11th form Reading B2

Read the text. Choose the heading which best fits each paragraph. There is one heading you do not need to use.

WHY DON'T YOU GET A PROPER JOB?

Read the text and choose the answer you think fits best for each question.

Living for a Century

The good news is that we can all expect to live both longer and healthier lives than any other generation in history. How well we age, however, is basically up to u s!

The 20th century will probably be largely remembered (or having the highest increase in life expectancy in recorded history. The average lifespan for men and women has now almost doubled. What's more, this seems to be a continuing trend.

Not only are we living longer, but we are also living a far healthier lifestyle. With record numbers of fit, healthy people reaching the age of 90 and over, it is becoming clear that negative predictions of a greying population, troubled by increasing numbers of diseases as well as huge medical bills, have been exaggerated.

Our view of what old age actually means has changed dramatically. Many of todays pensioners, compared to the elderly in days gone by, tend to enjoy a quality of life without stress, travelling here, there and everywhere, learning new skills, taking up different sports, starting businesses and actively looking forward to each new day. Our actual opinion of what is old and what is not old tends to change with the passing of time as well as higher levels of longevity.

We can see that there are many different aspects affecting the ageing process, including lifestyle, attitude, social circumstances and diet. Studies carried out on mice, for example, have shown that intake of fewer calories allowed mice to live up to 40% longer than those who ate as much as they wanted. In human years this is equal to 30 or 40 more years of life. The mice also stayed energetic longer, had better memories and lower levels of cancer. Japanese people living on the island of Okinawa, in fact, consume 20 percent fewer calories than the rest of the population of Japan and, as a result, have the highest population of centenarians anywhere in the world!

The challenge the rest of us now face is how to delay the ageing process. There are, in fact, two different aspects to ageing that we need to be aware of, the one involving the natural passing of time and the other involving the natural, physical ageing of the body. While we have no control over our chronological age, we can, up to a point, do a lot to slow down biological ageing by taking the following advice.

According to the writer, life in old age is improving because

Read the text and choose the answer you think fits best for each question.

Living for a Century

The good news is that we can all expect to live both longer and healthier lives than any other generation in history. How well we age, however, is basically up to u s!

The 20th century will probably be largely remembered (or having the highest increase in life expectancy in recorded history. The average lifespan for men and women has now almost doubled. What's more, this seems to be a continuing trend.

Not only are we living longer, but we are also living a far healthier lifestyle. With record numbers of fit, healthy people reaching the age of 90 and over, it is becoming clear that negative predictions of a greying population, troubled by increasing numbers of diseases as well as huge medical bills, have been exaggerated.

Our view of what old age actually means has changed dramatically. Many of todays pensioners, compared to the elderly in days gone by, tend to enjoy a quality of life without stress, travelling here, there and everywhere, learning new skills, taking up different sports, starting businesses and actively looking forward to each new day. Our actual opinion of what is old and what is not old tends to change with the passing of time as well as higher levels of longevity.

We can see that there are many different aspects affecting the ageing process, including lifestyle, attitude, social circumstances and diet. Studies carried out on mice, for example, have shown that intake of fewer calories allowed mice to live up to 40% longer than those who ate as much as they wanted. In human years this is equal to 30 or 40 more years of life. The mice also stayed energetic longer, had better memories and lower levels of cancer. Japanese people living on the island of Okinawa, in fact, consume 20 percent fewer calories than the rest of the population of Japan and, as a result, have the highest population of centenarians anywhere in the world!

The challenge the rest of us now face is how to delay the ageing process. There are, in fact, two different aspects to ageing that we need to be aware of, the one involving the natural passing of time and the other involving the natural, physical ageing of the body. While we have no control over our chronological age, we can, up to a point, do a lot to slow down biological ageing by taking the following advice.

The writer feels the increase in life expectancy