Test 1

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading
Passage 2 on pages 21 and 22.

Questions 14-19

Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 14--19 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
The productive outcomes that may result from boredom
ii What teachers can do to prevent boredom
iii A new explanation and a new cure for boredom
iv Problems with a scientific approach to boredom
v A potential danger arising from boredom
vi Creating a system of classification for feelings of boredom
vii Age groups most affected by boredom
viii Identifying those most affected by boredom

14 Paragraph A
15 Paragraph B
16 Paragraph C
17 Paragraph D
18 Paragraph E
19 Paragraph F
 Reading

Why being bored is stimulating - and useful, too

This most common of emotions is turning out to be more interesting than
we thought
A We all know how it feels - i!'s impossible to keep your mind on anything, time
stretches out, and al_l the things you could do seem equally unlikely to make you
feel better. But defin_mg b~redom so that it can be studied in the lab has proved
difficult. For a start, it can include a lot of other mental states, such as frustration,
apathy, depression and indifference. There isn't even agreement over whether
boredom is always a low-energy, flat kind of emotion or whether feeling agitated
and restless counts as boredom, too. In his book, Boredom: A Lively History, Peter
Toohey at the University of Calgary, Canada, compares it to disgust - an emotion
that motivates us to stay away from certain situations. 'If disgust protects humans
from infection, boredom may protect them from "infectious" social situations,'
he suggests.

B By asking people about their experiences of boredom, Thomas Goetz and his team
at the University of Konstanz in Germany have recently identified five distinct types:
indifferent, calibrating, searching, reactant and apathetic. These can be plotted on
two axes - one running left to right, which measures low to high arousal, and the
other from top to bottom, which measures how positive or negative the feeling is.
Intriguingly, Goetz has found that while people experience all kin?s ~f ~oredom:
they tend to specialise in one. Of the five types, the most damag1~g 1s rea?tant
boredom with its explosive combination of high arousal and neg_at1~e emotion._ The
most useful is what Goetz calls 'indifferent' boredom: someo~e 1sn t ~ngaged in
anything satisfying but still feels relaxed and ca~m. Ho~ever, 1t remains to be seen
whether there are any character traits that predict the kind of boredom each of us
might be prone to.
C p h I · t s d' Mann at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, goes further.
syc o og1s an I b d , he says Mann has found
'All emotions are there for a reason, in~lud!Wng , orell omfr~i~ of being. bored but in
th t b · b d k us more creative. ere a a
a eing ore ma es . . h'n s, she says. In experiments
actual fact it can lead to all kinds of amazi~g t ~ gh~d been made to feel bored by
published last year, Mann found th at p~oj e ~ ~inutes came up with more creative
0 1
?OPYing numbers out of the phone boo ~han a contro"I group. Mann concluded
ideas about how to use a polystyrene cup f ·t because it allows the mind
that a passive, boring activity is beSt for crea IVI t~hat we should seek out more
to wander. In fact, she goes so far as to sugges
boredom in our lives. d • 't convinced.
D k U ·versity in Toronto, Cana a, isn .
Psychologist John Eastwood at Yor. n1 not bored,' he says. 'In my view,
'If you are in a state of mind-wand~nn g ~~~t!.~eThat doesn't necessaril~ mean_
by definition boredom is an undesirable . 'f we didn't have physical pain,
'P
that it isn't adaptive, he adds. am. is adaptive - I • I se
t mean that we should active~ cau .
bad things would happen to us. Does th a d t help us survive, it can still be toxic
Pain? No. But even if boredom has evolve O 21
Test 1
t , For Eastwood the central feature of boredom is a failure to
if allowed to f~s er. . tern' into gea~ This causes an inability to focus on anythin
ut our 'attention sys · Wh t' " 9,
P . akes time seem to go painfully slowly. , a s more, your euorts to improv
whic~ m . n end up making you feel worse . People try to connect with the e
the situation ca ' h tf t f d · ·t b T '
world and if they are not successful theres t a rudsl raf i?,~ ant irn a I ity, he says
Perhaps most worryingly, says Eastwood, repeate y a11ng o engage attention ·
can lead to a state where we don't know what to do any more, and no longer care.
E twood's team is now trying to explore why the attention system fails. It's early
E d ass but they think that at least some of it comes down to personality. Boredom
P~:neness has been linked ~ith a variety of traits. People_who ?re motivated by
pleasure seem t~ suffe~ particularly badly. Other perso~ahty traits, such as curiosify,
are associated with a high boredom threshold. More evidence that boredom has
detrimental effects comes from studies of people who are more or less prone to
boredom. It seems those who bore easily face poorer prospects in education,
their career and even life in general. But of course, boredom itself cannot kill -
it's the things we do to deal with it that may put us in danger. What can we do to
alleviate it before it comes to that? Goetz's group has one suggestion. Working with
teenagers, they found that those who 'approach' a boring situation - in other words,
see that it's boring and get stuck in anyway - report less boredom than those who
try to avoid it by using snacks, TV or social media for distraction.
F Psychologist Francoise Wemelsfelder speculates that our over-connected lifestyles
might even be a new source of boredom. 'In modern human society there is a lot of
overstimulation but still a lot of problems finding meaning,' she says. So instead of
seeking yet more mental stimulation, perhaps we should leave our phones alone,
and use boredom to motivate us to engage with the world in a more
meaningful way.
 Reading

Questions 20-23

Look at the following people (Questions 20-23) and the list of ideas below.

Match each person with the correct idea, A-E.

Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet.
20 Peter Toohey
21 Thomas Goetz
22 John Eastwood
23 Francoise Wemelsfelder

List of Ideas
A The way we live today may encourage boredom.
B One sort of boredom is worse than all the others.
C Levels of boredom may fall in the future.
D Trying to cope with boredom can increase its negative effects.
E Boredom may encourage us to avoid an unpleasant experience.

Questions 24-26

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

Responses to boredom

For John Eastwood , the central feature of boredom is that people cannot
24 ........................................... , due to a failure in what he calls the 'attention system', and as a
result they become frustrated and irritable. His team suggests that those for whom
25 •·········································· is an important aim in life may have problems in coping with
boredom, whereas those who have the characteristic of 26 •·········································· can
generally cope with it.