I. Read and translate the text.

LONELINESS MAY CREATE SERIOUS HEALTH RISKS

Millions of Americans suffer from depression, anxiety and fatigue that are linked to loneliness, says a leading authority who tells how to cope with feelings of being alone.

Q.: Mr. Young, how widespread is the problem of loneliness?

A.: In one nationwide study, 22 percent of Americans said they felt "lonely and remote from other people." In another poll, taken by Psychology Today, loneliness was the most frequent problem mentioned. Thirty-eight percent of female and 43 percent of male readers said they often felt lonely.

Q.: What is the difference between normal feelings of loneliness and a real loneliness problem?

A.: There are two ways to distinguish between normal and problem loneliness. One is by severity. Do your feelings of loneliness interfere with your ability to get enjoyment out of life? The other factor is length of time. Loneliness becomes a chronic problem if it lasts two or more years. Some people have a lifetime pattern of feeling lonely.

Q.: Is loneliness increasing in the United States?

A.: People who live alone tend to say that they are lonely more frequently than people living with others. Since surveys repeatedly show that an increasing number of Americans live alone, we can infer that the frequency of loneliness is increasing.

Q.: Who is at greatest risk for loneliness?

A.: Studies of different population groups show that teenagers and young adults have the highest degree of loneliness. One study found that over half of the people in this age group are lonely. One reason is because they are in a process of transition - separating from the parents. They're no longer feeling as close to their parents as they did when they were children, and they may not yet have developed very close, satisfying friendships with their peers. Some adolescents just have trouble making friends.

Q.: What are the major consequences of loneliness?

A.: We know that severe loneliness can lead to a variety of problems. One recent study showed that among divorced men, the death rate due to heart disease was twice the rate for married men. This suggests that living alone and feeling lonely may actually create serious heart risks. There are also psychological consequences. People who are chronically lonely are often less productive in their work lives. They feel that life is less satisfying and are prone to psychiatric disorders such depression and anxiety. The majority of depressed patients I studied also reported feeling lonely.

Q.: When is a person so lonely that treatment is needed?

A.: Having feelings of severe loneliness for more than two years indicates that you're not just having a temporary adjustment to a new situation. There may be a serious psychological problem. Severe loneliness is often accompanied by depression. The symptoms of depression frequently include a persistent sad mood, low appetite, fatigue, low sex drive, withdrawal from people and sleep difficulties.

Q.: What is the best therapy for loneliness?

A.: This is a new area of research. In a therapy I've developed, the approach is to help people look at what they're doing that keeps them from feeling close to other people. One persistent problem for people who suffer loneliness is low self-esteem. The person is afraid to approach new people because he or she anticipates rejection before it's even happened. In other instances, lonely people may find someone, but then they keep a distance by not revealing much about themselves out of fear that once the other person knows them well, they'll be rejected.

Q.: How successful is therapy? How long does it take?

A.: This treatment for loneliness is an adaptation of a technique called cognitive-behaviour therapy that we know is successful against many forms of depression. Length of treatment depends on the severity of the problem. For those trying to adjust to a new situation = someone who's recently divorced, for example - therapy may consist of once-a-week sessions over four to six months. For people who have experienced loneliness since childhood, treatment can take a year or more.

Q.: How can a person prevent loneliness?

A.: The first thing is to learn how to be alone without feeling something is wrong. Many people avoid being alone at any cost. They're afraid they won't be able to handle it or that there's stigma in not being with someone. You can train yourself to enjoy being alone. It's healthy to do things on your own, part of the time. Most important, you have to develop a circle of friends. Participate in activities - sports, cultural events, social gatherings - because that's how you meet people. Don't wait for other people to make the first move. Be aggressive in seeking out friendships and keeping them. For some people, pets and television may ease some of the loneliness, but they can also keep a person turned inward and interfere with developing new friendships.

