Question

While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail spectacularly often flourish 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 2002 Atlantis flight, 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】文章告訴我們相對于成功，失敗的意義更為重大，因為人們從失敗中獲得了很多的經(jīng)驗，對未來的成功有更多的啟發(fā)意義。

1.C 推理題。根據(jù)文章第三段第三行but didn’t influence the program說明Atlantis號也有一塊絕緣體脫落，但是沒有影響整個程序，發(fā)射成功了，沒有發(fā)生嚴重的事情。人們認為其是成功的，故C正確。

2.B 細節(jié)題。根據(jù)文章到書第二段最后一句And past researches have shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents.說明這些航空公司從失敗中獲得了很多的經(jīng)驗，所以他們的事故率很低，故B正確。

3.A 主旨大意題。文章主要講述的是與成功相比較失敗對人的影響更大，人們可以從失敗中獲得更多的知識。故A正確。

4.A 本文在寫作的時候，舉了例子，分析了原因，也做了比較。但是沒有給出概念，故A沒有被使用。