Question

While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail miserably often flourish (繁榮) more in the long run, according to a new study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Researchers have found that people missing their goals perform much better in the long run. That is because they gain more knowledge from their failures than their successes and the lessons are more likely to stay longer in their minds.

“We found that the knowledge gained from success was often fleeting while knowledge from failure stuck around for years,” said professor Desai, who led the study. “But companies often ignore failure. Managers may fire people or turn over the whole workforce while they should treat the failure as a learning opportunity.”

Prof Desai compared the flights of the space shuttle Atlantis and the Challenger. During the Atlantis flight last year, a piece of insulation (絕緣體) broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster (助推火箭) but didn’t influence the program. There was little investigation. The Challenger was launched next and another piece of insulation broke off. This time the shuttle and its seven–person crew were destroyed. The disaster led to a major investigation resulting in 29 changes to prevent future disasters.

The difference in response in the two cases came down to this: Atlantis was considered a success and the Challenger a failure.

“Despite crowded skies, airlines are extremely reliable,” he said. “The number of failures is extremely small. And past researches have shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents.”

Prof Desai doesn’t recommend finding out failure in order to learn. Instead, he advises organizations to analyze small failures to collect useful information rather than wait for major failures.

1. Why did experts pay little attention to the problem of Atlantis?

A．Because it worked perfectly.

B．Because the right booster was still OK.

C．Because nothing serious happened then.

D．Because fewer people died in the flight.

2.Fewer accidents happen to older airlines in that ________.

A．their planes couldn’t fly high in the sky

B．they gained much from experience in failure

C．their planes were often checked by the experts

D．they were unpopular among passengers

3.The passage is written mainly to ________.

A．show failure is a better teacher than success

B．explain why Challenger failed

C．introduce something about Prof Desai

D．tell managers how to achieve success

4. Which writing strategy is NOT used in developing the passage?

A．Giving definitions.

B．Making comparisons.

C．Analyzing causes.

D．Providing different examples.

 

Answer 1

【答案】

1.C

2.B

3.A

4.A

【解析】

試題分析:本文是一篇說明文，說明了盡管成功比失敗甜美，但是失敗更像一個好老師，從失敗中得到教訓比較多，對成功和失敗進行比較、分析原因，舉例說明

1.細節(jié)題，由第三段第二行a piece of insulation (絕緣體) broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster (助推火箭) but didn’t influence the program可以知道答案，故選C。

2.細節(jié)題。由最后一段第三行those with more experience in failure,可以知道答案，所以選B。

3.推理題，由本文的主要意思“失敗是個很好的老師”，所以選A

4.推理題，本文對成功和失敗進行比較、分析原因，舉例說明，沒有下定義，所以選A

考點：本篇是一篇說明文

點評：做細節(jié)題的關(guān)鍵是找出原文的根據(jù)，認真核查題支和原文的異同，常犯錯誤有：絕對化語言，范圍擴大或縮小，以偏概全，張冠李戴等。推斷題測試考生在閱讀基礎上的邏輯推理能力，要求考生根據(jù)文章所述事件的邏輯關(guān)系，對未說明的趨勢或結(jié)局作出合理的推斷；或根據(jù)作者所闡述的觀點理論，對文章未涉及的現(xiàn)象、事例給以解釋。考生首先要仔細閱讀短文，完整了解信息，準確把握作者觀點。