II. Agree or disagree with the following statements:

1. Being alone at times is absolutely necessary to everybody.

2. We are sometimes afraid of having time to think.

3. We get tired of meeting too many people.

4. Communicating with people is an art to be learned.

5. Reading is quite necessary for you.

6. You seldom visit your friends being fond of solitude.

7. Watching television influences human psychology.

8. In solitude new ideas come to us.

9. Reading is more useful than watching television.

10. Loneliness may result in depression and anxiety.

11. Being the only child in the family gives you more moments of solitude.

III. Make up a dialogue to develop the situation:

You are the only child in the family but you do not regret about it as you enjoy certain benefits. Ask you friend how he spends his spare time and moments of solitude.

Translate the text in writing:

LONELINESS

We humans are paradoxical creatures. We say we want life to be a certain way, but aren't willing to do what we must to make it so. We long for connection and intimacy but demand degrees of independence and privacy.

On the one hand, we are communal creatures. We live in a web of interdependence with on another. Few of us are truly self-sufficient. We need partners and housemates. We need family and friends. We live in communities and share workloads. Most of us even dream of a soul-mate of some sort to whom we can unburden ourselves in times of stress, and with whom we can share ordinariness in times of calm. We are by nature storytellers who must recount our days and our lives in order to make sense of them. For this we need listeners, but listeners who are genuinely interested in us as people.

On the other hand, we are also solitary figures, physically independent of one another and ultimately and finally alone with our thoughts. There is so much that goes on inside each one of us, so much that we could never communicate to another even if we wanted to do so. We are not alone in wanting to preserve a little of mystery, to keep a few secrets to ourselves. We all have parts of ourselves we would prefer to keep private.

At some level we are unknowable to others, solitary figures. The sum of our essential selves will never be shared or communicated, only parts of the whole.

The most intimate dimensions of our beings need solitude and the safety of privacy. The most social dimensions of our beings need sharing and contact and even love. It is a difficult balancing act. Loneliness is the result of balancing too far into privacy and independence. Loss of self and identity results from overbalancing into connection. Both possibilities can be frightening. There are some who see the ache of loneliness simply as the price of emotional safety.

It is easy to look at loneliness as something inflicted upon us by a cruel and unfeeling world. If we are alone and lonely, it is easy to fall into the self-pitying feeling that we have been mistreated by the universe, that it is our fate to never meet someone with whom we can bond. But that empty and frustrating feeling may be the fault of our need for solitude and protection working overtime.

Loneliness is at least partly a function of past hurts and slights. Every person experiences pain or betrayal. Whether it was an abusive parent, a lover who hurt us badly or a friend who betrayed us, we have all experienced these battering rejections and destruction of trust. No one likes being hurt. So we learn wariness and caution. We become a little more careful about our friendships each time we get zinged. Even those of us who seem to form one bad relationship after another build a gradually hardening shell until one day this intimacy stuff loses its attraction. For awhile we are fine on our own, maybe even feel free, until the demons find us.

But when loneliness becomes a constant companion, it is calling us to look deeper inside, calling us to work on tearing down the walls that isolate us, whether self-built or outwardly imposed. In order to be loved, we must find ways to love. In order to find engagement, we must find ways to engage. The first step is to go inside our walls, inside ourselves and tend to our soul work. If we do this the soul warms and grows until it expands through and beyond our suffocating walls of loneliness. Then we can start building the bridge towards others.

CONFIDENT CONVERSATION

(by Dr Lillian Glass)

A great conversationalist is someone who connects with people and makes the feel important.

Usually starting a conversation means coming with an opening line or ‘ice-breaker’. The best kind of icebreaker is one that is positive – after all, the last thing people want to hear from a stranger is how noisy the party is, how awful the food is, or how badly the party-goers are dressed.

A compliment is always a great icebreaker. It will usually be appreciated if you feel like saying to someone: “You look great in that dress.” People appreciate it when their taste is noticed.

Any news event is a good icebreaker. The weather is another great opener. Many a relationship has begun with: “Wonderful weather we’re having.”

This is an obvious overture to a conversation, and how the other person picks up on it is a good indication of whether they are interested in having a conversation with you or whether it would be in your best interest to find someone more receptive to talk to. If you think the above two suggestions are tired old cliches, remember that a conversation always has to start somewhere.

