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  3. Worrying about making ends meet, it seems, can occupy enough of the brain’s finite thinking power that it makes it difficult to

Worrying about making ends meet, it seems, can occupy enough of the brain’s finite thinking power that it makes it difficult to

admin2019-08-01  74
问题     Worrying about making ends meet, it seems, can occupy enough of the brain’s finite thinking power that it makes it difficult to think clearly.
     【R1】______That may help to explain why poverty can become a vicious cycle, with lower income people tending to make seemingly irrational and risky decisions, particularly when it comes to money.
     【R2】______The mall visitors had household incomes ranging from $20,000 to $150,000, with a median income of $70,000. The farmers were relatively flush with cash at harvest—but desperately poor for most of the rest of the year.
    The shoppers considered a range of financial difficulties, from having to take small pay cuts to larger ones, or to suddenly being faced with minor or more expensive car repairs. They were asked about how they would cope with such problems—by borrowing, cutting spending or skipping the car repair and hoping for the best. Then they took tests to measure IQ and their cognitive skills.
     【R3】______But when faced with more serious financial concerns, the lower income individuals did much worse than their wealthier counterparts. In fact, in one version of the experiment where participants were paid for each correct answer, the rich earned 18% more than those who weren’t as well off.
    The findings among the Indian sugarcane farmers were almost as strong. The researchers tested 464 farmers before and after harvest, when their finances were drastically different. When the farmers had cash after harvest, they performed well on the cognitive tests. But before harvest, when money was scarcer, they did much worse—showing a decline similar to the loss of 10 IQ points.
    With half the American population living from paycheck to paycheck, the study’s lead author Eldar Shafir, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, says the findings are relevant to understanding how financial circumstances influence intellectual ability.
     【R4】______says Shafir, in explaining the findings. And numerous studies confirm that when mental load increases, decision-making quality goes down. That’s why people tend to make worse choices at the end of the day—or after making multiple decisions, even if some were trivial.
    Can you overcome the problem by not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed, or by convincing yourself that you have more mental thinking power than you actually do? While some studies found that such mental gymnastics could boost, they may only work up to a point.【R5】______
[A]To determine how budgetary concerns affect thinking, the researchers examined the effects of financial strain among both a group of shoppers at a New Jersey mall and impoverished sugarcane farmers in rural India.
[B]"There’s always been this perception that the poor function less well, but it’s not the person, it’s the situation they’re in and anyone could find themselves there. When you don’t have enough money, it occupies your mind and takes away bandwidth that you could use for other things."
[C]A growing body of research suggests that such inequality has a profound influence on a population’s health, in every socioeconomic group from rich to middle class to poor.
[D]According to the latest research published in Science, just thinking about shaky finances can drop IQ by the equivalent of 13 points.
[E]Positive thinking alone, it seems, isn’t enough to tackle a heavy mental load.
[F]"Previous studies have found the poor to be generally less productive and to have lower IQs, but those studies also left the impression that these factors might be causes of poverty, while the latest research suggests that they may be the result."
[G]When confronted with relatively minor financial problems, the lower income people performed equally well on the tests as higher income folks.
【R5】
选项
答案E
解析 空格处前文提到是否可以通过积极的心理活动来克服经济困境对大脑智力的影响。所有选项中，只有[E]项的内容涉及这个话题，[E]项指出：仅仅依靠积极的思维，似乎并不足以解决沉重的精神负担。这和上文的意思相符合，也能通顺地衔接下文，因此为正确选项。
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