北京雅思学校校长、被媒体誉为雅思教父的刘洪波老师于7月发布新书《雅思阅读真经4》。该书中收录了8月13日中国雅思考试阅读第一篇：选择与幸福。
该书中记录这篇文章首次在中国大陆考区出现是2008年8月16日。当时北京雅思考生回忆为：
随着生活变得富裕，人们有了更多的选择，然而他们并没有因此而变得更加快乐。有人做了个实验，把实验对象分成两组，一组是每次都尝试做best choice 的Maxmiser，另一组是只要good enough 就可以了，也就是Satisfier。M 每次做决定以前，都要花很多时间在比较和选择上，但是S 只要看到自己喜欢的东西就买了。实验证明貌似是M 比S不快乐。选择越多意味着机会成本越大，而人们对于失去感到的痛苦远远大于因为得到而感到的快乐，这就是为什么人们反而更加不快乐的原因。文章后面提到一个 theatre ticket 实验。就是说买全票的人跟买折扣票的人相比，不去看戏的比率更小，原因在于the more people invest, the more they will feel regret if they don't use it.文章的最后作者提议说M 怎样变得快乐起来呢？那就是在某些不重要的情况下，适当缩小选择的范围，比如买衣服只要走两家店就好了。
根据考生回忆研究，刘洪波老师指出该文出自Scientific America April, 2004，文章名为The Tyranny of Choice，全文共12000字。雅思命题者将其缩减为900字。同样，刘洪波老师将其缩减为900字，并命题。征得刘洪波老师同意，将《雅思阅读真经4》中该篇文章公开，请广大考生重点复习。
另具刘洪波老师透露，北京雅思学校7月暑期班课堂教材阅读为《雅思阅读真经4》，老师已经在课堂上重点讲授该篇文章，北雅学员应该8月13日考试获得佳绩！
Choice and happiness
A Americans today choose among more options in more parts of life than has ever been possible before. To an extent, the opportunity to choose enhances our lives. It is only logical to think that if some choice is good, more is better; people who care about having infinite options will benefit from them, and those who do not can always just ignore the 273 versions of cereal they have never tried. Yet recent research strongly suggests that, psychologically, this assumption is wrong. Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better than less.
B Recent research offers insight into why many people end up unhappy rather than pleased when their options expand. We began by making a distinction between "maximizers" (those who always aim to make the best possible choice) and "satisficers" (those who aim for "good enough," whether or not better selections might be out there).
C In particular, we composed a set of statements—the Maximization Scale—to diagnose people's propensity to maximize. Then we had several thousand people rate themselves from 1 to 7 (from "completely disagree" to "completely agree") on such statements as "I never settle for second best." We also evaluated their sense, of satisfaction with their decisions. We did not define a sharp cutoff to separate maximizers from satisficers, but in general, we think of individuals whose average scores are higher than 4 (the scale's midpoint) as maximizers and those whose scores are lower than the midpoint as satisficers. People who score highest on the test—the greatest maximizers—engage in more product comparisons than the lowest scorers, both before and after they make purchasing decisions, and they take longer to decide what to buy. When satisficers find an item that meets their standards, they stop looking. But maximizers exert enormous effort reading labels, checking out consumer magazines and trying new products. They also spend more time comparing their purchasing decisions with those of others.
D We found that the greatest maximizers are the least happy with the fruits of their efforts. When they compare themselves with others, they get little pleasure from finding out that they did better and substantial dissatisfaction from finding out that they did worse. They are more prone to experiencing regret after a purchase, and if their acquisition disappoints them, their sense of well-being takes longer to recover. They also tend to brood or ruminate more than satisficers do.
E Does it follow that maximizers are less happy in general than satisficers? We tested this by having people fill out a variety of questionnaires known to be reliable indicators of well-being. As might be expected, individuals with high maximization scores experienced less satisfaction with life and were less happy, less optimistic and more depressed than people with low maximization scores. Indeed, those with extreme maximization ratings had depression scores that placed them in the borderline clinical range.
F Several factors explain why more choice is not always better than less, especially for maximizers. High among these are "opportunity costs." The quality of any given option cannot be assessed in isolation from its alternatives. One of the "costs" of making a selection is losing the opportunities that a different option would have afforded. Thus an opportunity cost of vacationing on the beach in Cape Cod might be missing the fabulous restaurants in the Napa Valley. If we assume that opportunity costs reduce the overall desirability of the most preferred choice, then the more alternatives there are, the deeper our sense of loss will be and the less satisfaction we will derive from our ultimate decision.
G The problem of opportunity costs will be worse for a maximizer than for a satisficer. The latter's "good enough" philosophy can survive thoughts about opportunity costs. In addition, the "good enough" standard leads to much less searching and inspection of alternatives than the maximizer's "best" standard. With fewer choices under consideration, a person will have fewer opportunity costs to subtract.
H Just as people feel sorrow about the opportunities they have forgone, they may also suffer regret about the option they settle on. My colleagues and I devised a scale to measure proneness to feeling regret, and we found that people with high sensitivity to regret are less happy, less satisfied with life, less optimistic and more depressed than those with low sensitivity. Not surprisingly, we also found that people with high regret sensitivity tend to be maximizers. Indeed, we think that worry over future regret is a major reason that individuals become maximizers. The only way to be sure you will not regret a decision is by making the best possible one. Unfortunately, the more options you have and the more opportunity costs you incur, the more likely you are to experience regret.
I In a classic demonstration of the power of sunk costs, people were offered season subscriptions to a local theater company. Some were offered the tickets at full price and others at a discount. Then the researchers simply kept track of how often the ticket purchasers actually attended the plays over the course of the season. Full-price payers were more likely to show up at performances than discount payers. The reason for this, the investigators argued, was that the full-price payers would experience more regret if they did not use the tickets because not using the more costly tickets would constitute a bigger loss.
J LESSONS
Choose when to choose.
We can decide to restrict our options when the decision is not crucial. For example, make a rule to visit no more than two stores when shopping for clothing.
Learn to accept "good enough."
Settle for a choice that meets your core requirements rather than searching for the elusive "best." Then stop thinking about it.
Don't worry about what you're missing.
Consciously limit how much you ponder the seemingly attractive features of options you reject. Teach yourself to focus on the positive parts of the selection you make.
Control expectations.
"Don't expect too much, and you won't be disappointed" is a cliché. But that advice is sensible if you want to be more satisfied with life.