Reading C1 (1)

Read the article. Complete gaps 1–6 in the text with paragraphs A–E. There is one extra paragraph.

Study Abroad: Take a Leap into the Unknown

There is no better way to break the monotony of everyday university life than choosing to study overseas; a little bit of impulse can go a long way, says James Connington.

Read the article. Choose the correct answer.

CAN YOU EAT YOURSELF HAPPY?

It seems that food is an unavoidable topic of conversation these days. Whether you’re browsing online, flicking through a magazine, zoning out in front of the TV or chatting away to friends, someone will almost certainly be discussing food in one form or another. Favourite talking points include whether we are over- or underweight because of the type of food we eat; whether we eat too much junk and processed food; whether we ought to eat meat or not; and exactly which superfood or diet is going to save our lives and give us the body we want. These are all burning questions for those of us fortunate enough to be able to choose what we eat, and while diet-related issues such as obesity are undoubtedly serious and potentially life-threatening, the effects of eating are not only physical. Recent research has been looking at how food affects our moods as well as our bodies.

First and foremost, flavour is a powerful conductor of memories and emotions. Strawberries may evoke a very special summer, a birthday cake may conjure a childlike wonder. In Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, for example, the narrator depicts the ‘powerful joy’ that a tea-soaked madeleine awakes in him when he is ‘dispirited after a dreary day, with the prospect of a depressing morrow’. It isn’t so much that the sweet cake tastes lovely, but that it transports him to his innocent youth, when his aunt in the country would feed him the very same treat on Sunday mornings. But the single most influential sense in flavour appreciation is the sense of smell. Unlike the other senses, smell is processed in a part of the brain that deals with strong emotional responses and memory. A particular smell can trigger both a memory of the time we first experienced it and a repetition of the feelings we had then. So, for each of us, particular memories and feelings become associated with certain smells. These are just some of the many ways in which food can make us happy.

Of course, it does help if these foods are toothsome, delectable or in other words delicious. ‘Tasty food is one of the most universal routes to pleasure,’ reads an academic paper by the Oxford psychiatrist Morten Kringelbach on our understanding, so far, of the neuroscience of happiness. This is why eating forms the basis of much scientific experimentation into the mechanics behind that elusive, warm, fuzzy sense of well-being. Pleasure is widely viewed as an essential component of happiness. Food excites the reward system in the brain, stimulating desire and anticipation, and when we eat something we enjoy, it releases hormones which produce the sensation of pleasure.

However, such pleasures are fleeting, and overconsumption of tasty but unhealthy foods may interfere with your reward system, encouraging uncontrollable cravings and binges. You may also feel guilty. Psychologist Andrew Smith of Cardiff University suspects that our attitudes and beliefs about these foods cause us to feel low after consuming them. In a study he carried out, one group were given crisps and chocolate (foods we tend to consider unhealthy and only to be consumed secretly or as special treats!) for their teatime snack over the course of ten days, while another group ate fruit. The results associated chocolate with greater depression, and those who ate chocolate and crisps reported greater cognitive difficulties and fatigue, whereas the fruit group had lower anxiety, depression and distress.

Alongside pleasure, another contributor to happiness and well-being is a sense of meaningfulness and this is where cooking, as opposed to eating food, comes in. Cooking is in fact an established occupational therapy for depression. According to Mark Salter, a consultant psychiatrist in Hackney, London, ‘The preparing, sharing and consuming of food is so precious,’ he says, ‘because it lies slap at the heart of what it means to be human – to love, to relate, to plan, to feed, to enjoy and to share. It isn’t only a pleasure,’ Salter says, ‘but a life skill. It’s elemental, caring for yourself and others.’ When choosing ingredients, combining flavours and creating a dish, you are imagining the health-giving or pleasurable impact it will have on those who will consume it. Cooking takes the focus away from yourself.

Combine the power of cooking to make us happy with the tendency for home-cooked food to be healthier, and you have a nutritional and psychological jackpot. Apart from being healthy, eating home-prepared food is also followed by more intense, positive emotions and less anxiety than consuming food away from home. If you go one step further and grow some food of your own, then you do even better. What with the established positive health effects of being active rather than sedentary, being outside and working with nature rather than cooped up inside all day, together with the satisfaction of growing food and the deliciousness of freshly harvested produce, the happy-making potential of eating is enormous.

