Passage ThreeQuestions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
The desire for achievement is one of life’s 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 human motivation.
Given this diversity of thought,it’s 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 lost their sway in academic circles, the Skinnerian legacy remains powerful in every realm of trash 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 interest in calculus? Strive for an A in the class, 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 it’s hard to imagine life without them.
Yet that’s exactly what a growing group of researchers are advocating today. A steady stream of research has found that rather than encouraging and diminishing performance, “our society is caught in a whopping paradox,” asserts Alfie Kohn, author of the new book published by Rewards (Houghton Mifflin), which surveys recent research on the effectiveness of rewards. “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 we’re in.”
It’s 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 for tutoring youngsters don’t teach as enthusiastically as tutors offered nothing. And chief executive officers who have been awarded longterm incentive plans have often steered their companies toward lower returns.
31.According to behaviorism, all human actions
.
A) are based on stimulus and response
B) have no bearing on human drives
C) are supposed to be highly motivated
D) are of a great mystery
32.Behaviorism basically believes in .
A) motivationB) performanceC) rewardsD) human factors
33. From the passage, it can be inferred that
.
A) rewards are highly effective in America
B) rewards are not much soughtafter in academic circles
C) rewards have long lost their appeal in American society
D) Americans are addicted to rewards
34. The children’s behavior in the last paragraph
.
A) can be best explained be behaviorism
B) can be linked to Pavlov’s dogs
C) shows that rewards may well kill desire
D) serve to provided evidence to behaviorism
35. Which of the following in support of the finding that “people tend to perform worse,…when a reward is involved”( last paragraph )?
A) People are not used to being conditioned by prizes.
B) Rewards, like punishments, are attempts to control behavior.
C) Rewards are so indispensable to American cultures.
D) The principle of “positive reinforcement” in not fully enforced.
Passage FourQuestions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
In general, our society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a bureaucratic (官僚主义的) management in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-ventilated factories and piped music, and by psychologists and “human-relations” experts; yet all this oiling does not alter the fact that man has become power-less, that he does not wholeheartedly participate in his work and that he is bored with it. In fact, the blue and the white-collar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, not only because they might find themselves out of a job; they are anxious also because they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction or interest in life. They live and die without ever having confronted the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is not a matter of salary but even more a matter of selfrespect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the tight mixture of submissiveness and independence. From that moment on they are tested again and again by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors, who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one’s fellow-competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and illness.
Am I suggesting that we should return to the preindustrial mode of production or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise capitalism”? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest transforming our social from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities—those of and of reason—are the aims of all social arrangements. Production and consumption should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.
36. By “a well-oiled cog in the machinery” the author intends to render the idea that man is
.
A) a necessary part of the society though each individuals function is negligible
B) working in complete harmony with the rest of the society
C) an unimportant part in comparison with the rest of the society, though functioning smoothly
D) a humble component of the society, especially when working smoothly
37. The real cause of the anxiety of the workers and employees is that
.
A) they are likely to lose their jobs
B) they have no genuine satisfaction or interest in life
C) they are faced with the fundamental realities of human existence
D) they are deprived of their individuality and independence
38. From the passage we can infer that real happiness of life belongs to those
.
A) who are at the bottom of the society
B) who are higher up in their social status
C) who prove better than their fellow-competitors
D) who could keep far away from this competitive world
39. To solve the present social problems the author suggests that we should
.A) resort to the production mode of our ancestors
B) offer higher wages to the workers and employees
C) enable man to fully develop his potentialities
D) take the fundamental realities for granted
40. The author’s attitude towards industrialism might best be summarized as one of
.
A) approval B) dissatisfaction C) suspicion D) tolerance
