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Recording 3
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By the end of 2016, anyone who had been paying even passing attention to the news headlines was highly likely to conclude that everything was terrible, and that the world was going to hell.
2016年底，任何略有关注新闻头条的人都很可能得出一个结论：一切都很糟糕，世界正在走向毁灭。
It was easy to feel depressed by the wars in different parts of the world, the spread of deadly viruses, or terror attacks.
世界各地的战争、致命病毒的传播或恐怖袭击很容易让人感到沮丧。
Yet, 2016 was the best year in the history of humanity.
然而，事实上，2016年是人类历史上最好的一年。
Child mortality was roughly half what it was as recently as 1990.
儿童死亡率大约是1990年的一半。
And 300,000 more people gained access to electricity each day.
每天新增30万人获得了用电的机会。
Every single measure of material and environmental welfare in America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the world as a whole has improved rather than deteriorated.
在美洲、欧洲、亚洲、非洲乃至整个世界范围内，无论是物质还是环境福祉的每一个指标都有所改善，而非恶化。
We are living in history's most peaceful era, with violence of all kinds in steep decline.
我们正生活在历史上最和平的时代，各种形式的暴力都在急剧下降。
Those are the facts. So why aren't we all optimists?
这些都是事实。那为什么我们没有感到乐观呢？
In a 2015 survey for YouGov, 65% of British people and 81% of the French said they thought the world was getting worse.
在2015年YouGov进行的一项调查中，65%的英国人和81%的法国人表示他们认为世界正在变得更糟。
However, according to numerous sensible statistics, these people are simply wrong.
然而，根据大量的统计数据，这些人错了。
Nobody in their right mind should wish to have lived in a previous century. Yet people do. Why?
头脑正常的，人都不希望生活在以前的世纪。然而，人们确实是这么希望的。这是为什么？
Our prevailing mood of despair is irrational.
我们普遍的绝望情绪是非理性的。
It says more about us than it does about how things really are.
它更多地反映了我们自己，而不是事物的真实面貌。
It is best explained as the result of various psychological biases that served a purpose for our evolutionary ancestors.
各种心理偏见是能够解释其现象的最好的原因，这些偏见为我们的祖先进化服务。
But now, in a media saturated era, constantly mislead us.
但现在这样一个媒体饱和的时代，我们不断被误导。
Once upon a time, it was of great survival value to be worried about everything that could go wrong.
曾几何时，关注一切可能出错的事情对我们]的生存是非常有价值的。
This is what makes bad news especially compelling.
这就是为什么坏消息特别有说服力的原因。
In our evolutionary past, it was a very good thing that our attention could be easily seized by negative information, since it might well indicate a dangerous risk to our own survival.
在我们进化的过程中，我们的注意力很容易被负面信息所吸引，因为这些信息可能表明对我们自身生存构成危险的风险。
The caveman who always assumed there was a lion behind the next rock would usually be wrong, but he'd be much more likely to survive and reproduce than one who always assumed the opposite.
总是假设下一块石头后面有一头狮子的穴居人通常是错误判断，但他比总是比想法乐观的人更有可能生存和繁衍。
But that was all before newspapers, television and the internet.
但那都是在报纸、电视和互联网诞生之前。
In today's hyper connected times, our addiction to bad news just leads us to vacuum up depressing or enraging stories from across the globe.
在如今超级联网的时代，我们对坏消息的沉迷只会导致我们从全球范围内获取令人泪丧或愤怒的故事。
Whether these news stories threaten us or not, we conclude that things are much worse than they actually are.
无论这些新闻是否威胁我们，我们都会得出比实际情况糟糕得多的结论。
Really good news, on the other hand, can be a lot harder to spot in a newspaper because predictable daily events by definition aren't news.
另一方面，真正的好消息在报纸上很难被注意到，因为每天可预见的事件不能算作新闻。
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard.
请根据你刚刚听到的录音回答22 - 25题。
Question 22. What is one of the facts stated by the speaker?
问题22.讲话者陈述的事实之一是什么？
Question 23. What do we learn about most British and French people in a 2015 survey for YouGov?
问题23.在2015年舆观调查网的一项调查中，我们了解到大多数英国人和法国人的什么情况?
Question 24. What does our prevailing mood of despair indicate?
问题24.我们普遍的绝望情绪表明 了什么？
Question 25. What was a very good thing in our evolutionary past?
问题25.在我们进化的历 史上，什么是非 常好的事情？
