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

Answer 1

1.C

2.B

3.A

【解析】 本文是一篇與航空事業(yè)有關(guān)的說明文，通過描述工作人員研究飛機(jī)在航空時(shí)的狀況，間接告訴我們失敗乃成功之母，細(xì)小的錯(cuò)誤同樣需要重視的道理。

1. Atlantis ，“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 說 Atlantis失敗次數(shù)特別少。過去的研究已經(jīng)表明那些有更多失敗經(jīng)驗(yàn)的老航線，有更少的事故�？梢酝茢喑鰬�(yīng)選C

2. past researches have shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents過去的研究已經(jīng)表明那些有更多失敗經(jīng)驗(yàn)的老航線，有更少的事故。故選B

3. is because they gain more knowledge from their failures than their successes 那是因?yàn)樗麄儚氖�敗中得到的知識(shí)比成功中得到的多。點(diǎn)明文章主旨，故選A

考點(diǎn)：考察說明文閱讀