The happy American
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The happy American
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[post_date] => 2025-01-01 11:26:37
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[post_content] => Practice Passage (Question 1-3)
*This passage is the property of Khan Academy and has been reformatted into an AAMC-style interface in their entirety by MedLife Mastery. MedLife Mastery does not endorse and is not an affiliate of Khan Academy.
Americans are a “positive” people. This is their reputation as well as their self-image. In the well-worn stereotype, they are upbeat, cheerful, and optimistic.
Who would be churlish enough to challenge these happy features of the American personality? Take the business of positive “affect,” which refers to the mood they display to others through their smiles, their greetings, their professions of confidence and optimism. Scientists have found that the mere act of smiling can generate positive feelings within us, at least if the smile is not forced. In addition, recent studies show that happy feelings flit easily through social networks, so that one person’s good fortune can brighten the day even for only distantly connected others. Furthermore, psychologists agree that positive feelings can actually lengthen our lives and improve our health. People who report having positive feelings are more likely to participate in a rich social life, and social connectedness turns out to be an important defense against depression, which is a known risk factor for many physical illnesses.
It is a sign of progress, then, that economists have begun to show an interest in using happiness rather than just the gross national product as a measure of an economy’s success. Happiness is, of course, a slippery thing to measure or define. Philosophers have debated what it is for centuries, and even if they were to define it simply as a greater frequency of positive feelings than negative ones, when they ask people if they are happy, they are asking them to arrive at some sort of average over many moods and moments.
Surprisingly, when psychologists measure the relative happiness of nations, they routinely find that Americans are not, even in prosperous times and despite their vaunted positivity, very happy at all. A recent meta-analysis of over a hundred studies of self-reported happiness worldwide found Americans ranking only twenty-third. Americans account for two-thirds of the global market for antidepressants, which happen also to be the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States.
How can Americans be so surpassingly “positive” in self-image and stereotype without being the world’s happiest and best-off people? The answer is that positivity is not so much their condition as it is part of their ideology—the way they explain the world and think they ought to function within it. That ideology is “positive thinking,” by which they usually mean two things. One is the generic content of positive thinking—that is, the positive thought itself—which can be summarized as “Things are pretty good right now, at least if you are willing to see silver linings, make lemonade out of lemons, etc., and things are going to get a whole lot better.”
The second thing they mean by “positive thinking” is this practice of trying to think in a positive way. There is, they are told, a practical reason for undertaking this effort: positive thinking supposedly not only makes us feel optimistic but actually makes happy outcomes more likely. How can the mere process of thinking do this? In the rational explanation that many psychologists would offer today, optimism improves health, personal efficacy, confidence, and resilience, making it easier for us to accomplish our goals. A far less rational theory also runs rampant in American ideology—the idea that our thoughts can, in some mysterious way, directly affect the physical world. Negative thoughts somehow produce negative outcomes, while positive thoughts realize themselves in the form of health, prosperity, and success. For both rational and mystical reasons, then, the effort of positive thinking is said to be well worth our time and attention.
Adapted from B. Ehrenreich, Bright-sided. ©2009 by Metropolitan Books.
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[question] => According to the passage, positive feelings are:
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[answer] => 3
[description] => Reason for the Correct Answer:
This is a “Foundations of Comprehension” question, which means that it wants you to understand the central theme or idea and be able to figure out what specific words or phrases mean within that context.
The passage does not describe positive feelings as being universal (option A), in fact it discusses individual differences in the amount of positive feelings that people report which suggests that they are not ubiquitous. The passage does not describe positive feelings as being hereditary (option B). The author writes that positive “affect” which includes the way that a person’s mood is displayed to others, can affect members of a group. He writes that, “happy feelings flit easily through social networks, so that one person’s good fortune can brighten the day even for only distantly connected others” (paragraph 2). This movement of positive feelings from one individual to other individuals, means that positive feelings are contagious (options C). The passage does not describe positive feelings as being ephemeral (option D).
Thus, option C is correct.
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[each_answer] => A. Universal
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[each_answer] => B. Hereditary
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[each_answer] => C. Contagious
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[each_answer] => D. Ephemeral
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[quiz_unique_key] => 3873426850
[question] => Suppose that economists do start using happiness instead of the gross national product as a measure of an economy’s success. Information presented in the passage would predict which of the following?
I. The transition will be fraught with difficulty.
II. The gross national product of the United States will appear to decrease.
III. The economy of the United States will be seen as relatively less successful than today’s.
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[answer] => 1
[description] => Reason for the Correct Answer:
This is a “Reasoning Beyond the Text” question, which means that it wants you to either apply or extrapolate the ideas in the passage to new situations or to assess how new information would impact the ideas presented in the passage. It is important to understand the assumptions underlying the article, and how new information may or may not shift the central thesis.
The passage states that, “Happiness is, of course, a slippery thing to measure or define,” (paragraph 3) which implies that the transition to this metric will be fraught with difficulty (statement I). Nevertheless, when national happiness has been measured and compared to other countries, the United States has not ranked particularly well. The author notes that “A recent meta-analysis of over a hundred studies of self-reported happiness worldwide found Americans ranking only twenty-third” (paragraph 4). To corroborate this finding, the author brings up the widespread usage of antidepressants. However, there is no explicit mention of the US economy being successful when evaluating the GNP. Since this is not explicitly a part of the passage, there is no basis for the comparison made in statement III. The hypothetical suggestion to use happiness instead of GNP as a measure of the economy makes no prediction for what might happen to the GNP (statement II).
Thus, the only correct statement is statement I, corresponding to option A.
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[each_answer] => A. I only
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[each_answer] => B. II only
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[each_answer] => C. I and III only
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[each_answer] => D. II and III only
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[question] => What best represents the author’s explanation for why Americans can be “so surpassingly ‘positive’ in self-image and stereotype without being the world’s happiest and best-off people?”
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[answer] => 1
[description] => Reason for the Correct Answer:
This is a “Foundations of Comprehension” question, which means that it wants you to understand the central theme or idea and be able to figure out what specific words or phrases mean within that context.
A main theme of this passage is that positivity is part of an American ideology that governs how they think they should think and act, and not an expression of their condition or true affective state as stated in the second sentence of paragraph 5 “positivity is not so much their condition as it is part of their ideology” (option A). The passage doesn’t explore the concept of how being “well-off” relates to happiness (option B). Although stereotypes can sometimes be unwarranted generalizations , this is not a concept described in the passage (option C). Finally, in paragraph 4 the passage discusses high rates of the use of antidepressants in the United States, but this is offered as evidence for relative happiness of Americans, not as an explanation for how Americans can be “so surpassingly ‘positive’ in self-image and stereotype without being the world’s happiest and best-off people (option D).
Thus, option A is correct.
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[each_answer] => A. Americans’ positivity is not a true reflection of their affect.
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[each_answer] => B. Being “well-off” is not the same as being “happy.”
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[each_answer] => C. Stereotypes tend to be unwarranted generalizations.
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[each_answer] => D. Americans tend to have high rates of depression.
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