Research Shows Walking Can Lift Depression

　　New research by German scientists shows that author Charles Dickens was onto a good thing1 when he took long, brisk walks to relieve periodic bouts of depression. The author of Oliver Twist and David Coppeifield would walk for hours in the 1860s as an antidote to2 intense feelings of sadness which alternated with3 restless euphoria._____1_____

　　Aerobic exercise like rapid walking can be more effective at lifting depression than drugs, reported the scientists led by Dr. Fernando Dimeo._____2_____The team found that in 10 of these patients drugs had failed to bring any substantial improvement. The team devised an exercise regime for the group that involved walking on a treadmill for 30 minutes every day.______3____The intensity of the training programme was stepped up4 as the heart rate adapted. A measurement of depression severity was taken at the start and the end of the programme, and patients were asked to rate their own mood regularly over a 10-day period. The researchers in Berlin found that after 10 days of the course six patients felt “substantially less depressed”._____4_____Two were slightly less depressed, while four others remained unchanged. Depression levels overall fell by a third5 and on the self-assessed scores by 25 per cent, said the researchers whose findings appeared in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

　　The study was small but the extent of the improvement was said by scientists to be impressive.______5____ Nineteenth century doctors would have called Dickens’s condition melancholia since the psychological condition of depression was unknown. Dickens biographer Peter Ackroyd says the author’s son Charles remembers his father’s “heavy moods of deep depression” and many times of “intense nervous irritability”，something modern psychologists would certainly recognize6.

　　练习：

　　A. The number included five who had not found any relief using drug treatment.

　　B. Long and brisk walks are not necessarily beneficial to every person.

　　C. They studied 12 people with severe depression that had lasted an average of nine months.

　　D. The outcome indicated a clinical benefit which could not be obtained with pharmacological treatment currently available, they said.

　　E. This is also the advice that experts from the Free University in Berlin are giving today.

　　F. According to the regime, intense activity lasting three minutes was alternated with walking at half speed for three minutes.

　　答案与题解：

　　1.E　第一段说到了狄更斯找到了一种方法,即通过散步几小时来缓解悲伤与亢奋交替的紧张情绪。文章的第一段通常都是点明主题,而E项正是文章题目所要具体阐述的内容,故是最佳选项。

　　2.C　第二段第一句说,科学家们报告,像快走这样的有氧运动在消除抑郁情绪方面比药物更有效。显然下面需要具体说明这个结论的证据。C的They studied理所当然地应该指这些科学家。空白处的后一句The team还是指这些人。故用C来连接上下文是最恰当的。

　　3.F　空白处的前一句说,这些科学家为病人制订了一个锻炼计划,选项F一开始就说“根据这个计划”，可见后句与前句之间具有衔接关系,故它是最佳选项。

　　4.A　空白处的前一句说有六位病人感到抑郁程度明显减轻;空白处的后一句说有两位稍微减轻,四位无变化。A说此人数包括五位以前使用药物而病情没有任何缓解的病人,故将它放在此处是最恰当。

　　5.D　空白处的前一句说这次研究(的范围)虽小,但(病人病情)改善的程度却给人很深的印象,此段实际上是对研究作总结。D也是一句总结性的话:“研究结果表明,它对临床是有益处的,而这却是现有的药物治疗所达不到的”，故把它放在此处也是最恰当的。

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（实习编辑：高奕飞）