Question

How Much to Tip

You’re out to dinner. The food is delicious and the service is fine. You decide to leave a big fat tip. Why? The answer may not be as simple as you think.

Tipping, psychologists have found, is not just about service. Instead, studies have shown that tipping can be affected by psychological reactions to a series of different factors from the waiter’s choice of words, to how they carry themselves while taking orders, to the bill’s total. Even how much waiters remind customers of themselves can determine how much change they pocket by the end of the night.

“Studies before have shown that mimicry (模仿) brings into positive feelings for the mimicker,” wrote Rick van Baaren, a social psychology professor. “These studies show that people who are being mimicked become more generous toward the person who mimics them.”

 So Rick van Baaren divided 59 waiters into two groups. He requested that half serve with a phrase such as, “Coming up!” Those in the other half were instructed to repeat the orders and preferences back to the customers. Rick van Baaren then compared their take-home. The results were clear — it pays to mimic your customer. The copycat(模仿者) waiters earned almost double the amount of tips to the other group.

Leonard Green and Joel Myerson, psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis, found the generosity of a tipper may be limited by his bill. After research on the 1,000 tips left for waiters, cabdrivers, hair stylists, they found tip percentages in these three areas dropped as customers’ bills went up. In fact, tip percentages appear to plateau (达到稳定水平) when bills topped $100 and a bill for $200 made the worker gain no bigger percentage tip than a bill for $100.

“That’s also a point of tipping,” Green says. “You have to give a little extra to the cab driver for being there to pick you up and something to the waiter for being there to serve you. If they weren’t there, you’d never get any service. So part of the idea of a tip is for just being there.”

55. Apart from service, how many other factors affecting the customers’ tipping are mentioned in the passage?

A. 1.                          B. 2.                        C. 3.                          D. 4.

56. These studies show that _________.

A. tipping can be affected by physical reactions to many different waiter’s factors

B. people who are being mimicked usually tip less to the person who mimics them

C. the mimic waiters can get almost twice as much money as the other group

D. mimicry makes the mimicker feel bad

57. According to the passage, which of the following will be likely to show the right change of the tip percentages?

 

A                               B                                C                               D

58. We know from the passage that the writer seems to __________.

A. object to Mr. Green’s idea about tipping

B. think part of Mr. Green’s explanation is reasonable

C. give his generous tip to waiters very often

D. support the opinions of Mr. Green and Rick van Baaren about tipping

Answer 1

【答案】D

【解析】考查细节理解。根据第二段Instead, studies have shown that tipping can be affected by psychological reactions to a series of different factors from the waiter’s choice of words, to how they carry themselves while taking orders, to the bill’s total. Even how much waiters remind customers of themselves can determine how much change they pocket by the end of the night.可知选D。

【答案】C

【解析】考查推理判断。根据The results were clear — it pays to mimic your customer. The copycat(模仿者) waiters earned almost double the amount of tips to the other group.可推知C正确。

【答案】C

【解析】考查推理判断。根据In fact, tip percentages appear to plateau (达到稳定水平) when bills topped $100 and a bill for $200 made the worker gain no bigger percentage tip than a bill for $100.可推知C正确。

71题C
bill ($)        percentage(下降)           tip($)
10                  20%                            2
20                  18%                           3.6
30                  15%                           4.5

所以C图正确。

【答案】D

【解析】考查推理判断。作者引用他们的调查结果来证明自己的观点。所以作者持赞成态度。