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1、Unit 18 Adversity makes a man wise, not rich.逆境出人才。学习内容 题 材 词 数 建议时间 得分统计 做题备忘Text 1 科普知识 392 /10Text 2 商业经济 477 /10Text 3 社会生活 406 /10Part AText 4 文化教育 451 /10Part B 商业经济 617 /10Part C 科普知识 363 /10Part ADirections：Read the following texts. Answer the questions blow each text by choosing A,B,C or D.
2、Text 1The desire for achievement is one of lifes great mysteries. Social scientists have devoted lifetimes to studying the drives that spur us out of bed in the morning, compel us to work or study hard and spark all manner of human endeavor. Indeed, a 1992 textbook actually documents 32 distinct the
3、ories of human motivation. Given this diversity of thought, its easy to forget that for a half century, American society has been dominated by the psychological school known as behaviorism，or Skinnerian psychology. Although behaviorism and its fundamental principle of “positive reinforcement” have l
4、ong since lost their way in academic circles, the Skinnerian legacy remains powerful in every realm of trash. Tired out? Do it, and you can go to the movies Friday night. Not in the mood for work? Keep plugging away, and you might get a bonus. Not interested in calculus? Strive for an A in the class
5、, and you will make the honor roll. The theory may be bankrupt, but incentives and rewards are so much a part of American culture that its hard to imagine life without them. Yet thats exactly what a growing group of researchers are advocating today. A steady stream of research has found that rather
6、encouraging motivation and productivity, rewards actually can undermine genuine interest and diminish performance. “Our society is caught in a whopping paradox,”asserts Alfie Kohn, author of the new book Rewards (published by Houghton Mifflin), which surveys recent research on the effectiveness of r
7、ewards, “We complain loudly about declining productivity, the crisis of our school and the distorted values of our children. But the very strategy we use to solve those problems damaging rewards like incentive plans and grade and candy bars in front of people is partly responsible for the fix were i
8、n.”Its a tough argument to make in a culture that celebrates the spoils of success. Yet study after study shows that people tend to perform worse, to give up more easily and to lose interest more quickly when a reward is involved. Children who are given treats for doing artwork, for example, lose th
9、eir initial love of art within weeks. Teenagers who are promised a reward for tutoring youngsters dont teach as enthusiastically as tutors offered nothing. And chief executive officers who have been awarded long-term incentive plans have often steered their companies toward lower returns. 1. What do
10、es behaviorism basically believe in?A motivation and productivity.B performance and interest. C rewards and stimulus.D behavior and reinforcement.2. According to paragraph 2, it can be inferred that A rewards are highly effective in America.B rewards are not much sought after in schools.C rewards ha
11、ve long lost their appeal in American society.D Americans are addicted to rewards. 3. What does Alfie Kohns statement imply?A Our society is experiencing a declining in productivity.B Damaging rewards distort values of our children.C Incentives and rewards attribute to the problem we are complaining
12、.D Rewards like incentive plans and grade and candy bars are harmful.4.We can infer from the last paragraph thatA people are not used to being conditioned by prizes.B rewards, like punishments, attempt to control behavior.C rewards are so indispensable to American cultures.D the principle of “positi
13、ve reinforcement” is not fully enforced.5. What can be concluded from the text?A “Positive reinforcement” is useful to students. B With rewards, people tend to plug away.C Reward is sometimes harmful to people.D The desire for achievement is lifes great mystery.Text 2Lloyds TSB, the UKs biggest high
14、 street bank, is being forced to withdraw a memo which orders its branch staff not to switch customers into accounts that would pay them higher rates of interest. The bank will today write to every one of its 2600 branches to “clarify” the contents of an internal memo, which tells staff it is “unacc
15、eptable” to inform current account customers that they could make better returns by shifting spare cash into accounts with higher returns. The average balance in a Lloyds TSB account is understood to be 2000 and if half of every balance was moved into an alternative instant access account operated b
16、y Lloyds, the bank would have to pay an estimated $160 million in additional interest in a year. Lloyds, which has 7 million customers and last year made more than $3 billion profit, pays 0.3 percent interest on its current account. Its instant access account offers 3.4 percent. The memo told staff they could lose out on incentive scheme reward including cash bonuses and foreign holidays if they were caught switchi
