― usually by experts. Moreover, the
much-vaunted accuracy of its articles can itself only be judged by experts. This is not to criticize Wikipedia, but to point out that there is no
escape from requesting to experts. The broad spectrum of topics covered by Wikipedia is in many ways to be welcomed, and it is sometimes a
good place to begin your research. It is, however, a bad place to end it.
40
Repeated exposure makes us respond positively to strangers who just happen to look familiar to us. The mere fact that a person looks like our
uncle Harry, our old friend Mary, or the cashier at our neighborhood grocery store is enough to make him or her seem familiar and thus less
threatening. This occurs even when we are not consciously aware that we were exposed to a particular face. In a study that demonstrated this,
subjects were asked to talk about some neutral topic with two people who were confederates of the experimenter. Before the conversation, a
photograph of one of the confederates was flashed on a screen so quickly that the subjects were unaware of it. Despite their lack of awareness
of this subliminal exposure, the subjects still responded more favorably toward the familiar person than they did toward the person whose
photograph was not flashed.

41-42
For any nation, the recruiting of students from overseas evokes mixed feelings. There are two myths about the influx of international students.
One is the brain-drain myth, according to which the countries of origin are being robbed of talent. Take the case of the large numbers of
graduate students recruited from India over the past three or so decades ― mostly in science and engineering. The dire warnings about a brain
drain have proved false. The students have formed a bridge between India and the U.S. that is providing the two countries with new economic
opportunities along with a stable political relationship. The global matching of talent with opportunity is not limited to science and engineering.
The great American conservatories of music are filled with students of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean descent, as are the stages of our concert
halls. A second myth about the movement of students across borders is that the host country bears a net cost. If we again take the example of
American universities recruiting Indian graduate students in science and engineering, the truth is that the host nation is getting a return on this
investment. American graduate programs in science and engineering have long relied on the graduating classes of the Indian
Institute of Technology in order to meet the U.S. economy’s demand for scientists and engineers. Knowledge knows no national borders, and
learning shouldn’t either. Institutions of higher learning are taking the lead in reaching across nations to prepare global citizens and leaders for a
world in which cultures are more interwoven than ever before.

<파워업 4 회 9 지문>

-4-
30
Emotions play a critical function: they provide fuel for action. While they can sweep over us, leading us into temptation, they can also compel us
to take appropriate action, giving us courage and resolve. No one demonstrated this latter process of transformation better than Mahatma
Gandhi, who, without a single weapon, succeeded in putting an end to the centuries-long colonial domination of India by the British Empire. He
explained his secret as follows: “I had learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger. And as heat is
transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transformed into a power which can move the world.” As Gandhi suggested, refrain
from impulsive reaction, which is only a reckless waste of your precious energy. Finally, at the right moment, purposively reveal your emotional
energy as resolve.

31
Researchers of motor vehicle accidents have spent a great deal of time investigating the average driver’s reaction time, visual acuity, and ability
to estimate speed and distance, in the hope of better understanding and explaining the causes of accidents. However, dangerous driving may
have more to do with the opportunities that a car provides for self-expression. The thing is, when some people ─ young men in particular ─ get
behind the wheel, they use the power of their car to show the rest of the world how fast, clever, strong, or angry they are. They see their vehicle
as an extension of their own body or personality, which means trouble if they are feeling reckless.

32
A certain amount of bureaucracy, accountability and organization is vital for the world we live in. The benefits of bureaucracy do not need
urging. Yet the hidden costs are very considerable. A harmful effect of over-active bureaucracies is that they divert talent. In almost all
organizations, the higher the pay and the higher the status, the less practical work and the more administration. A head teacher who was
perhaps an excellent communicator does not teach any more. An excellent surgeon ends up doing paperwork as head of a hospital. A brilliant
academic is finally the administrative head of a university. None of them any longer do the thing they most enjoy or are good at. They spend
their time as fundraisers, personnel officers, and chairs of committees. It is a widespread tendency: if you can do anything really well, stop doing
it and become an administrator.
34
I sometimes try to explain to people who don’t use a computer how a computer could make their job easier. Often enough, their attitude is a
perfect expression of the words “Thanks, but no thanks.” Why do some people resist learning something that could make their job better or
easier? In most cases, the reason is fear. People who don’t know much about technology may worry that computers will replace them, or that a
computer will make them look incompetent. That’s why it’s a good idea to see teaching as like asking someone to go on a trip. Just as nobody
would accept an invitation to go to a place that they’ve heard is dangerous or unpleasant, people are reluctant to learn things that they think
will make them worse off. When you try to teach anyone something new, you have to make it clear from the start that the destination is a place
we’d all like to go to.

