2012年6月 Section C 6级

2012年6月 Section C Passage One As anyone who has tried to lose weight knows ,realistic(现实，现实主义) goal -setting generally produces the best results. That’s partially（部分） because it appears people who set realistic goals actually work more efficiently,and exert more effort,to achieve those goals. What’s far less understood by scientists,however,are the potentially（潜在的） harmful effects of goal-setting. Newspapers relay daily accounts of goal-setting prevalent（流行的，普遍的，广泛的） in industries and businesses up and down both Wall Street（华尔街） and Main Street,yet there has been surprisingly little research on how the long-trumpeted（长期鼓吹） practice of setting goals may have contributed to（有助于） the current economic crisis,and unethical（不道德） behavior in general. “Goals are widely used and promoted as having really beneficial effects.And yet,the same motivation（动机） that can push people to exert more effort in a constructive（有益的，建设性的） way could also motivate people to be more likely to engage in（从事于，参加） unethical behaviors,”says Maurice Schweitzer,an associate professor at Penn’s Wharton School. “It turns out there’s no economic benefit to just having a goal-you just get a psychological benefit” Schweitzer says,”But in many case, goals have economic rewards that make them more powerful” A prime（主要的，最好的，基本的） example Schweitzer and his colleagues cite（引用） is the 2004 collapse（倒塌，瓦解，暴跌） of energy-trading giant（巨大的） Enron（安然公司，财富500强之一）, where managers used financial incentives（激励，奖励） to motivate salesmen to meet specific revenue（税收，收益） goals. The problem, Schweitzer says ,is the actual trades were not profitable（有利可图的，赚钱的，有益的）. Other studies have shown that saddling（使负担） employees with unrealistic goals can compel（强迫，迫使） them to lie,cheat or steal. Such was the case in the early 1990s when Sears imposed a sales quota（定额） on its auto repair staff. It prompted employees to overcharge（索价过高） for work and to complete unnecessary repairs on a companywide basis. Schweitzer concedes（承认） his research runs counter to（与某事物相抵触） a very large body of literature that commends（推荐，称赞） the many benefits of goal-setting. Advocates of the practice have taken issue with his team’s use of such evidence as news accounts to support his conclusion that goal-setting is widely over-prescribed. In a rebuttal（反驳） paper ,Dr Edwin Locke writes:” Goal-setting is not going away. Organizations cannot thrive（繁荣） without being focused on their desired end results any more than individual can thrive without goals to provide a sense of purpose.” But Schweitzer contends the “mounting causal evidence” linking goal-setting and harmful behavior should be studied to help spotlight（使公众注意） issues that merit caution and further investigation（调查，研究）. “Even a few negative effects could be so large that they outweigh many positive effects,” he says. “Goal -setting dose help coordinate（协调） and motive people, My idea would be to combine that with careful oversight,a strong organizational culture, and make sure the goals that you use are going to be constructive and not significantly harm the organization,” Schweitzer says. Passage Two For most of the 20th century, Asia asked itself what it could learn from the modern, innovating（创新） West. Now the question must be reversed(颠倒): what can the West’s overly indebted（负债的） and sluggish（市场疲弱） nations learn from a flourishing（繁荣的） Asia? Just a few decades ago, Asia’s two giants were stagnating（停滞） under faulty economic ideologies（意识形态）. However, once China began embracing（拥抱，信奉，皈依） free-market reforms in the 1980s, followed by India in the 1990s, both countries achieved rapid growth .Crucially（关键的，至关重要的）, as they opened up their markets, they balanced market economy with sensible（明智的） government direction. As the India economist Amartya Sen has wisely（明智的） said,” The invisible（无形的） hand of the market has often relied（rely，依赖，依靠） heavily on the visible（有形的） hand of government.” Contrast this middle path with America and Europe, which have each gone ideologically（意识形态） overboard（及其热心的，全身心投入的） in their own ways. Since the 1980s, America has been increasingly cli