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  3. Happiness follows a U-shaped curve during a person’s lifetime, according to research showing that middle-aged people are the unh

Happiness follows a U-shaped curve during a person’s lifetime, according to research showing that middle-aged people are the unh

admin2013-07-30  61
问题     Happiness follows a U-shaped curve during a person’s lifetime, according to research showing that middle-aged people are the unhappiest.
    Satisfaction with life starts to drop as early as a person’s late 20s and does not begin to recover until well past 50, says Bert van Landeghem, an economist at Maastricht University in Belgium. While young adults are carefree and full of hope for the future and the over-50s have come to terms with the trials of life, the research indicates that those in the middle feel weighed down by the demands on them.
    The study found "a substantial dip in happiness during the middle of people’s lives is the equivalent to becoming unemployed or losing a family member".
    The conclusions come in a study of how people perceive their wellbeing. Mr. van Landeghem, who is 29, will present his research at the Royal Economic Society annual conference at Royal Holloway, the University of London, this week.
    While Mr. van Landeghem said happiness did return with age, he warned that older people did not actually recapture the spirit of their youth. They simply learnt to be satisfied with their lot. "A U-shaped happiness curve does not necessarily imply that a 65-year-old prefers his own life to the life of a 25-year-old," he said. "Both the 25-year-old and 65-year-old might agree that it is nicer to be 25 than to be 65. But the 65-year-old might nevertheless be more satisfied, as he has learned to be satisfied with what he has."
    Studies around the world have shown that happiness tends to dip in midlife, he said, and that this was not just a phenomenon confined to the Western world.
    Last month, Lewis Wolpert, emeritus(荣誉的)professor of biology at University College London, said happiness could peak as late as 80. In a book called You ’re Looking Very Well, Prof Wolpert said most people were "averagely happy" in their teens and 20s, but this declined until early middle age as they attempted to support a family and career.
    He added: "From the mid-40s, people tend to become ever more cheerful and optimistic, perhaps reaching a maximum in their late 70s or 80s." An easing of the responsibilities of middle age, maturity and an increased focus on the things we enjoy contributed to the trend, he said.
Compared with both the young and the old, the middle-aged are unhappier because there are heavy demands which______.
选项
答案weigh them down
解析 根据题干中的the middle-aged和demands将本题出处定位到第二段末句。该句提到，青年人无忧无虑，并且对未来充满希望，过了五十岁的人已经开始坦然应对生活的种种考验，而中年人则被众多肩上的责任所烦恼困扰。由此可知，与年轻人和老年人相比，中年人之所以更加不快乐是因为feel weighed down by the demands on them，因为weighed down与其逻辑主语demands之间为主动关系，故用原形weigh down即可；而weigh down的宾语是the middle-aged，为避免重复，用them代替即可，故答案为weigh them down。
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