If you pitch in with something that isn’t a nice, general, easy subject, your partner may feel intimidated.

Other turns-off include being too nosy or too invasive. Nobody wants to be pressed for the gory details, now matter how interesting it may seem to the other person.

Talk about something you’ve just read in a magazine, an interesting fact you’ve heard, something about your pet, or even a joke you’ve heard.

Once you’ve got a conversation going, the best way to keep it going is by asking the other person questions that don’t require just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, or questions that show genuine interest on your part as you hear what they have to say.

Ask questions without becoming too intrusive. Choose the kind that will draw a person out – who, what, when, where and why questions. Once you hit on something you find interesting, keep asking questions in order to get the other person to elaborate on the topic as much as possible. Good conversationalists elaborate on the experiences they have had.

Description is the best form of communication, because it keeps people’s interest up and stimulates them. Use words to create images and paint pictures. Being a good observer and reactor means being attentive and sensitive to the other person’s cues, in both their facial and body language.

Look for eye contact cues. If the other person is constantly looking away, he may be interested in something or someone else, in which case you can say: “You seem preoccupied.” Take his cue and wind up the conversation and leave. Paying attention to a person’s visual cues can tell as much as or even more than what they say verbally.

If you want to make a good impression on people and maintain a good relationship, you need to give others respect and enable them to feel important when they are around you. Being a good communicator requires having a good memory and remembering things about the other person.

If your memory is particularly bad you could always make notes. This works well with business associates and clients. Keep the notes in the file and look through them before calling up the person and when you know you’re going to see him.

Often, if you have an approachable manner, people will respond to you and be attracted to you like a magnet. Approachability involves your body posture, gestures and facial expression. If your posture is too stiff, you will communicate uptightness, while too loose a posture can communicate sloppiness and carelessness. A hunched-over back communicates a lack of confidence and self-respect. By simply straightening your shoulders and holding your head up, you can improve people’s impressions on you.

All too often when someone is concentrating intensely or thinking about something, their face will show an expression that doesn’t reflect who they are or what they are thinking about. So if you are in the presence of others you need to be mindful of your facial expression at all times.

II. Answer the following questions:

1. Who is considered to be a good conversationalist?

2. What does an icebreaker mean?

3. What is the best kind of icebreaker?

4. What do people appreciate much?

5. What other remarks are good icebreakers?

6. What topics should be avoided in a conversation?

7. What should you talk about?

8. What kind of questions are you recommended to ask?

9. Why is description the best form of communication?

10. What does being a good communicator require?

11. What does approachability involve?

3. Explain what you should do:

1. to maintain solid relationships;

2. to exercise your memory;

3. to control your behaviour while conversing.

3. Review this part of the article.

4. Read the second part and render its contents in Russian:

ENDING A CONVERSATION

If you’ve started a conversation with another person and you’re having difficulty in ending it, there are subtle signals you can send to the other person that will end the conversation without hurting the other person’s feelings.

Breaking eye contact is a good way of signalling to the other person that you are ready to end the conversation. Assuming that you have maintained good eye contact throughout the conversation, looking off in another direction is a discreet signal that the conversation is about to end. Another way to signal that a conversation is coming to an end is to use transition words like “Well” or “At any rate”, or even statements like “It was really nice talking to you”.

You may then want to recap all that was said. To recap, look at the other person and state key points that have been made – theirs and yours – and express your appreciation for their point of view. Then you can add: “I’ve already enjoyed talking to you. I hope we’ll have another chat soon.”

Whatever you do, don’t lie to the other person. If you are not interested in talking to them again, don’t mention the possibility of a future meeting just to be polite. That is hypocritical. Instead, you may finish by saying, “Nice meeting you,” and then leave.

Finally, be sure to give the other person a good, firm handshake. The final impression you make can be just as important as the initial impression you made.

3. What about your personal performance in a conversation? Does it coincide with the author’ suggestion? Do you think his advice is of positive character?

