“What is the most important thing you’ve done in your life?” The question was put to me during a presentation I gave to a group of lawyers.
The answer came to me in an instant. It’s not the one I gave, because the situation was not right. As a lawyer in the entertainment industry, I knew the audience wanted to hear some amusing stories about my work with well-known people, but here’s the true answer:
The most important thing I’ve ever done occurred on October 8,1990. I began the day playing tennis with an old friend I hadn’t seen for a while. Between points we talked about what had been happening in each other’s lives. He and his wife had just had a baby boy, who was keeping them up at night.
While we were playing, a car came screaming up the road toward the courts. It was my friend’s father, who shouted to my friend that his baby had stopped breathing and was being rushed to the hospital. In a flash my friend was in the car and gone, disappearing in a cloud of dust.
For a moment I just stood there, paralyzed(呆若木鸡). Then I tried to figure out what I should do. Follow my friend to the hospital? There was nothing I could accomplish there, I convinced myself. My friend’s son was in the care of doctors and nurses, and nothing I could do or say would affect the outcome. Be there for moral support? Well, maybe. But my friend and his wife both had large families, and I knew they’d be surrounded by relatives who would provide more than enough comfort and support, whatever happened. All I could do at the hospital, I decided, was to get in the way. Also, I had planned a full day with my family, who were waiting for me to get home. So I decided to head back to my house and check in my friend later.
As I started my car, I realized that my friend had left his truck and keys at the courts. I now faced another problem. I couldn’t leave the keys in the truck. So I decided to go to the hospital and give him the keys.
When I arrived, I was directed to a room where my friend and his wife were waiting. As I had thought, the room was filled with family members silently watching my friend comfort his wife. I went in and stood by the door, trying to decide what to do next. Soon a doctor appeared. He approached my friend and his wife, and in a quiet voice told them that their son had died.
For a long time the two held each other and cried, unaware of the rest of us standing around in pained silence. After they had calmed themselves, the doctor suggested they spend a few moments with their son.
My friend and his wife stood up and walked past their families. When they reached the door, my friend saw me standing in the corner. He came over and hugged me and started to cry. My friend’s wife hugged me, too, and said , “Thanks for being here.”
For the rest of that morning, I sat in the emergency room of that hospital and watched my friend and his wife hold the body of their infant son, and say goodbye.
It’s the most important thing I have ever done. The experience taught me two lessons.
First: The most important thing I’ve ever done happened when I was completely helpless. None of the things I had learned in university, in three years of law school or in six years of legal practice were of any use in that situation. Something terrible was happening to people I cared about, and I was powerless to change the outcome. All I could do was standing by and watching it happen. And yet it was critical that I do just that--- just be there when someone needed me.
Second: The most important thing I’ve done almost didn’t happen because of things I had learned in classroom and professional life. Law school taught me how to take a set of facts, break them down and organized them. These skills are critical for lawyers. When people come to us for help, they’re often stressed out and depend on a lawyer to think logically. But while learning to think, I almost forget how to feel. Today I have no doubt that I should have leapt into my car without hesitation and followed my friend to the hospital.
From that one experience I learned that the most important thing in life isn’t the money you make, the status you attain or the honors you achieve. The most important thing in life is the kids’ team you coach or the poem you write----or the time when you’re just somebody’s friend.
【小题1】 When he was asked about the most important thing he had done in life at a presentation, the author _______.

A.felt it was not an interesting question
B.thought for a while and spoke his mind
C.gave an answer from a lawyer’s point of view
D.didn’t give the real answer
【小题2】When he saw his friend rush to the hospital, the author could not decide whether to follow mainly because he thought _______.
A.he had to stay with his family
B.his friend did not need his help.
C.he would not be of much help
D.the baby would be in the doctor’s care
【小题3】What can we infer from the author’s description of the scene at the hospital?
A.He found out that he was in the way.
B.He would have felt guilty if he had not been there.
C.He regretted that he went too late.
D.His friend would have felt better if he had not been there.
【小题4】Which of the following is conveyed in this story?
A.Family and relatives can not take the place of friends.
B.More people are a great comfort when one is in trouble.
C.It is best to be here when someone needs you.
D.You can certainly help a friend if you want to.
【小题5】The author learned from his own experience that_______.
A.what is taught in school is usually of no use.
B.a lawyer cannot learn much in classrooms
C.a lawyer should know people’s feeling first
D.he needs to be able to feel as well as think logically
【小题6】 The underlined sentence in the last paragraph suggests that the author_______.
A.is fond of writing poems
B.is going to coach the kid’s team
C.is determined to make friends with everybody
D.is fully aware of the importance of being helpful to those in need

As anyone who has tried to lose weight knows, realistic goal-setting generally produces the best results. That’s partly because most people who set realistic goals actually work more efficiently, and put more effort, to achieve those goals.

