***Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 23 to 30.* **
Two-thirds of couples start out as friends, research finds.
1. When Harry first met Sally, he asserted that men and women could not be friends because the "sex part always gets in the way". However, new research suggests that roughly two-thirds of couples begin as friends and maintain a platonic relationship for long periods before sparking a romance.
2. Stinson and her co-authors investigated the experiences of nearly 1,900 university students and crowdsourced adults (including 677 who were married or in common-law partnerships). All participants were asked whether they were friends with their current romantic partner before becoming romantically involved. Most participants (68%) reported that their current or most recent romantic relationship began as a friendship, regardless of gender, age, education level, or ethnic group. The rate of friends-first initiation was even higher among those in their 20s and within LGBTQ+ communities, with 85% of such couples stating that their romance began as a friendship. How a platonic relationship turns romantic and what really distinguishes friends from lovers remains a question still being explored, Stinson said.
3. The written accounts from study participants varied widely. Some described holding hands, family introductions, going on trips together, cuddling by the fire, and even having sex as friendship. Others categorized those same behaviors as romantic. "So there is a huge, messy, blurry line between friendship and romance ... it emphasizes how you really cannot define for somebody else what a friendship is versus what a romance is", she said. "They define it for themselves".
4. In the study, roughly 300 university students were also asked how long their "friends phase" lasted and whether they preferred to be friends before taking things in a romantic direction. On average, friends-turned-romantic partners were friends for nearly 22 months before starting a relationship. Nearly half of participants believed this was the best way to begin a romance, according to research in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
(Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com)