4. Read the following tips for maintaining a good conversation and take them into account:

• Be aware of your own body and facial language, which means making good facial contact when you speak and not invading the other person’s space.

• Don’t gossip. When you start gossiping, you run the risk of offending the person you are talking to because of their possible relationship to the person being discussed.

• Cultivate a wide range of topics. Keep up with current events by reading newspapers and magazines. When you are talking to someone you do not know very well, it is probably best to stay away from politics and religion or anything that is controversial.

• Have a sense of humour. Everyone enjoys a humorous story or joke, But take care. Even though sexist and racist humour often gets a laugh or a chuckle, it’s not worth the effect that the jokes may have. People may be offended and may think less of you.

• Don’t interrupt.

• Be enthusiastic. Your enthusiasm allows the other person to feel that you are interested in what they are saying.

• Be flexible in your point of view, You can certainly express your own views, but in a way that is not hostile.

Read and translate the text:

IS GOOD CONVERSATION A DECLINING ART?

Many people unwittingly bore, irritate or mislead others. Why – and what can be done to have more memorable conversations is explained in this interview by a leading authority on talk.

Q.: Professor Goodman, is the art of conversation waning in America?

A.: I would agree that there never was a golden age of conversation in the U.S. Even in the days before radio and television, good conversation probably was not all that common. Despite the visions we have of colonial times when people supposedly sat around parlors exchanging ideas, my guess is that most people then were just too busy surviving to have much time for free-flowing talk.

Social rules in past times also restricted what men and women said to each other, and children really were seen not heard. When parents did talk to children, it was usually a matter of the adult commanding, advising or admonishing. That’s not conversation. At any rate, we don’t know for sure what conversation was like back then because there was no voice recording.

In many ways, conversation should be of higher quality today because the range of experience is broader and because we can hear others converse on television, radio and in the movies.

Q.: How does conversation today differ from what might have taken place years ago in the United States?

A.: Take young people. If a young couple beginning their courtship at the turn of the century could by magic listen in on the conversation of a similar couple today, they would be horrified. They would be stunned at the openness toward talking about such private matters as sex, religion and money.

Women are no longer feel compelled to wait for a long pause before they express their ideas, although they still tend to be less dominant in conversation than men. Children are also far more outspoken.

In contrast, people in decades past were more restricted in what they talked about. Their world was smaller, and they tended to stick to subjects that were more familiar to them. This was before the age of specialization, and people were on more equal footing when they talked to each other.

Q.: In your opinion, just what makes for a good conversation?

A.: A true conversation is like a sports event: its outcome is usually in doubt, not in terms of winning or losing, but in the sense that we don’t know where it is headed.

Q.: Is the fact that parents and children are not on equal footing in conversation a reason for a generation gap?

A.: It’s part of it. A lot of parents say to their teenagers, “Let’s have a conversation.” But the kids aren’t interested because they know their parents often want only to interrogate or advise. They know that they don’t have equal power. Yet those same kids will talk on the phone for hours with their peers.

Q.: Besides closed questions, what are some of the other talk tools that are overused?

A.: A common one is giving quick advice when hearing another’s complaint or problem. You don’t have the time to really address those problems, so you rely on some quick motto: “Well, it’ll all work out in the end” or “Keep your chin up.” Americans can’t seem to have long conversations about personal matters without wanting to come to some instant solution – much like the radio psychologists or the advice columnists. There’s a tendency to go for the quick fix.

Q.: What skills are necessary to have a good conversation?

A.: You need to know how to gather information, how to guide someone, how to give and get attention and how to demonstrate understanding – especially empathic understanding. You also need to know how to make explanations about people and things and how to disclose personal information about yourself in an appropriate way.

Q.: Why are so many people deficient in talk skills?

A.: For one thing, our education system has failed almost completely to teach these skills. We teach writing – grammar, English composition – and we teach public speaking, but we don’t teach the pleasures and pitfalls of face-to-face communication. This is ironic because we talk to each other or engage in public speaking.

Q.: How is our society damaged by people’s shortcomings in developing communication skills?

