题目内容
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 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 way in academic circles, the Skinnerian legacy remains powerful in every field of daily life, from the home and classroom to the workplace. Don't want to take the trash out？ Do it, and you can go to the movies on 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'll 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 against today. A steady stream of research has found that rather than 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 published by Rewards (Houghton Mifflin), which surveys recent research in 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 — dangling 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 their initial love of art within weeks. Teenagers who are promised a reward for tutoring youngsters don't 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.
According to behaviorism, all human actions ______ .
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M: Why？ You can hardly find a better lecturer in this department! Don't you find his lectures both informative and instructive？
Q: What do we learn about the man？
(18)
A．Fewer retirees will be entitled to receive Social Security.B．Payroll taxes may be in
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D . Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
When the vote was finally taken, it was 3:45 in the morning, After six months of arguing and the final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, Australia's Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wished to die. The measure was passed by the convincing vote of 15 to 10. Almost at the same time word flashed on the Internet and was picked up, half a world away, by John Hofsess, executive director of the Right to Die Society of Canada. He sent it on through the group's on-line service, Death Net. Hofsess said: "We posted bulletins all day long, because of course this isn't just something that happened in Australia. It's world history."
The full import may take a while to sink in. The NT Rights of the Terminally Ill law has left physicians and citizens alike trying to deal with its moral and practical implications. Some have breathed sighs of relief; others, including churches, right-to, live groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back. In Australia—where an aging population, life-extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their part—other states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia. In America and Canada, where the right-to-die movement is gathering strength, observers are waiting for the dominoes to start failing.
Under the new Northern Territory law, an adult patient can request death—probably by a deadly injection or pill—to put an end to suffering. The patient must be diagnosed as terminally ill by two doctors. After a "cooling off" period of seven days, the patient can sign a certificate of request. 48 hours later, the wish for death can be met. For Lloyd Nickson, a 54-year-old Darwin resident suffering from lung cancer, the NT Rights of the Terminally Ill law means he can get on with living without the haunting fear of his suffering: a terrifying death from his breathing condition. "I'm not afraid of dying from a spiritual point of view, but what I am afraid of is how I'd go, because I've watched people die in the hospital fighting for oxygen and clawing at their masks." he says.
From the second paragraph we learn that ______.
According to the passage, the processing of the new antibiotic and vaccines becomes an engineering problem when ______.
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