Passage 1
Habits aren't that hard to come by, and the average person can establish a new one fairly quickly. Whether
it's watching less television or exercising more regularly, three weeks of effort really seems to be the most it
takes. To form a new habit, just follow certain key steps. First, be clear what your goal is, and visualize
success. Second, list the benefits of what this new habit will be (for instance, better health when you stop
eating fried foods). Third, commit fully to the task, even if you start slowly (giving up fried foods might be
easier after first cutting down on eating them). Fourth, and finally just keep at it! In just three weeks, the
french fry can be a thing of your past.
Passage 2
Many sources claim that habits become ingrained in a person in as few as 21 days. That theory seems to
have resulted from a 1960 book about a plastic surgeon who discovered his patients needed about three
weeks to adjust to the loss of a limb. However, deciding to take up daily exercise is not at all comparable to
learning to live without a limb, and the reality is that forming a habit is more individual than that. In fact, a
study in the European Journal of Social Psychology shows that, on average, it takes people approximately
66 days to form a habit. Of the 96 people in the study, some formed habits in as few as 18 days while
others took more than 250. Others still were never able to successfully form a habit.
Question
D
The author of Passage 2 most likely would say that the argument expressed in Passage 1 is
O unclear and irresponsible
O informed and precise
O incomplete but promising
