Check your spelling: listen to the recording a second time, bu | Let’s IELTS
Check your spelling: listen to the recording a second time, but this time simultaneously following the script. Write down the hidden words based on what you hear in the audio recording, then go back and check if you spelled the words correctly.
Do you think that some people are naturally more lucky than others? Do you believe that you are significantly more or less lucky than other people? These are questions that have interested humans for centuries, and certainly, the large number of superstitions, lucky charms and talismans which have prevailed through history in civilisations across the world would suggest that humans have an almost innate belief in the power of luck.
The superstitions we have today have long histories. The number 13 is considered unlucky because that was the number of people at the table at Jesus Christ’s last supper. Touching wood comes from pagan rituals of imbibing the powers of tree Gods. Many people do not walk under ladders. This superstition does not come from the notion that a bucket of paint may drop on your head as you pass underneath. Rather, the shape of the ladder against the wall forms the shape of a triangle, which was thought to represent the symbol of the Holy Trinity and passing through it would break these powerful bounds and bring ill fortune.
But do these superstitions really have an effect? Many researchers have pondered this and all have found that superstitions have no effect on people’s fortunes. One of these experiments was conducted by a New York high school student and superstition skeptic, Mark Levin, who decided to test the notion that a black cat walking across your path would change your luck either to the better or to the worse. To find out, he asked two people to play a simple coin tossing game. Then, a black cat was encouraged to walk across their path, and the participants played the game once more, and the results were analyzed. As a control, the experiment was repeated using a white cat, to test whether the fortunes of the players were any different using a black or a white cat. Unsurprisingly, neither the white nor the black cat affected the results of the coin tossing game. Other experiments involving broken mirrors and walking under ladders have shown similar results.