What’s far less understood by scientists, however, are the potentially harmful effects of goal-setting. Newspapers convey daily accounts of goal-setting widespread in industries and businesses up and down both Wall Street and Main Street, yet there has been surprisingly little research on how the long-advocated practice of setting goals may have contributed to the current economic crisis, and immoral behavior in general.

“Goals are widely used and promoted as having really beneficial effects. And yet, the same motivation that can push people to put more effort in a constructive way could also motivate people to be more likely to engage in immoral behaviors,” says Maurice Schweitzer, an associate professor at Penn’s Wharton School. His paper, titled “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Praised Goal Setting,” appears in the February issue of the Academy of Management Perspectives.

“It turns out there’s no financial benefit to just having a goal---you just get a psychological benefit” Schweitzer says. “But in many cases, goals have financial rewards that make them more powerful.”

A major example Schweitzer and his colleagues give is the 2004 breakdown of energy-trading giant Enron( 德国安然公司), where managers used financial rewards to motivate salesmen to meet specific goals. The problem, Schweitzer says, is that the actual trades were not profitable. 

Other studies have shown that burdening employees with unrealistic goals can force them to lie, cheat or steal. Such was the case in the early 1990s when Sears(西尔斯公司)placed a sales quota (销售限额) on its auto repair staff. It inspired employees to overcharge for work and to complete unnecessary repairs on a companywide basis.

Schweitzer admits his research runs counter to a very large body of literature that praises the many benefits of goal-setting. Advocates of the practice have argued with his team’s use of such evidence as news accounts to support his conclusion that goal-setting is widely over-praised.

In a rebuttal (反驳) paper, Dr. Edwin Locke writes: “Goal-setting is not going away. Organizations cannot grow without being focused on their desired end results any more than an individual can grow without goals to provide a sense of purpose.”

But Schweitzer argues the “evidence” linking goal-setting and harmful behavior should be studied to help draw attention to issues that deserve attention and further investigation. “Even a few negative effects could be so large that they outweigh many positive effects,” he says.

The debate is likely to get heated on in future papers, and the practice of setting goals no doubt will continue. For now, though, the lesson seems to be to put more thought into setting goals.

“Goal-setting does help motivate people. My idea would be to combine that with careful management, a strong organizational culture, and make sure the goals that you use are going to be constructive and not significantly harmful to the organization,” Schweitzer says.

1.What does Maurice Schweitzer want to show by mentioning the example of Enron?

A.Setting realistic goals can turn a failing business into success.

B.Businesses are likely to succeed without realistic goals.

C.Companies are certain to meet specific goals with financial rewards.

D.Goals with financial rewards have strong motivational power.

2.How did Sears’ goal-setting affect its employees?

A.They had to work more hours to increase their sales.

B.They competed with one another to attract more customers.

C.They turned to immoral practice to reach their goals.

D.They improved their customer service on a companywide basis.

3.The underlined words “runs counter to” (Paragraph 7) can be replaced by ________.

A.agrees with        B.goes against        C.fits in with         D.applies to

4.What is Edwin Locke’s argument against Schweitzer?

A.The practice of setting goals only helps people to develop.

B.Goal-setting is of no use motivating people to accomplish their tasks.

C.The positive effects of goal-setting outweigh its negative effects.

D.Studying goal-setting can contribute to successful business practices.

5.According to the passage, the author tries to convey ___________.

A.the goals that most people set are unrealistic.

B.all people can improve their work quality by setting goals.

C.setting goals can provide people with a sense of purpose.

D.people should not ignore the negative effects of goal-setting.

 

Even plant can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects or disease. But unlike human, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet away straight up. A decade ago, adopting the infrared (红外线)scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers precisely target pesticide (杀虫剂)spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which invariably includes plants that don’t have pest(害虫)problems.

Even better, Paley’s Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems before they became visible to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an infrared scanner measured the heat sent out by crops. The data were transformed into a color-coded map showing where plants were running “fevers”. Farmers could then spot-spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide that they otherwise would.

The bad news is that Paley’s company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long-term backers were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements(改进)ininfrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. “This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States,” says George Oerther of Texas A& M, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial backing which he failed to obtain 10 years ago.

1.In what situation will plants have a fever?(No more than 8 words)(2marks)

2.How can we apply pesticide spraying precisely?(No more than 10 words)(2 marks)

3.Why may infrared scanning technology by brought back into operation?(No more than 13 words)(3 marks)

4.What is the biggest problem that might prevent bringing infrared scanning technology back?(No more than 7 words)(3 marks)

 

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