1、考研英语阅读Unit18Unit 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Part AText 1科普知识392/10Text 2商业经济477/10Text 3社会生活406/10Text 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.Text 1The d
2、esire 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 theories of hu
3、man 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 long since l
4、ost 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, and you w
5、ill 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 encouraging
6、 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 rewards, “We
7、 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 in.”Its a to
8、ugh 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 their initial
9、 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 does behavior
10、ism 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 have long los
11、t 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.D Rewards
12、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 “positive reinforc
13、ement” 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 street ban
14、k, 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 “unacceptable” to
15、 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 by Lloyds, t
16、he 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
17、lose out on incentive scheme reward including cash bonuses and foreign holidays if they were caught switching cash out of low interest accounts. A spokeswoman for Lloyds TSB said the memo, entitled Key Sales and Service Objectives, was designed to improve service levels and had been “quoted out of c
18、ontext”. It was written by Mike Mitchell, the banks national sales manager, and circulated in January. It was designed to stop its staff opening new accounts merely to receive incentive scheme points. Staff are allowed, however, to make other suggestions to customers, including selling them financia
19、l services such as unit trust investments and private health insurance, which generate substantial profits for the bank. Branch worker who successfully sell such products receive incentive scheme rewards, directly related to how much profit the bank makes from them. The banks spokeswoman said: “The
20、spirit of this memo, of putting customers first, has been obfuscated by sentences which are meant to say one thing but may be interpreted as saying another.” In some cases, she claimed, those with high sums to invest can get better returns from their existing current accounts because the interest ra
21、te rises as the balance goes up. But she admitted that the memo tells staff that all current account switches “must be initiated by the customer”, and that staff are not allowed to advise customers their money might earn better returns in alternative accounts. The only time such suggestions can be m
22、ade, says the memo, is in a formal one-to-one interview with the customer. The bank insisted that the memo was designed to improve customer service, but it has angered branch staff, who believe they are being ordered not to operate in the customers, best interests. The Lloyds spokeswoman added: “We
23、agree that this memo may be misinterpreted”.The banks deputy chief executive, Michael Farley, has intervened and will be rewriting the memo.6. Lloyds TSB is going to withdraw the internal memo becauseA it has been made known to the general public.B it has been opposed by all its customers.C it is mi
24、sinterpreted by its branch staff.D it is considered against customers best interests.7. The statement that the memo had been “quoted out of context” meansA a confession of the banks malpractice.B a guarantee of improvement of the banks service.C a response to criticisms of the memo.D a hint to withd
25、raw and rewrite the memo.8. According to the memo, the branch staffA will get no cash bonuses if they are caught selling private health insurance to customers.B will receive no incentive scheme rewards if found shifting cash into higher interest accounts.C cannot make any suggestions to customers to
26、 switch their money out of current accounts.D shall never tell their customers the interest rates of different accounts.9. The word “obfuscated” (line14, paragraph 3) can be replaced by A clarified. B strengthened. C obscured. D weakened.10. According to the text, which of the following statement is
27、 true?A The interest rate of an instant access account is lower than that of a current account.B The interest rate of an account rises as the balance in it goes up to a certain level.C The memo does not allow account switches even thought theyre required by customers.D The memo encourages the staff
28、to sell more financial services to improve customer service.Text 3There is a severe classic tragedy within major league baseball, tragedy that catches and manipulates the life of every athlete as surely as forces beyond the heaths manipulated Hardys simple Wessex folk into creatures of imposing stat
29、ure. Major league baseball is an insecure society; it pays a lavish salary to an athlete and then, when he reaches thirty-five or so, it abruptly stops paying him anything. But the tragedy goes considerably deeper than that. Briefly, it is the tragedy of fulfillment. Each major leaguer, like his chi
30、ldhood friends, always wanted desperately to become a major leaguer. Whenever there was trouble at home, in school, or with a girl, there was the sure escape of baseball; not the stumbling, ungainly escape of an ordinary ballplayer, but a sudden, remarkable metamorphosis into the role of a hero. For
31、 each major leaguer was first a star in his neighborhood or in his town, and each lived with the unending solace that there was one thing he could always do with grace and skill and poise. Somehow, he once believed with the most profound faith he possessed, that if he ever did make the major leagues
32、, everything would then become ideal. A major league baseball team is comprised of twenty-five youngish men who have made the major leagues and discovered that, in spite of it, life remains distressingly short of ideal. In retrospect, they were better off during the years when their adolescent dream was happily simple and vague. Among the twenty-f
