When T was a child I never said, "When T grow up, I want to be a CEO," but here T am．When I look back on my career, I realize the road to becoming a CEO isn't a straight, clearly clarified path．In fact, no two paths are the same．But whether you want to be a boss one day or not, there's a lot to learn from how leaders rise to the top of successful companies．

    As this series of stories shows, the paths to becoming a CEO may vary, but the people in that position share the qualities of commitment, work ethic （守则） and a strong desire for building something new．And every CEO take risks along the way—putting your life savings on the line to start a software company or leaving a big business to be one of the first employees at a startup．

    I grew up in Minnesota, and learned how to be an entrepreneur （企业家） from my father, who has run a small business for almost 30 years．I went to Georgetown University and tried a lot of business activities in college with varying degrees of success．And I always had a dream job pattern: to walk to work, work for myself and build something for consumers．

    I'm only 29, so it's been a quick ride to CEO．Out of college, I worked for AOL as a product manager, then moved to Revolution Health and ran the consumer product team．In mid-2007 I left Revolution Health and started LivingSocial with several other colleagues, where I became a CEO．

    Career advice; Don't figure out where you want to work, or even what industry you'd like to work at．Figure out what makes you do so．What gives you a really big rush? Answer why you like things, not what you like doing．．．and then apply it to your work life．Also, just because you're graduating, don't stop learning．Read more books than you did in college．If you do, and they're not, you're really well-positioned to succeed in whatever you do．

1.What can we know from the first paragraph?

    A．The author hasn't achieved his childhood ambition．

    B．The author thinks there is some easy way to become a CEO．

    C．The author had an ambition of becoming a CEO in his childhood．

    D．The author believes success stories of CEOs can be beneficial to everybody．

2.According to the author, successful CEOs should _____．

    A．try not to take risks

    B．stay in the same business

    C．have a strong sense of creativity

    D．save every possible penny

3.What can we know about the author from the passage?

    A．His father had far-reaching influence on him．

    B．He used to run the consumer product team for AOL．

    C．His business activities at college ended up in more failure than success．

    D．He started LivingSocial when he was still a student of Georgetown University．

4.Which of the following proverbs may the author agree with according to the last paragraph?

    A．Well begun is half done．

    B．One is never too old to learn．

    C．Time and tide wait for no man．

    D．Everything conies to him who waits．

Bonus（奖金） culture has become the subject of many studies nowadays. Many people have been angered by the way some bankers and high officials seem to have been rewarded for failure. Others find the idea of offering many-million-dollar bonuses morally disgusting.

But few have asked whether performance-related bonuses really do improve performance. The answer seems so obvious that even to ask the question can appear ridiculous. Indeed, in spite of all the complaints about them, financial encouragements continue to be introduced in more and more areas, from healthcare and public services to teaching and universities.

So it may come as a shock to many to learn that paying for results can actually make people perform badly in many circumstances, and that the more you pay, the worse they perform.

No one is arguing that bonuses can help companies and institutions attract and keep the best staff. Nor does anyone argue against the idea that you can encourage people to do specific tasks by linking payments to those tasks. Rather, the point is about how to get the best out of people. Do employees really perform better if you promise to pay them more for getting results?

There are some obvious reasons why such payments can fail. It has been argued, for instance, that cash bonuses contributed to the financial crash, because traders had little enthusiasm to make sure that their companies enjoyed long-term survival.

Most bonus projects are poorly designed, says Professor Malcolm Higgs. He thinks the reason is that organizations try to keep bonus arrangements simple. Nevertheless, he thinks bonus projects can work as long as they link the interests of individual employees with the long-term goals of a business.

Bonuses can also encourage cheating. “Once you start making people’s rewards dependent on outcomes rather than behaviors, the evidence is people will do whatever they can to get those outcomes,” says Professor Edward Deci. “In many cases the high officials simply lied and cheated to make the stock (股票) price go up so they got huge bonuses.”

But the work of Deci and others suggests the problem with bonuses runs far deeper than poor design or cheating. In 1971, he asked students to solve puzzles, with some receiving cash prizes for doing well and others getting nothing. Deci found those offered cash were less likely to keep working on puzzles after they had done enough to get paid.

These studies suggest that offering rewards can stop people doing things for the pure joy of it. This was the basis for a series of books by Kohn in which he argues that rewarding children, students and workers with grades, scholarships and other “bribes” (贿赂) leads to low-quality work in the long run.

Those who believe in the power of bonuses fail to distinguish between inner drive and outside pressure — wanting to do something because you like it for itself in contrast to doing something because you want the reward, Kohn says. “It’s not just that these two are different, it’s often that the more you reward people for doing something, the more their inner drive tends to decline.”

A “do this and get that” approach might improve performance in the short term, but over longer periods it will always fail, Kohn says. People who receive bonus will naturally play safe, become less creative, cooperate less and feel less valued, he adds. What’s more, the studies also suggest that offering rewards can also stop people taking responsibility.

71. The effect of performance-related bonuses has not been well studied because people _______.

A. take the function of bonuses for granted

B. see that bonus offering is done everywhere

C. think financial encouragement is disgusting

D. are shocked by the practice of rewarding for failures

72. According to Malcolm Higgs, designs that _________ are the good ones.

A. drive people to finish short-term tasks

B. help to attract and keep good employees

C. link financial rewards with the quality of the outcomes

D. connect individual interests with long-term business goals

73. If a person plays safe to get a bonus, he is probably being ________.

A. more enthusiastic                   B. more risk-taking

C. less daring                              D. less responsible

74. Which of the following do you think the author would most probably agree with?

A. Companies should make their bonus projects simple.

B. The benefit of bonus helps to get the best out of people.

C. The biggest problem with bonus is it creates cheating.

D. Bonus offering can stop people doing things for pure joy.

75. Which do you think is the best title of the passage?

A. What Is Bonus?                           B. Does Bonus Work?

C. Why Bonus Offered?                   D. How Bonus Works?