In Paragraph 1, what is the writer’s opinion about the ‘burning questions’ he/she mentions?

Read the article. Choose the correct answer.

CAN YOU EAT YOURSELF HAPPY?

It seems that food is an unavoidable topic of conversation these days. Whether you’re browsing online, flicking through a magazine, zoning out in front of the TV or chatting away to friends, someone will almost certainly be discussing food in one form or another. Favourite talking points include whether we are over- or underweight because of the type of food we eat; whether we eat too much junk and processed food; whether we ought to eat meat or not; and exactly which superfood or diet is going to save our lives and give us the body we want. These are all burning questions for those of us fortunate enough to be able to choose what we eat, and while diet-related issues such as obesity are undoubtedly serious and potentially life-threatening, the effects of eating are not only physical. Recent research has been looking at how food affects our moods as well as our bodies.

First and foremost, flavour is a powerful conductor of memories and emotions. Strawberries may evoke a very special summer, a birthday cake may conjure a childlike wonder. In Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, for example, the narrator depicts the ‘powerful joy’ that a tea-soaked madeleine awakes in him when he is ‘dispirited after a dreary day, with the prospect of a depressing morrow’. It isn’t so much that the sweet cake tastes lovely, but that it transports him to his innocent youth, when his aunt in the country would feed him the very same treat on Sunday mornings. But the single most influential sense in flavour appreciation is the sense of smell. Unlike the other senses, smell is processed in a part of the brain that deals with strong emotional responses and memory. A particular smell can trigger both a memory of the time we first experienced it and a repetition of the feelings we had then. So, for each of us, particular memories and feelings become associated with certain smells. These are just some of the many ways in which food can make us happy.

Of course, it does help if these foods are toothsome, delectable or in other words delicious. ‘Tasty food is one of the most universal routes to pleasure,’ reads an academic paper by the Oxford psychiatrist Morten Kringelbach on our understanding, so far, of the neuroscience of happiness. This is why eating forms the basis of much scientific experimentation into the mechanics behind that elusive, warm, fuzzy sense of well-being. Pleasure is widely viewed as an essential component of happiness. Food excites the reward system in the brain, stimulating desire and anticipation, and when we eat something we enjoy, it releases hormones which produce the sensation of pleasure.

However, such pleasures are fleeting, and overconsumption of tasty but unhealthy foods may interfere with your reward system, encouraging uncontrollable cravings and binges. You may also feel guilty. Psychologist Andrew Smith of Cardiff University suspects that our attitudes and beliefs about these foods cause us to feel low after consuming them. In a study he carried out, one group were given crisps and chocolate (foods we tend to consider unhealthy and only to be consumed secretly or as special treats!) for their teatime snack over the course of ten days, while another group ate fruit. The results associated chocolate with greater depression, and those who ate chocolate and crisps reported greater cognitive difficulties and fatigue, whereas the fruit group had lower anxiety, depression and distress.

Alongside pleasure, another contributor to happiness and well-being is a sense of meaningfulness and this is where cooking, as opposed to eating food, comes in. Cooking is in fact an established occupational therapy for depression. According to Mark Salter, a consultant psychiatrist in Hackney, London, ‘The preparing, sharing and consuming of food is so precious,’ he says, ‘because it lies slap at the heart of what it means to be human – to love, to relate, to plan, to feed, to enjoy and to share. It isn’t only a pleasure,’ Salter says, ‘but a life skill. It’s elemental, caring for yourself and others.’ When choosing ingredients, combining flavours and creating a dish, you are imagining the health-giving or pleasurable impact it will have on those who will consume it. Cooking takes the focus away from yourself.

Combine the power of cooking to make us happy with the tendency for home-cooked food to be healthier, and you have a nutritional and psychological jackpot. Apart from being healthy, eating home-prepared food is also followed by more intense, positive emotions and less anxiety than consuming food away from home. If you go one step further and grow some food of your own, then you do even better. What with the established positive health effects of being active rather than sedentary, being outside and working with nature rather than cooped up inside all day, together with the satisfaction of growing food and the deliciousness of freshly harvested produce, the happy-making potential of eating is enormous.

Why does the writer use the example of Proust’s madeleine?