Over the last 70 years, researchers have been studying happy and unhappy people and finally found out ten factors that make a difference. Our feelings of well-being at any moment are decided to a certain degree by genes. However, of all the factors, wealth and age are the top two.
Money can buy a degree of happiness. But once you can afford to feed, clothe and house yourself, each extra dollar makes less and less difference. Researchers find that, on average, wealthier people are happier. But the link between money and happiness is complex. In the past half-century, the average income has sharply increased in developed countries, yet happiness levels have remained almost the same. Once your basic needs are met, money only seems to increase happiness if you have more than your friends, neighbors and colleagues.
“Dollars buy status (social position), and status makes people feel better,” say some experts, which helps explain why people who can seek status in other ways, scientists or actors, for example, may happily accept relatively poorly-paid jobs.
In his research, Professor Alex Michalos found that the people whose desires, not just for money, but for friends, family, job, health, rose furthest beyond what they already had, tended to be less happy than those who felt a smaller gap. Indeed, the size of the gap predicted happiness about five times better than income alone. “The gap measures just blow away the measures of only income.”says Michalos.
Another factor that has to do with happiness is age. Old age may not be so bad “Given all the problems of aging, how could the elderly be more satisfied?” asks Professor Laura Carstensen. In one survey, Carstensen interviewed 184 people between the ages of 18 and 94, and asked them to fill out an emotion questionnaire. She found that old people reported positive emotions just as often as young people. Some scientists suggest older people may expect life to be harder and learn to live with it, or they’re more realistic about their time running out. Older people have learned to focus on things that make them happy and let go of those that don’t.
“People realize not only what they have, but also that what they have cannot last forever,” she says. “A goodbye kiss to a husband or wife at the age of 85, for example, may bring far more complex emotional responses than a similar kiss to a boy or girl friend at the age of 20.”
【小题1】Some actors would like to accept poorly-paid jobs because the jobs__________.

These days，it is easier for us to travel to other countries than ever before．However，there is a big difficulty that most of us   1    when we meet people in other countries—we cannot communicate with them．There are   2   where English is still not spoken，though it is the most widely known language．So，wouldn't it be   3   if there was one language that could be understood by anyone anywhere in the world?

Esperanto that was created in 1887 may be the world's  4  truly international language．In fact，although   5   artificial（人造的）languages have been already created，only Esperanto has had much success．Its learners say that it is about four times   6    to learn than other languages．Spelling and pronunciation are both easy，too．For example，it does not have silent __7_ like the “h” in “honest”．If you   8   a word，you can spell it without any difficulty．The grammar is also as simple as possible：only sixteen basic   9   ，no irregular verbs（不规则动词），only six verb endings．

In short，Esperanto should be attractive（有吸引力的）as a language to learn，  10   there is a problem：how many people have met anyone who can really speak it? Anyway，we hope that some day one language can be mastered easily by anyone．

1．A．need                      B．miss                    C．face                       D．touch

2．A．offices                     B．schools                 C．cities                     D．places

3．A．safe                     B．nice                     C．funny                    D．difficult

4．A．first                     B．another                  C．last                        D．other

5．A．little                 B．a little                    C．few                       D．a few

6．A．better                      B．easier                    C．slower                    D．shorter

7．A．marks                     B．parts                    C．words                    D．letters

8．A．hear                     B．see                      C．watch                    D．notice

9．A．subjects                   B．sentences                      C．rules                      D．lessons

10．A．and                       B．but                      C．so                         D．because

Long long ago，people in Rome（罗马）talked to one another in Latin（拉丁文）．Pupils in school learned to read and（A）______in Latin．Books are in Latin．

Some Romans（罗马人）went to other parts of the world．They took their language with them．Soon（B）拉丁文在许多国家被使用．It became a world language．

People in other countries did not talk in Latin the same way．In each land．They（C）______the language a little．As time went by，they made more changes．（D）At last they did not talk in Latin any more．New languages had come from the old one．

（E）People do not talk to each other in Latin today．But they still use many Latin words．You do, too．Street，wall，city，and salt am some of the Latin words we use．There’re many pupils in school，Pupil is a Latin word，（F）It means “little doll”．

1．在划线部分（A）和（C）的空白处填入适当的单词：_________;_________

2．将划线部分（B）译成英语：_________________________________

3．将划线部分（D）改写为：

At last they_________ more_________ in Latin．

4．将划线部分（E）译成汉语：______________________________

5．划线部分（F）在文中所指代的是：_________