The Reading / Listening - Happiness - Level 4

We all want happiness. However, happiness varies greatly from person to person. A study shows that how happy we are depends on many factors. A psychology professor in California led the study. It could help to provide better treatments for people with depression and anxiety. The professor wrote: "We have to understand the sources of happiness to build effective interventions." Her study has been published in a journal.

The professor suggested that happiness comes from external circumstances or internal feelings. She described three models of happiness. The first is "bottom-up". This is based on factors like wealth, jobs and relationships. The second is a "top-down" model. With this, happiness comes from our attitudes towards life. People can control this through meditation or therapy. The final model is one where the bottom-up and top-down models interact.

Try the same news story at these levels:

    Happiness - Level 5 or  Happiness - Level 6

Sources
  • https://neurosciencenews.com/happiness-unique-psychology-28798/
  • https://phys.org/news/2025-05-secret-happiness-society.html
  • https://www.nationalgeographic.com/health/article/happiness-well-being-culture-community


Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)

Phrase Matching

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Listening — Listen and fill in the gaps

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Put a slash (/) where the spaces are

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Student survey

Write five GOOD questions about this topic in the table. Do this in pairs. Each student must write the questions on his / her own paper. When you have finished, interview other students. Write down their answers.

(Please look at page 12 of the PDF to see a photocopiable example of this activity.)

Discussion — Write your own questions

STUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)

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STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)

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Free writing

Write about this topic for 10 minutes. Comment on your partner’s paper.

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Answers

(Please check your answers against the article above.

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