Lesson TwoYou are going to read a magazine article about happiness. For Questions 1-6, choose the correct answer A, B, C or D.What was true of people forty yearsago?A They were richer.B They were generally happier.C They had a reasonable amount ofmaterial possessions. D They were generally less happy.What does the writer find surprising? A that disabled people are notgenerally unhappy B that people who do not havemuch of a social life are not happy C that people with busy social Uvesare happy D that sick people are unhappyWhat happens when people discover something bad is about to happen? A They feel miserable. B They feel like they have beenleading meaningless lives up tothat point. C They feel like their previouslyunbearable lives weren't that badafter all. D They feel that their lives could notbe any worse than they already are.4 What happened each time the rat pressed the handle? A its appetite disappeared B it fell into a trap C it ate and drank D it felt very good5 According to the writer, what do we need to do to be happy? A live without negative feelings B make sure that nothing goeswrong C learn to accept that life issometimes difficult D keep our lives free of bad things6 How does one achieve the feeling of fow(line 41)?A by doirg something one really likes B by being pushed beyond one'sability C by doing something that will berewarded D by doing things that are reallydangerous Everyone wants to be happy, but it seems that not many people can achieve hapiness. There are some clues, however, as to what makes us happy. We know, for example, that t is necessary to have a reasonable amount of material possessiohs, but more than that doesn't make much difference. On average, people in America and Europe are twice as wealthy as they were forty years ago, yet surveys show that they are not as happy. In fact, in many cases they are less so.It's not surprising that people who have a large circle of friends are usually happier than those who do not have much of a social life, and that healthy people are happier than sick people. What's surprising to most of us is that disabled people have the same possibility for happiness as the rest of us do. Even people who have been seriously injured n an accident describe themselves as happy three weeks afterwards.The truth is that happiness s a relative state. If you discover that something absolutely awful is going to happen, then the life you had been leading up to that polnt can seem like absolute bliss, although you probably thought it was miserable while you were living it.It seems, however, that those of us who are lucky enough to achieve happiness are going to mess t up anyway. Unfortunately, many of the things that give us pleasure are also the things that we can become addicted to. In order to prove this, scientists carried out an experiment. They attached electrodes to a rat's brain and connected them to a handle in the animal's cage so that t could dlrectly stimulate its pleasure centres by pressingthe handle. The result was that the rat kept on pressing the handle instead of eating or drinking. Humans are a bit more complicated than that, but research has shown that they, too, can fall into this trap.One of the reasons we have such a problem with happiness is that we confuse t with a life untouched by negative feelings such as