Question

【题目】 Please take a few seconds and think of your personal biggest goal. Imagine telling someone you meet today what you’re going to do. Imagine their congratulations and their high image of you. Doesn’t it feel good to say it out loud? Don’t you feel one step closer already? Well, bad news: you should have kept your mouth shut, because that good feeling will make you less likely to do it.

Any time you have a goal, there is some work that needs to be done to achieve it. Ideally, you would not be satisfied until you’d actually done the work. But when you tell someone your goal and he acknowledges(认可) it, psychologists have found it’s called a “social reality”. The mind is kind of tricked into feeling that it’s already done. And then, because you’ve felt that satisfaction, you’re less motivated to do the actual hard work necessary. This goes against the traditional wisdom that we should tell our friends our goals, right?

In 1982, Peter Gollwitzer, a Professor of Psychology, wrote a whole book about this. And in 2009, he did some new tests that were published. It goes like this: 163 people across four separate tests—everyone wrote down their personal goal. Then half of them announced their commitment(许诺) to this goal to the room, and half didn’t. Then everyone was given 45 minutes of work that would directly lead them towards their goal, but they were told that they could stop at any time. Now those who kept their mouths shut worked the entire 45 minutes on average, and when asked afterwards, said they felt they had a long way to go to achieve their goal. But those who had announced it quit after only 33 minutes on average, and when asked afterwards, said that they felt much closer to achieving their goal.

【1】What do the words “social reality” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A.Completion of the goal.B.Necessary hard work.

C.People's acknowledgement.D.A sense of satisfaction.

【2】What does Peter Gollwitzer try to tell us?

A.Writing down the goal is very helpful.

B.Achieving personal goal needs more time.

C.Keeping the goal secret makes people work harder.

D.Making the goal public makes people less satisfied.

【3】How did Peter Gollwitzer prove his idea about people’s goal?

A.By giving figures.B.By giving examples.

C.By making a survey.D.By making comparison tests.

【4】What will probably happen if you tell your friends your goal?

A.You will be more confident.B.You will not gain satisfaction.

C.You are less likely to realize it.D.You’ll be much more motivated.

Answer 1

【答案】

【1】A

【2】C

【3】D

【4】C

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。文章讲述了将目标告诉别人之后得到的满足感会让你不太可能完成目标，而将目标保密会让你更努力的完成目标。

【1】词义推测题。根据后文The mind is kind of tricked into feeling that it‘s already done.可知，social reality是大脑被欺骗感觉目标已经完成了，也就是说social reality意味着目标的完成。故选A项。

【2】推理判断题。根据第三段Now those who kept their mouths shut worked the entire 45 minutes on average可知，Peter Gollwitzer通过做实验发现没有宣布自己的目标的人坚持完成目标的时间更长，这说明他想告诉人们将目标保密会让人们更加努力。故选C项。

【3】推理判断题。根据第三段内容可知，Peter Gollwitzer做了一个实验，163个实验对象都写下了他们的个人目标，然后他们中的一半宣布了他们对这个目标的承诺，而一半没有。然后比较了两种实验对象的结果。这是一个对照实验。故选D项。

【4】推理判断题。根据第一段中Well, bad news: you should have kept your mouth shut, because that good feeling will make you less likely to do it.可知，将目标告诉别人之后得到的满足感会让你不太可能完成目标，因此如果你将自己的目标告诉朋友，你会不太可能实现这个目标。故选C项。