36
Space and time are interesting things. They can both be affected by matter ─ particularly large amounts of matter that have strong gravitational
influences. This is the basis for the work that Albert Einstein did, spurred on by a solar eclipse that occurred in 1919. He predicted that light rays
from distant stars would be bent as they passed by the Sun due to the Sun’s gravitational influence. The eclipse blocked sunlight, allowing
observers to see stars they normally wouldn’t see, and they succeeded in measuring a tiny shift in light due to gravitational lensing. This
observation led Einstein to publish work describing how the mass of an object curves local space-time, thus forcing light rays to bend ever so
slightly. The 1919 eclipse produced the first experimental confirmation of gravitational lensing.

37
There are a couple of ways of interpreting a situation in which someone is isolated socially. On one hand, it’s healthy for people to seek to be by
themselves from time to time. On the other hand, it becomes a real problem when people feel trapped, unhappy, and distressed because of
their lack of social and emotional interactions. Isolation by choice is pleasant solitude; without choice, it is depressing loneliness. That’s why the
isolated person’s perception of the situation is key in understanding social isolation. Simply counting the number and frequency of someone’s
social interactions is not enough to decide whether he or she is okay. For example, a homebound elderly man whose daughter visits every day
may still feel isolated and depressed. A satisfying social life is determined by the quality and shared sense of give-and-take, not by the number
and frequency of one’s social interactions.

38
The nutritious and tasty potato is an important food crop, feeding millions around the world. But potatoes are vulnerable to insect pests that
can destroy entire crops. Therefore, plant researchers have developed a new potato species with unique sticky hairs that can trap and kill

-5-
insects. This sticky hair potato is a cross between the common potato and a wild Bolivian variety. It has been shown to lower populations of
common insect pests by 40 to 60 percent, including the Colorado potato beetle, one of the most destructive potato pests. Unfortunately, the
hybrid potato’s sticky hairs also trap and kill beneficial insects. The plant researchers are working on this problem now by trying to reduce the
density of the sticky hairs.

40
Do you know a girl’s secret to selling cookies? She asks her neighbors if they can donate a bicycle to Africa. If the neighbors turn her down, she
then asks if they can help children in Africa by purchasing a box of cookies for $5. Then the neighbors are happy to make up for not donating a
bike. This technique was what psychologist Robert Cialdini discovered in an experiment. Cialdini had his assistants disguise themselves as
volunteer workers. They were instructed to approach college students and ask them if they were willing to volunteer two hours per week, for at
least two years. When this request was rejected, as expected, it was followed up with a more reasonable request, which was to lead a group of
juvenile delinquents on a two-hour trip to the zoo. Nearly 85% of their requests were accepted.
41-42
Fatigue does not necessarily occur at fixed points. To a large extent, mental and physical exhaustion may be determined by unquestioned
expectations. Psychologist Anita Karsten studied situations that at first feel good, but with repetition become neutral or uncomfortable. She put
subjects in “semi-free situations” in which they were given tasks to do but were instructed that they could stop working whenever they were
tired. They were told to do the work as long as they enjoyed it. Tasks were of two types: continuous activities such as drawing or writing, and
tasks that come to a quick end but are repeated, such as reading a short poem again and again. For each type of task, the subjects worked until
they grew weary.
The investigator then changed the context. For instance, after the subjects had drawn until exhausted, the investigator asked them to turn the
page over and re-draw the last picture they had drawn, to show the experimenter how fast they could draw it. The “totally exhausted” subjects
had no difficulty repeating the drawing in the new context. Another subject was given the task of writing ababab... until he had had enough. He
went on until he was mentally and physically exhausted. His hand felt numb, as though it couldn’t move to make even one more mark. At that
moment the investigator asked him to sign his name and address for a different purpose. The context created by the new request seemed to act
as a new stimulus to him. He did so quite easily. Similarly, other subjects, who read short poems repeatedly, did the same thing. When Karsten
had subjects read poems aloud, after a while they became hoarse.
When they complained to her how they hated the task, however, the hoarseness disappeared.

<파워업 5 회 8 지문>

20
No one will fit in perfectly in every situation. Personality traits that are merits in one circumstance may be considered shortcomings in another
circumstance, and vice versa. Those who are admired for their deliberate and careful handling of things in one workplace, for example, may find
themselves criticized as boring and unadventurous in another workplace. Or a friend who is considered too aggressive in many ordinary
situations may be a hero in an emergency. Everyone has both their strong points and weak points, and these are not absolutes; instead, they are
relative to situations. So it is important to see the other side of everyone’s drawbacks and assets. Those who are always digging out and focusing
on the weak points of others are likely to have few friends or admirers.