A.: It keeps people from making and keeping friends who can form a personal support network that’s vital to mental health. It really is possible to teach people techniques for exchanging help with family, friends and support groups. Inadequate talk skills also play a big part in the high divorce rate. Many couples simply don’t talk to each other well enough. One of the big problems is the husband’s inability or unwillingness to disclose as much as the woman – particularly, when it comes to revealing feelings.

As for women, many allow themselves to be dominated in conversation too much. For example, men interrupt women more than they interrupt other men. That can lead to bad feelings that build up over the years. Married couples also overlook the importance of providing entertaining talk to each other. In time, they can become bored and drift apart.

TO TELL THE TRUTH, YOU’RE A LIAR!

(after Harvey Kirk)

Nobody likes being called a liar, but the truth is we all tell lies. One expert estimates that the average person tells more than 1000 lies a year, while another claims some adults tell as many as 200 a day – or 73,000 a year.

Women lie more than men. However, women’s lies fall mostly into the ‘white’ category: reassuring a friend about her choice of outfit or covering a situation of potential embarrassment.

It comes as no surprise that politicians are the biggest liars in the world, making promises they know they can’t keep. They are followed by salesmen – particularly the used-car variety – and actors seeking publicity. Even doctors sometimes lie to sick patients about their condition.

Of all professional people, scientists, architects and engineers lie the least. After all, their statements can easily be checked by other experts in the same field.

But don’t worry, says Dr Robert Goldstein, a professor of psychiatry who led a team of researchers to find these facts. He believes you can still be a nice person and a liar at the same time, because most of the lies told by the average person are harmless, white lies.

For example, a man might tell his wife or girlfriend, “Sweetheart, you look great,” when in reality she doesn’t look so good. These sorts of lies are constructive. They can cheer people up if they feel a bit low, says Dr Goldstein.

One of Dr Goldstein’s colleagues Dr Gerald Jellison recently put a team of researchers onto the subject of lying. They found that adults tell about 200 a day.

“These lies are excuses, alibis, explanations and apologies we fabricate on the spot almost automatically,” says Dr Jellison.

His researchers found that women tell about four white lies every 15 minutes, compared to men’s three. They also found, like Dr Goldstein, that women were better at lying; their lies were more convincing than those told by men. Women were also better at detecting lies.

When a person lies, a lot of physiological changes take place. It is based on these changes that lie-detector machines, or specially adapted polygraphs operate. An unnaturally cool customer can outwith a lie detectoer, but the machine will not record a lie if one has not been uttered.

Few of us can rely on technology to detect a falsehood, but the study of body language can be almost as accurate. If you think somebody is deceiving, here's what to look for:

Fidgeting: Liars often touch their faces and the backs of their necks.

Hesitation: This applies in both the physical and vocal sense. If your question stops somebody dead in their tracks, beware! It takes longer to think up a lie than to tell the truth.

Smiling: If somebody starts smiling more than usual, be on your guard. Beware also when a normal 'smiler' cuts back on the smiles. Both could indicate lying.

Coughing: Together with sneezing, this is often used as a stalling technique. Both sometimes indicate that the lie is choking the person telling it.

Eyes: A person who is lying won't look you in the eye as much as someone telling the truth. So be wary of anybody who avoids eye contact.

The shrug: Be suspicious if somebody shrugs for no apparent reason when they are telling you something. This could indicate they are trying to deceive you.

Distance: Liars sometimes back away from you, if only slightly, when they are trying to deceive you.

Voice: The pitch of the voice may be higher when somebody is lying. Some liars also repeat themselves. Disruption in the speech pattern, such as stammering or a sudden pitch in the voice itself, also indicates lying.

Head nodding: This means the liar is betraying their his doubts and his insincerity.

You can also tell people are lying by the things they say. Liars use evasive words and phrases that often mean the opposite to what they are saying. For example, if somebody says, "It depends," this is often a way of saying no without having to face the consequences directly.

If somebody says, "That's interesting", they mean just the opposite. The person to whom you are talking is actually bored with the conversation and wishes you would either stop talking or change the subject.

