第 40 至 43 題為題組 The Japanese have long puzzled public health researchers because they are such an apparent paradox:
They have the world’s lowest rates of heart disease and the largest number of people that live to or
beyond 100 years despite the fact that most Japanese men smoke—and smoking counts as one of the
strongest risk factors for heart disease. So what’s protecting Japanese men?
Two professors at the University of California at Berkeley hoped to find out the answer. They
investigated a pool of 12,000 Japanese men equally divided into three groups: One group had lived in
Japan for all their lives, and the other two groups had emigrated to Hawaii or Northern California. It was
found that the rate of heart disease among Japanese men increased five times in California and about half
of that for those in Hawaii.
The differences could not be explained by any of the usual risk factors for heart disease, such as
smoking, high blood pressure, or cholesterol counts. The change in diet, from sushi to hamburgers and
fries, was also not related to the rise in heart disease. However, the kind of society they had created for
themselves in their new home country was. The most traditional group of Japanese Americans, who
maintained tight-knit and mutually supportive social groups, had a heart-attack rate as low as their fellow
Japanese back home. But those who had adopted the more isolated Western lifestyle increased their
heart-attack incidence by three to five times.
The study shows that the need to bond with a social group is so fundamental to humans that it
remains the key determinant of whether we stay healthy or get ill, even whether we live or die. We need
to feel part of something bigger to thrive. We need to belong, not online, but in the real world of hugs,
handshakes, and pats on the back.
【題組】42. Which of the following is an example of “something bigger” in the last paragraph?
(A) A family.
(B) A stadium.
(C) The universe.
(D) The digital world.