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  3. Dr. Rablen and Dr. Oswald have just published a study which concludes that Nobel science laureates live significantly longer tha

Dr. Rablen and Dr. Oswald have just published a study which concludes that Nobel science laureates live significantly longer tha

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问题     Dr. Rablen and Dr. Oswald have just published a study which concludes that Nobel science laureates live significantly longer than those of their colleagues who were nominated for a prize, but failed to receive one. They work with data from 1901 to 1950, and the search is restricted to men (to avoid differences in life span between the sexes), and those killed prematurely are eliminated. That gave them 135 prize winners and 389 also-rans.
    The theory they were testing was that status itself, rather than the trappings of status, such as wealth, act to prolong life. This idea was first declared by Sir Michael Marmot, of University College, London. Sir Michael studied the health of British civil servants and discovered, contrary to his and everyone else’s expectations, that those at the top of the hierarchy — whom the stress of the job was expected to have affected adversely — were actually far healthier than the supposedly unstressed functionaries at the bottom of the heap. Subsequent research has confirmed this result, and suggested it is nothing to do with the larger salaries of those at the top. But Dr. Rablen and Dr. Oswald thought it would be interesting to refine the observation still further, by studying individuals who were all, in a sense, at the top. By comparing people good enough to be considered for a Nobel, they could measure what the status of having one was worth.
    Comparing winners and also-rans from within the same countries, to avoid yet another source of bias, Dr. Rablen and Dr. Oswald found that the winners lived, on average, two years longer than those who had merely been nominated. Exactly what causes this increased longevity is unclear. It is not the cash, though. The inflation adjusted value of the prize has fluctuated over the years, so the two researchers were able to see if the purchasing power of the money was correlated with longevity. It was not.
    With the hierarchically ordered individuals studied by Sir Michael and his successors, both medical records and experiments on animals suggest stress hormones are involved. It is, indeed, more stressful to be at the bottom than the top, even if being at the top involves making decisions on the fate of nations. The result Dr. Rablen and Dr. Oswald have come up with, though, suggests a positive effect associated with high status, rather than the absence of a negative effect, since unsuccessful nominees never know that they have been nominated.
    A similar effect has been noted once before, in a different field. Research published a few years ago by Donald Redelmeier and Sheldon Singh showed that Oscar winning actors and actresses live 3.6 years longer than those who are nominated, but do not win. However, in that case the failed nominees do know that they have failed. And, curiously, Oscar winning scriptwriters live 3.6 years less than do nominees. Perhaps writers, unlike actors and scientists, live in a world of inverted snobbery.
According to the passage, Redelmeier and Singh’s study
选项 A、has been refined further by the two doctors.
B、has disproved the conclusions of the two doctors.
C、considered both positive and negative factors.
D、considered the positive effects of several factors.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。由题干关键词将信息定位于尾段。该段第二句谈到，莱德梅尔和辛格的研究报告指出，奥斯卡奖获奖演员的寿命要比那些获得提名但最终未得奖的演员平均长3．6年；接着，倒数第二句又说，奥斯卡最佳编剧奖获奖者的寿命却比提名者要短3．6年。归纳起来，该研究既考虑了奥斯卡奖的积极效应也考虑了其消极影响，故[C]正确。本项研究与前面提到的两位博士的研究为不同领域里进行的不同研究，文中不涉及二者的关联，故[A]错误；从尾段首句可知，本段所谈到的研究与前面两位博士的研究相似；虽然后面提到了“奥斯卡最佳编剧奖获得者比只获得提名者的寿命更短”，但并没有指出这一现象推翻了“地位高具有积极影响”这一结论，故[B]过度引申；[D]中“多个因素”从原文找不到依据，故排除。
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