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本篇阅读材料年龄与智慧：姜真的是老的辣吗?选自《经济学人》(原文标题：Age and wisdom: Older and wiser? 2012.4.7)。如果大家觉得比较简单，就当作泛读材料了解了解，认识几个新单词或新表达方式也不错。如果大家觉得这些材料理解上有难度，不妨当做挑战自己的拔高训练，希望大家都有进步^^ Americans get wiser with age. Japanese are wise from the start. One stereotype of wisdom is a wizened Zen-master smiling benevolently at the antics of his pupils, while referring to them as little grasshoppers or some such affectation, safe in the knowledge that one day they, too, will have been set on the path that leads to wizened masterhood. But is it true that age brings wisdom? A study two years ago in North America, by Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo, in Canada, suggested that it is. In as much as it is possible to quantify wisdom, Dr Grossmann found that elderly Americans had more of it than youngsters. He has, however, now extended his investigation to Asiathe land of the wizened Zen-masterand, in particular, to Japan. There, he found, in contrast to the West, that the grasshoppers are their masters equals almost from the beginning. stereotype n. 刻板印象;老套 benevolent adj. 仁慈的;亲切的;仁爱的 quantify v. 量化;为定量 | 
