The Road to Betterment - Page 175

C2 Proficiency · Multiple Choice Reading · Ready for C2 Proficiency Student's Book, Macmillan

You are going to read a text about self-help books. For questions 1–6, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

Often labelled as disingenuous at best, and mere psychobabble nonsense at worst, self-help books have long captivated the masses with their promise to help you on your path to self-knowledge, betterment and eternal happiness, and I appear to be no different. Despite not having learnt Chinese, mastered the art of meditation or acquired the inner peace that would stop the trivial family arguments, I could conceivably achieve any one of those things at any moment, thanks to the bookshelf in my study currently groaning under the weight of my collection of self-help books. Tantalisingly just out of reach at all times, my perfect self may lie within the pages of one of those life manuals. Perhaps it is just a question of me not having found the right one for me. And yet, having consumed vast quantities of this content and still not found enlightenment, I fear that I'm none the wiser and would have been better off reading literally anything else. Lurking in the back of my mind are the nagging thoughts ever querying whether my time would in fact be better spent reading the classics like Plato or Marcus Aurelius. But then another self-help tome appears, one which promises to help you reach nirvana and I'm sucked in again. And this, essentially, is what the self-help book industry knows and preys upon. At its most basic level the self-help or self-betterment genre encourages people to read, which is a thing to be encouraged. In fact, reading for betterment has existed since the ancient world of the aforementioned Greeks and Romans. However, today's version is nothing short of a goldmine, its admirable original aims long since consigned to history as we go searching for a quick fix to our problems in a world where competition for everything is fierce. Some blame globalisation for our obsession with improving ourselves; others see the rat race of employment as the culprit. Whatever the root, people are now in thrall to these self-styled gurus, churning out dubious advice, things which many people would say is common sense and wouldn't dream of paying a penny for. Publishers will have us believe that self-help is the bestselling non-fiction genre, and a recent trip to my local bookshop bore out these claims. Shelves upon shelves of enticing aspirational titles sat vying to be the one to take me to the promised land of health, happiness and riches. Browsing the shelves, I was struck by the similarity of their content as advertised by the slogans and straplines on the covers, but perhaps this is not surprising. With so many writers having jumped on the bandwagon over the years, the market is now saturated, and one suspects there is little of any value left to say, especially given that the advice has always been more anecdotal than rigorously researched in the first place. This is in stark contrast to its academic counterpart, the field of psychology. Unfortunately for many of the writers in this field, academia is catching up with them and what it has to say makes for uncomfortable reading. Psychologists have long viewed self-help books with a dose of skepticism and rightly so. Few studies carried out on their efficacy have anything positive to report. Recently, I read some online articles vigorously refuting all sorts of claims made by self-help authors about human behaviour and the inner workings of the human brain. But for me, the observations that struck a chord were more about the commercial elements. Several researchers have pointed out that the people most likely to purchase a self-help book were those who had bought one in the previous year. And as some have drily commented, surely the whole idea of a self-help book is that only one should be necessary. Talking to psychologists can shed some light on this as they have identified some cognitive biases, or errors in thinking, which drive us to this genre over and over. The narrative fallacy, which I for one am definitely guilty of, states that when assessing our successes, humans tend to remember positive points not negative ones, and self-help books are full of what worked rather than what didn't. Another bias is the fundamental attribution error, which is my personal favourite. When other people make mistakes, we think it's due to their character, but for ourselves, it's down to our life circumstances. But this ignores something that many successful people mention, and that, of course, is luck. So next time you find yourself about to part with some hard-earned cash for another self-help book, you might want instead to move on to the Classics aisle.

She believes the caliber of advice varies.

She is sceptical in general of their merits.

She finds them life-affirming.

She is appalled by the contents.

What is the author's assessment of self-help books?

promotes some addictive behaviours.

is aware that it exploits the naïve.

prioritises financial gain over health.

steals its ideas from classical writings.

The author implies that the self-help genre

convey the fascination that self-help advice holds for people.

clarify which group of people in particular are drawn to self-help books.

justify people's significant interest in self-help advice.

explain how the self-help genre is responsible for people's increased interest in reading.

In the third paragraph, the writer uses the phrase 'in thrall' to

It should be better researched.

It has become less relevant.

It needs more diverse writers.

It would benefit from fresh subject matter.

What does the writer conclude about the content of current self-help books?

There is an element of irony to the basic premise when you consider the habits of their readership.

There is a tendency to grossly undermine the work of professionals.

Reading them can make for a distressing experience for a proportion of readers.

When you consider the population at large, their commercial success is entirely predictable.

What do academics have to say about self-help books?

sustain people's resolve to change.

skirt around the issue of individuality.

Available as a free printable PDF worksheet with an optional answer key.

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