2. 外语
  3. Several recent studies have shown a link between health and stair usage. One recently completed study shows that people who live

Several recent studies have shown a link between health and stair usage. One recently completed study shows that people who live

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问题 Several recent studies have shown a link between health and stair usage. One recently completed study shows that people who live in stairs-only apartment buildings (that is, buildings without elevators) live an average of three years longer than do people who live in buildings with both elevators and stairs. A second study shows that elderly residents of buildings with elevators make, on average, twice as many visits to doctors each year as do residents of buildings without elevators. Furthermore, several doctor’s offices are reporting that residents of stairs-only buildings scored higher than average on questionnaires administered to new patients, in which the patients were asked to rate several aspects of their own health (e.g., fitness, sleep quality, susceptibility to injury, etc.). The clearest explanation for these findings is that the moderate daily exercise required of residents who must use the stairs instead of elevators increases people’s health and longevity.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
选项
答案 The author of this argument attributes the observed differences in life expectancy, hospital visits, and survey results to the fact that when people use stairs, they are actually doing moderate exercise. As a result, their health and longevity benefit from this moderate level of exercise every day. While it could be true that stairs are the key to a healthier and longer life, there are so many confounding factors in the studies mentioned by the author that several alternative explanations exist. Those explanations may well account for the differences in personal health observed in each example cited by the author. To begin with, the observed differences could entirely be due to different geography. High-rise apartment buildings in the city are unlikely to have no elevator, so one may reasonably assume that people living in buildings with elevators are urban residents. On the other hand, apartment buildings with only stairs may refer to those two- or three-story duplexes often found in the suburbs and the countryside, or even include townhouses commonly located very far away from the bustling and congested urban core. In this scenario, the fact that people living in buildings with only stairs live longer and healthier can be attributed to their suburban and rural lifestyle, in which there is much less noise and less air pollution due to the urban traffic. The pace of life may play a role, too, as urban life is intense and could exert a negative psychological effect on the urban dwellers. This may well explain why respondents of the survey report lower scores if they are living in building with elevators. The main reason is not the presence or absence of elevators, but whether they live inside or outside the city center. Second, let’s take a look at the observation that elderly residents in buildings with elevators are likely to pay twice as many visits to doctors each year as do people who live in stair-only buildings. The author here associates the number of visits to doctor’s offices with their health conditions, but this may not necessarily be the case. Instead, to visit doctors more could simply mean that they have better healthcare and more money to spend, so they could afford doing so. This is not unreasonable, as buildings with elevators are likely to cost more in monthly rents than buildings with no elevators. Therefore, the reason behind the fact that the elderly people living in an elevator-equipped building pay more visits to their doctors could be entirely socioeconomical and has no connection to the amount of exercise from the use of stairs. Finally, even if we acknowledge the inference made above that more hospital visits means poorer health, the author interprets this correlation implies a causal link. Specifically speaking, people go to doctors more because they indulge in the convenience of elevators and lack exercise. Yet, real link could be the other way around: it is because of their poorer health that those elderly people specifically look for elevators in the building. This could as well explain why people living in buildings with elevators tend to live a shorter life than those do not. Apparently, it is not surprising that people with more severe health issues will have a shorter life expectancy. At any rate, the key here is that the choice of stair-only buildings versus elevators is the consequence of, not the reason for, theirhealth conditions. To conclude, while the correlations between better health and stair-only buildings are intriguing, they do not necessarily imply that the exercise from the forced use of stairs is the key to better health and longevity. Other factors, such as geographic locations, socioeconomical classes, and pre-existing health conditions, could be what is really determining people’s health. (622 words)
解析     在本题中，作者通过列举住楼梯房的人的健康状况更好(活得更久、看病次数少、健康问卷打分更高)，将这种更好的个人健康归因于楼梯的使用，其逻辑框架为：
    住楼梯房比电梯房活得更久(三年)+住电梯房的老人看病次数更多+这些老人的入院调查表明，住楼梯房打分更高→住楼梯房，爬楼梯带来的锻炼有助于身体健康
    这篇文章非常有意思，因为它乍看之下确实很有道理，甚至有些符合我们的认知预期——爬楼梯做运动是合乎逻辑的。但和上一题一样，我们还是要把作者背后的逻辑思路捋清楚，而不能陷入到我们的直觉当中。在这里，两件同时发生的事情可能互为因果。原文中认为住楼梯房是良好健康状况的原因，但或许另一种反过来的情况也是对的——恰恰是因为老人身体不好，他们才需要住电梯房。
    除了互为因果之外，同时发生的事情之间可能存在一个共同的原因，譬如能经常看医生不代表身体就一定差，而是他们有钱、能够支付好的医疗资源和服务。这样一来，住电梯房的人看医生更多就不再是身体不好的体现，而是经济实力的象征：有钱才可以看医生，才可以住电梯房，这两者之间存在一个共同的原因。
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