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  3. One stereotype of wisdom is a wizened Zen-master smiling kindly at his pupils, while referring to them as little grasshoppers an

One stereotype of wisdom is a wizened Zen-master smiling kindly at his pupils, while referring to them as little grasshoppers an

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问题     One stereotype of wisdom is a wizened Zen-master smiling kindly at his pupils, while referring to them as little grasshoppers and safe in the knowledge that one day they, too, will have been set on the path that leads to wizened masterhood. But is it true that age brings wisdom? A study two years ago in North America, by Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo, in Canada, suggested that it is. Dr. Grossmann found that elderly Americans had more of it than youngsters. He has, however, now extended his investigation to Asia—the land of the wizened Zen-master—and, in particular, to Japan. There, he found, in contrast to the West, that the grasshoppers are their masters’ equals almost from the beginning.
    Dr. Grossmann recruited 186 Japanese from various walks of life and compared them with 225 Americans. Participants were asked to read a series of pretend newspaper articles. Half described conflict between groups, such as a debate between residents of an impoverished Pacific island over whether to allow foreign oil companies to operate there following the discovery of petroleum. The other half took the form of advice columns that dealt with conflicts between individuals: siblings, friends and spouses. After reading each article, participants were asked "What do you think will happen after that?" and "Why do you think it will happen this way?" Their responses were recorded and transcribed.
    Dr. Grossmann and his colleagues removed age-related information from the transcripts, and also any clues to participants’ nationalities, and then passed the edited versions to a group of assessors. These assessors were trained to rate transcribed responses consistently, and had been tested to show that their ratings were statistically comparable with one another.
    The assessors scored participants’ responses on a scale of one to three. This attempted to capture the degree to which they discussed what psychologists consider five crucial aspects of wise reasoning: willingness to seek opportunities to resolve conflict; willingness to search for compromise; recognition of the limits of personal knowledge; awareness that more than one perspective on a problem can exist; and appreciation of the fact that things may get worse before they get better.
    The upshot was that, as Dr. Grossmann had found before, Americans do get wiser with age. Their intergroup wisdom score averaged 45 at the age of 25 and 55 at 75. Their interpersonal score similarly climbed from 46 to 50. Japanese scores, by contrast, hardly varied with age. Both 25-year-olds and 75-year-olds had an average intergroup wisdom of 51. For interpersonal wisdom, it was 53 and 52.
    Taken at face value, these results suggest Japanese learn wisdom faster than Americans. One up, then, to the wizened Zen-masters. But they also suggest a paradox. Generally, America is seen as an individualistic society, whereas Japan is quite collectivist. Yet Japanese have higher scores than Americans for the sort of interpersonal wisdom you might think would be useful in an individualistic society. Americans, by contrast—at least in the maturity of old age—have more intergroup wisdom than the purportedly collectivist Japanese. Perhaps, then, you need individual skills when society is collective, and social ones when it is individualistic. All of which goes to show that the real root of wisdom is this: do not assume, little grasshopper, that your prejudices are correct.
    [A]interpersonal skills are more important for Americans.
    [B]conflicts between groups and advice to deal with conflicts between individuals.
    [C]slightly between young people and old people.
    [D]greatly with age.
    [E]Japanese social skills are higher than Americans’.
    [F]can rate transcribed responses consistently.
    [G]one day his pupils will be as smart as him.
Japanese scores vary
选项
答案C
解析 根据题干关键词Japanese scores vary定位到第五段倒数第二、三句Japanese scores，by contrast，hardly varied with age．Both 25-year-olds and 75-year-olds had an average intergroup wisdom of 51，这两句意为“但是与美国人的结果相反，日本人的分数与年龄并无太大关系。25岁和75岁的人的社会群体的判断力平均分都是51分”。故C项“日本人的分数在年轻人和老年人之间变化甚微”符合题意，为正确答案。此题的易混项为D项“日本人的分数随年龄变化甚大”，是对hardly varied with age的误解，故排除。
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