In his "Odyssey", Homer immortalized the idea of resisting temptation by having the protagonist tied to the mast of his ship, to

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问题     In his "Odyssey", Homer immortalized the idea of resisting temptation by having the protagonist tied to the mast of his ship, to hear yet not succumb to the beautiful, dangerous songs of the Sirens. Researchers have long been intrigued as to whether this ability to avoid, or defer, gratification is related to outcomes in life. The best-known test is the "marshmallow" experiment, in which children who could refrain from eating the confection for 15 minutes were given a second one. Children who could not wait tended to have lower incomes and poorer health as adults. New research suggests that kids who are unable to delay rewards are also more likely to become criminals later.
    Recently, four researchers used data from a Swedish survey in which more than 13,000 children aged 13 were asked whether they would prefer to receive $140 now or $1,400 in five years’ time.
    About four-fifths of them said they were prepared to wait.
    Unlike previous researchers, the authors were able to track all the children and account for their parental background and cognitive ability. They found that the 13-year-olds who wanted the smaller sum of money at once were 32% more likely to be convicted of a crime during the next 18 years than those children who said they would rather wait for the bigger reward. Individuals who are impatient, they believe, prefer instant benefits and are therefore less likely to be deterred by potential punishments.
    But those who fret that a person’ s criminal path is set already as a teenager should not despair. The four researchers offer a remedy. When the respondents’ education was included in the analysis, they found that higher educational attainment was linked to a preference for delayed gratification.
    Educational attainment and patience are related either because patience helps students to do better or because schooling makes people more likely to postpone rewards. Fortunately, there is evidence in support of the latter theory. Francisco Perez-Arce of the RAND Corporation, a think-tank, interviewed around 2,000 applicants for Mexican universities. The students had similar credentials but some obtained admission through a lottery to a university that did not charge tuition fees, whereas the rest had to apply elsewhere. As a result, a higher proportion of lottery-winners than losers went to college. After a year, Mr. Perez-Arce found, the lottery-winners were more patient than the losers. Since the process was random, he concluded that higher education can make people place more weight on the future.
It is concluded that educational attainment and patience are related because

选项 A、patience helps students to do better.
B、gratification is delayed by receiving higher education.
C、schooling makes people less likely to postpone rewards.
D、higher education can make people value the future more.

答案D

解析 根据题干定位到第五段。由原文Fortunately,there is evidence in support of the latter theory.可知后一种原因是有论据支撑的,结合最后一句he concluded that higher education can make people place more weight on the future,可知D项“高等教育可以使人们更加看重未来”为正确答案。A项是前一种理论,可能没有论据支撑。B项“通过接受高等教育,满足感被延迟了”,C项“学校教育使人们不太可能推迟回报”,均与原文不符。
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