“Do you think you’ll make it to 75? That was the question that the massive Health and Retirement Survey posed to 26,000 Americans over the age of 50 in 1992.

“Specifically, the researchers asked respondents to guess their odds of living to age 75: 10 percent? 50 percent? 100? Now, nearly 25 years later, researchers can evaluate how well the respondents did at guessing their chances of living that long — simply by counting how many of those people actually made it to 75.

“In general, people wildly underestimated their chances of reaching 75. Seven percent of respondents said there was simply no way they’d live to 75 - they gave themselves a zero percent chance of living that long.

“But in fact, nearly half of this group lived to 75 - or longer. Among people who gave themselves 50-50 odds, 75 percent saw their 75th birthday.”

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