The key answer of exercise 2

1

The article supports clowns in hospitals. (The article begins by saying that many kids don’t like seeing clowns’ faces on the walls of hospitals. But clowning can make people laugh, which helps them recover more quickly and increases feelings of well-being for all in the hospital.)

2

1. Not mentioned, but research shows that all 250 kids questioned preferred not to have clown faces on the walls of the hospital. 
2. True (patients who had watched a comedy film of their choice following an operation required substantially less pain medication afterwards than a control group)
3. True (a Norwegian study ... showed how a sense of humour reduces mortality up to retirement age)
4. False (Norwegian study ... stresses that laughter is not always necessary for humour to work)
5. False (we don’t know that jokes are used in stressful situations: humour is often used by doctors and nurses to reinforce working relationships ... it enables them to cope with the stress of being surrounded by illness)
6. Not mentioned, but the focus is too much on technical solutions and the importance of attention and warm, human contact in the healing process is lost
7. False (research actually shows the opposite: A study that looked at how twins reacted to Gary Larson cartoons showed that a sense of humour wasn’t genetic)
8. Not mentioned in the article.