Here are more examples of what they actually mean:

"Let's get together some time." Without a specific agreement, this is an insincere invitation that shows a desire to get away, to end the conversation.

"We'll see" - this is another way of saying no and is often used by parents.

"Don't worry, everything will be all right" - this really means the listener is fed-up hearing about your problems but wants to appear concerned.

And there's the classic: "I wouldn't lie to you". If somebody says this to you, they certainly would lie and are probably just about to.

SUICIDE TODAY

Before when people wanted to commit suicide, they would throw themselves under a car. Nowadays Russian businessmen have found a new method – they take out or damage the brakes of their car, sit behind the wheel, and take off.

Why are there so many suicides for no apparent reason? Chemists are searching for answers to this question. Post mortem examinations reveal that more than 95 percent of those who take their own life have certain changes in their brain chemistry. It is also known that in the few weeks before their deaths, more than half of suicide victims visit their doctor. Usually, the doctor can’t find anything wrong, and so the patient is sent home.

In the opinion of Vladimir Skavysh, a specialist at the Suicide Center, there is a predisposition to suicide in some people. However, this does not mean that there is a ‘suicide gene’, because the problem is psychological rather than biological. There are many cases where suicide becomes hereditary. However, this is presumably a case of inheriting the principle of behavior in a critical situation. In other words, at present science cannot give us an unequivocal answer to the question of whether a suicide gene exists.

It is well known that in certain circumstances the risk of suicide increases sharply. People are more at risk if one of their parents had killed themselves; if their parents are divorced; if their parents fight like cat and dog; if they are impulsive and cannot control their actions. The highest risk category consists of introverts, that is people who, after some kind of misfortune, direct their rage at themselves rather than lash out at those around them. Extroverts deal with their emotions by preferring to simply smash someone in the face rather than indulge in protracted contemplation of human malice and therefore hardly ever commit suicide.

A quarter of all successful suicide victims are mentally ill, another quarter are completely healthy, and the rest are on the border-line – neither ill nor healthy, but inclined to neuroses and tragic perception of reality.

There are many different reasons why some people commit suicide. The real reason may be difficult to establish, even when the victim has left a note. Often the notes describe completely different reasons, or things which really have only a slight or no connection at all with their decision to die. Some decide to kill themselves without really knowing why – perhaps because insomnia suggested the idea of suicide or it may have rained too hard or too long.

According to Alekper Tagi-Zade, manager of the Samaritans – a charitable association for the prevention of suicides – the profile of a typical potential suicide is something like this: a woman between 35 and 40, with a university degree, and in the overwhelming majority of cases unmarried and without a boyfriend. Failure in one’s personal life very often leads to thoughts of suicide, and neither men nor women are strong enough to acknowledge that this is the cause of their depression, so they prefer to attribute everything to unpleasantness at work, money worries, health anxieties, or social problems.

Only one in seven or eight attempted suicides is ‘successful’. Women attempt to commit suicide much more frequently than men. However, men are four times more likely to actually commit suicide than women. The most frequent method is an overdose, but fatalities from this method are few.

The most reliable suicide method is by hanging. Ten years ago an elderly American woman carried out what became known as the ‘suicide of the century’. She attached a long rope to the balcony of her skyscraper with a noose so that one end reached the ground and the other end would tighten up in flight, she took a fatal dose of sleeping tablets, stood on the edge of the balcony, and shot herself in the head with a revolver. In this way an ordinary American pensioner contrived to kill herself in four different ways.

Specialists often cite this case as evidence that those who make unsuccessful attempts really do not intend to die. Any suicide victim whose decision is irrevocable makes very careful preparations. In such cases there are no overdoses with long-expired pills, weak ropes or defective bullets.

Does one have the right to take one’s own life? To whom does human life belong? To the person, his nearest and dearest, the state of God? In some countries – Canada, Denmark, Chile – suicide attempts are punishable by law. But history has known periods when suicide was a cult. In ancient Rome patricians preferred to depart from their life early rather than become a burden to their relatives in their declining years. In Japan, the highest form of valour and revenge was hari-kiri.

