Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)
Could a hug a day keep the doctor away? The answer may be a resounding "yes!" ___1___ helping you feel close and ___2___ to people you care about, it turns out that hugs can bring a ___3___ of health benefits to your body and mind. Believe it or not, a warm embrace might even help you ___4___ getting sick this winter.
In a recent study ___5___ over 400 healthy adults, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania examined the effects of perceived social support and the receipt of hugs ___6___ the participants' susceptibility to developing the common cold after being ___7___ to the virus. People who perceived greater social support were less likely to come ___8___ with a cold, and the researchers ___9___ that the stress-reducing effects of hugging ___10___ about 32 percent of that beneficial effect. ___11___ among those who got a cold, the ones who felt greater social support and received more frequent hugs had less severe ___12___.
"Hugging protects people who are under stress from the ___13___ risk for colds that's usually ___14___ with stress," notes Sheldon Cohen, a professor of psychology at Carnegie. Hugging "is a marker of intimacy and helps ___15___ the feeling that others are there to help ___16___ difficulty."
Some experts ___17___ the stress-reducing, health-related benefits of hugging to the release of oxytocin, often called "the bonding hormone" ___18___ it promotes attachment in relationships, including that between mothers and their newborn babies. Oxytocin is made primarily in the central lower part of the brain, and some of it is released into the bloodstream. But some of it ___19___ in the brain, where it ___20___ mood, behavior and physiology.