The Gasol siblings

Watch the next 3 minutes of the following video and answer the questions below. 
(You can also watch the rest of the video for pleasure!)

1  How often do Pau and Marc talk?

2  Do they give each other advice?

3  Has Pau ever sat back and said 'This is what I dreamed of.'?

Key:

1  They don't talk every day, but almost every day.  Pretty often.  Their schedules don't help to talk on a daily basis.

2  Pau tries to watch as many of Marc's games as possible.  Not so much as advice as how things went, how things are.

3  He thinks how fortunate the family is to have two brothers from Spain in the NBA.

Older siblings are smarter

Eldest siblings are, on average, 2.3 IQ points more intelligent than their younger brothers and sisters, says a study of Norweigan kids. And it's not necessarily being born first that makes the difference, it's being raised as the eldest child.

            Petter Kristensen, from the University of Oslo, and Tor Bjerkedal from the Norwegian Armed Forces Medical Services in Oslo looked at data gathered from 241,310 Norwegian kids, all aged 18 or 19 years old at the time of intelligence testing.

            It has been proposed for some time that, on average across a population, first-borns are more intelligent than their younger siblings. There are more first-born sons in prominent positions than might be expected, for example. And some studies have shown a link between birth order and intelligence: the later born, the less smart the child.

            But the reasons behind this trend, and even whether it's real, have been hotly debated. Families with low-intelligence children tend to be large, which may leave little time for helping with homework; so, the observation that sixth-born children aren't very smart, for example, could just be a side effect of this.

            The fact that it's down to social upbringing rather than biological birth order leads Kristensen to think it's because of factors such as parental attention to older siblings, or time that the elders spend tutoring younger sisters and brothers. 

            The mean IQ of first-born kids was just over 103, second-borns just over 100, and third-borns about 99, they found. But if a child's elder sibling had died, leaving him or her to be raised as first-born, their IQ lept up to match the top scores of 103.

            The work doesn't necessarily show that younger siblings suffer from their lower IQ, Kristensen adds. "There is considerable evidence that first-borns and later-borns are good at different things," he says, citing Charles Darwin, who was described as having “enlarged curiosity”. "If offered the choice of having 2.3 more IQ points or Darwin's attribute of 'enlarged curiosity', I would unhesitatingly prefer the latter," says Kristensen.

Question 1 (2 points) Indicate whether the following statements are true or false and write down which part of the text justifies your answer.

a. You have to be born first to have a higher IQ than your siblings.

b. There has never been any controversy on this topic before.

c. The larger the family is, the more chances to have less intelligent children they have.

d. The study does not prove that older siblings are smarter.

Question 2 (2 points) Answer the following questions in your own words.

a. What has the study in Norway found out?

b. What circumstances, others than birth order, influence in the IQ difference among siblings?

Question 3 (1.5 points) Find words or phrases in the text that correspond in meaning to the words and definitions given.

a. to collect (par.2)                    b. leading (par.3)                                     c. tendency (par.4)

d. education (par.5)                  e. proof (par.7)

Question 4 (1.5 points) Complete the following sentences without changing the meaning.

a. It has been proposed that first-borns are more intelligent.

                First-born...

b. The reasons behind this trend have been hotly debated.

                Scientists...

c. Elder siblings are smarter because they spend time tutoring younger brothers ans sisters.

                If elder siblings...

Question 5 (3 points) Write a short essay (120-150 words) on the following topic:

Do you think large families have more advantages or disadvantages?

Why happiness is infectious: you can actually smell joy

Utrecht University in the Netherlands found that odours produced by our bodies can communicate happiness to others

            It is said that happiness is contagious and now scientists believe they may know why. For the first time researchers have found that humans can pick up whether a person is feeling joyful through their smell. They found that the odours produced by our bodies can communicate our happiness to others - a phenomenon known as chemosignalling. Chemosignals act as a medium through which people can become 'emotionally synchronised', outside of their conscious awareness.

            Although chemosignalling had previously been shown to convey fear and disgust, little was known about how it related to positive emotions, the researchers from Utrecht University in the Netherlands said. For their study, they collected the sweat of 'sender' participants in happy, fearful and neutral states using pads placed under their armpits while they watched different film clips. These pads were cut up, put into jars, and presented to a group of 'receivers' to sniff, in a random order.

            While they sniffed, they were hooked up to an electromyograph, which measured subtle differences in the activity of their facial muscles as a function of the emotion they were experiencing, induced by the sweat. “Exposure to sweat from happy senders elicited a happier facial expression than did sweat from fearful or neutral senders," the researchers wrote in the journal Psychological Science. “Our findings suggest that not only a negative state, but also a positive state (happiness) can be transferred by means of odours."

            The researchers said: “Happiness benefits the individual on multiple levels, as it restores the damaging impact of negative emotions on the cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, and immune systems, and broadens attention to inspire creative ideas. Humans are a social species with the capacity to share these positive effects, using not only modalities such as vision, hearing, and touch, but also - as this exploratory study indicates – the sense of smell.”

Question 1 (2 points) Indicate whether the following statements are true or false and write down which part of the text justifies your answer.

a. Nothing was known about chemosignals in the past.

b. Scientists only used sweat from happy people in the experiment.

c. Smells can communicate different emotions.

d. Happy people can be more imaginative than sad people.

Question 2 (2 points) Answer the following questions in your own words.

a. What have the researchers discovered?

b. How is happiness beneficial for a person?

Question 3 (1.5 points) Find words or phrases in the text that correspond in meaning to the words and definitions given.

a. glad, cheerful (par.2)                   b. transmit (par.3)                        c. faint,delicate (par.4)

d. heal (par.5)       e. expand (par.5)

Question 4 (1.5 points) Complete the following sentences without changing the meaning.

a)     “Our findings suggest that not only a negative state, but also a positive state (happiness) can be transferred by means of odours."

b)    The researchers said that …………………………………

c)     It is said that happiness is contagious.

d)    Happiness ………………………………………………...

e)     The “receivers were hooked up to an electromyograph so the scientists could measure the activity in their facial muscles.

f)     If the “receivers” ………………………………     

     

Question 5 (3 points) Write a short essay (120-150 words) on the following topic:

Teenagers are some of the happiest people in the world. Do you agree?