In Russia it was always thought that only sick people killed themselves. In 1716, the future Tsar Peter wrote in the Poteshny Regiment Rules and Regulations: “If someone kills themselves, then an executioner should drag their body through the streets, then take it away to an inaccessible place and bury it.”

In recent years the suicide rate in Russia has gone up. Personal loneliness has been added to social loneliness, the fear of losing one’s job, one’s home, the ground under one’s feet. In Russia, in 1998, there were 45 suicides per 100,000 which is a terribly high figure by world standards. In England the figure today is nine per 100,000 and in pre-revolutionary Russia the ‘norm’ was three per 100,000. The WHO has acknowledged that today in Russia suicide is a slowly unfolding crisis.

When someone starts talking about killing himself and tells his closest friends about it, they should not let him out of their sight for a moment, and keep in constant touch with him. At such times human contact is more important than even before. Doctors advise those who want to cope with delusions on their own that they should buy a ticket for a long train journey, and unburden their soul to the first person who comes along, it will tale a great load off their minds.

DEPRESSION IN COLLEGE STUDENTS

Depression is widespread among college students. As many as 78 percent of college students suffer some symptoms of depression. Forty-six percent of the students have intense enough depression to make some professional help appropriate. At least twice the rate of suicides occur among college students each year as among nonstudents of similar age.

Why are these students, a more competent and advantaged group than the general population, such easy prey to depression? There are many possible reasons. Many students are living away from home for the first time. They must cope with situations that require new kinds of adaptive behaviors. In addition, because colleges bring together the most talented and achieving students from many high schools, staying at the top is much harder, and competition is fierce. Many students who have always been near the top of their classes can’t face the prospect of a less outstanding position. Often students aren’t sure what career they want to follow. They may spend time feeling guilty about the money their parents are spending on their education and feel an obligation to be successful even when they have no clear idea of what to do with their lives. At first, they may have few people to whom they can turn for comfort or reassurance. Their old friends are back home, and the effort required to make new friends may cause some anxiety. Severe loneliness and feelings of isolation result.

Self-destruction is also a serious problem among college students. The suicide rate for the college population is 50 percent higher than for the general population. Each year 100,000 college students threaten suicide and some 1,000 actually kill themselves. This problem is found not only in the United States, but in European countries, India, and Japan as well. During a nine-year period, twenty-three students enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley committed suicide. Compared to their nonsuicidal classmates, these students appeared to be moody, drove themselves harder, and were depressed frequently. Their depression often took the form of extreme agitation. Most of them gave recurrent warnings of their suicidal intent. The major precipitating factors seemed to be worry about schoolwork, concerns about health, and difficulties in their relationships with others.

Most of the students who feel depressed do not seek professional help either within the college or from outside sources. They try to handle the problem by working harder, by talking to friends, or by dropping out. Colleges have tried to cope with these problems in a variety of ways.

Perhaps one effective way to reduce this problem is to make students aware that what they are experiencing is not unique. The majority of students have the same discomforts. This might help them decide more intelligently how to deal with depression and where to seek help. Rather than attributing academic difficulties to intellectual deficiencies, the student might be made aware that emotional stress and depression may cause sadness and less motivated behavior, which also might interfere with academic performance.

Answer the following questions:

1. How many percent of college students suffer depression?

2. What are the possible reasons of such a situation?

3. Are these reasons social or psychological?

4. Self-destruction is also a serious problem, isn’t it?

5. What data are given concerning a suicide rate among college students?

6. What countries are mentioned in connection with it?

7. How did these suicidal victims behave on the eve?

8. What were the major precipitating factors of their depression?

9. How do depressed students very often try to cope with their problems?

10. What is the effective way to reduce the problem of depression?

Choose the right variant:

1. a) At least thrice the rate of suicides occur among college students as among nonstudents.

b) At least twice the rate of suicides occur among college students as among nonstudents.

3. At least four times the rate of suicides occur among college students as among nonstudents.

SOCIOLOGY

UNIT I