31
Education researchers at the University of Sussex have found major flaws in the British Prime Minister’s education policy, which aims to have
ability groupings as the norm in key subjects. Two new independent studies have shown that organizing schoolchildren into sets is unfair, and
not an accurate means of assessing ability. Research by Jo Boaler, a professor of Education at Sussex, revealed that children in mixed ability
mathematics classes outperformed those grouped by ability. The other new study by Sussex researchers has revealed that children are being
assigned to a group according to their social background, with middle-class pupils more likely to be placed in higher-ability sets, irrespective of
their prior scholastic achievements.

32
In the mid-1970s, two social psychologists asked students at a large university to spend five minutes completing a brief test designed to measure
the complexity of their thoughts. The students had to unscramble a series of anagrams, but there was no way they could finish the entire series
within the allotted five-minute period. The researcher told the students that a bell would ring after five minutes, and they shouldn’t continue
working past the bell, since that would be cheating. Some of the students completed the test across from a large mirror, whereas others
couldn’t see themselves while they worked on the anagrams. Meanwhile, the experimenter looked through one-way glass and counted how
many of the students continued to work past the five-minute bell. The results were astonishing: only 7 percent of the students who saw

-6-
themselves in the mirror cheated, whereas a massive 71 percent cheated when they weren’t forced to look at themselves as they decided
whether to behave honestly. When people consider behaving badly, their mirror images become moral police officers.
33
People seek to be anonymous for all kinds of reasons. Some of these reasons are lawful, as when people vote in elections. Other reasons are
illegal and immoral, as when criminals use false names to commit crimes and avoid capture. Another kind of anonymity isn’t created by an
individual’s choices but by a gradual eroding of ownership information. This especially happens with quotations. Many quotations have no
known authors, so are signed “Anonymous.” Each of these quotations must have started out as an original with a single author, but over the
decades or even centuries, the author’s name may have been misspelled, omitted, changed, and then finally lost altogether. Or the quotation
itself may have been slightly modified in modern times by different people who couldn’t claim to “own” the original words or idea, and in this
way the quotation came to be authored by “Anonymous.”

34
Popular people are the trendsetters of society, especially when it comes to the outbreak of diseases. During the H1N1 pandemic, researchers
tracked and compared the spread of the disease in a random sample of students and a group of more socially dominant students at one
university. While both groups ended up coming down with the flu in similar numbers, the more “popular” group of students got sick about two
weeks ahead of their less socially-connected peers, and this fact makes them a potentially useful gauge of when and to what extent a future flu
outbreak might occur. Because individuals who are more connected within their social network come into contact with individuals in that
network more frequently, the logic goes that these social butterflies are also more likely to be the first to catch a communicable bug going
around.

36
When trying to influence opinion and persuade listeners or readers to agree with a certain way of thinking, people often use words that are
carefully selected for their ability to stir up emotions instead of logic. This is called using loaded language. For example, a liberal journalist might
write about government spending on “the military” where a conservative would use the expression “national defense” instead. Similarly, if a
writer favors abortion, she will call those who share her views “pro-choice,” since the expression has strong positive connotations, and the
people such expressions are associated with will be seen in a positive light. However, if she were anti-abortion, she would call those who share
her views “pro-life,” for the same reason. Thus, recognizing loaded language reveals important clues about the user’s points of views.

40
Most of us are taught to pay attention to what is said ─ verbal language. Words do provide us with some information, but the meanings are
derived from so many other sources. Take a simple phrase like, “I’ll give you a lesson.” If a counselor tells his client in a polite voice, “I’ll give you
a lesson,” the counselor could imply that he could help him by sharing his personal experiences. However, if a sergeant says the same thing to a
private with firmness in his voice, he would imply that the private would get some sort of punishment for his wrongdoing. When a guest
comments to a host with the emphasis in his voice, “It’s a bit chilly in here,” the host understands that this is not simply an observation but
really a request to have the window closed.

41-42
Test anxiety is one of the most common problems students experience. The brainpower necessary to successfully complete the test can be
hijacked by worrying. Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, and her colleagues studied students who seemed to
choke under pressure and didn’t perform as well as expected in stress-filled situations. They asked a group of 20 college students to solve a
series of math problems, telling them that the highest scorers on the test would be rewarded with money. To really pile on the pressure,
students were also told they would be videotaped during the exam and both their professors and peers would be watching.
One group of students was instructed to sit quietly for 10 minutes before the test; the rest spent the time writing down their thoughts and
feelings about the upcoming exam. Those who put pen to paper outperformed the others, enjoying a 5 percent boost on their test scores.
“Writing down these negative thoughts gives you a chance to see them on paper and rethink your negativity. Then those thoughts are less likely
to enter your head during the test and distract you,” says Sian Beilock. “It’s almost as if you’ve emptied your mind. Now you have the cognitive
power to perform at your best.” Beilock repeated similar tests with more than 50 ninth-graders taking a final exam in biology. Students who
wrote down their worries before the final earned a B+ on the exam, while students who wrote about something else earned a B-.

-7-