Question

There are two basic modes of judgment: criticism and praise. The former consists of identifying a subject’s flaws; the latter of noting its worthwhile qualities.

Often, the greater intellectual challenge — as a reader, as a viewer, and as a manager — is to recognize when something is truly great.

“Managers in particular seem to have a hard time with this” said Adam Grant, the author of Originals: How Nonconformists Move the World, in a lecture at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Grant points to the work of his former student Justin M. Berg, who is now a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University. While at college, Berg studied circus performers who were trying to make their circus world-famous. Berg asked the performers to submit videos of their works and then asked the artists themselves, circus managers, and regular audience members to evaluate them. He wanted to know, between the performers and the managers, who could predict which acts would most resonate (共鸣) with the audience members.

What Berg found is that the artists themselves were terrible judges of their own works. “On average,” Grant explained, “when they looked at 10 videos, they ranked their own videos two spots too high.” The reason, he said, is that “they’ve fallen in love with their own work.” The circus managers, however, are too negative about these works,” Grant said, “and they commit a ton of false negatives, rejecting really promising ideas.”

So why is this? Why do managers tend to find flaws, not reasons for praise? To answer that, Grant turns to the example of Seinfeld, an American sitcom (情景喜剧), which was rejected by director after director at NBC. Grant said, “You know, I realize that this show makes no sense and it’s really about nothing, and you can’t identify with any one of the characters. But it made me laugh and that’s what a sitcom is supposed to do.” The managers, by contrast, were too focused on whether Seinfeld looked like what had succeeded in the past to recognize its novel brilliancy. Years of experience had trained them to believe that a certain type of show would be successful, and prejudiced them against something that broke that mold.

But Grant says it wasn’t just experience that prevented those managers from appreciating Seinfeld. It was also that they had bad motivation. As he explained, “If you are a manager and commit a false positive, you are going to embarrass yourself, and potentially ruin your career.” Managers, he says, are terrified of committing false positives, meaning saying something will be a hit.

False negatives, by contrast, present little costs. “If you reject a great idea,” Grant said, “most of the time, no one will ever know.’’ Managers like to make safe bets and don’t mind the invisible losses.

Berg’s work was again inspiring. Berg found that there was one group whose nature did line up well with what was actually be popular with audiences: other circus artists. “They were the best forecasters by far,” said Grant. “Unlike the artists themselves, the peers could take a step back” and see a work’s flaws. But, unlike managers, the peers “were also really invested in the creative process” which enabled them to recognize when something was novel and worth the risk.

One conclusion from this would be to free managers from certain decision-making processes. But since that’s not typically possible, perhaps instead managers can be taught to think like peers, and Berg found that that can be done relatively easily. “All he did,” Grant explained, “was that he asked managers to spend five minutes brainstorming about their own ideas before they judged other people’s ideas.” “That”, Grant said, “was enough to open their minds. Because when they came in to select ideas, they were looking for reasons to say no. Get them into a brainstorming mindset first, and now they’re not thinking evaluatively but creatively.”

1.What does the underlined word “flaws” in the first paragraph mean?

A. Features.    B. Dangers.

C. Values.    D. Faults.

2.What can we learn about the works the circus performers submitted?

A. The circus performers committed false negatives towards them.

B. They couldn’t resonate with the audience members.

C. Both the circus performers and managers made prejudiced judgments about them.

D. The circus performers held the same opinion as the circus managers did about them.

3.By mentioning the sitcom Seinfeld, Grant intends to tell us ________.

A. why it has been popular among Americans

B. how an unknown play succeeded in the end

C. why managers tend to criticize rather than praise

D. how false positives make managers overlook its brilliance

4.Compared to false positives, false negatives ________.

A. can’t make more invisible losses

B. are more acceptable among managers

C. can potentially ruin managers’ careers

D. can make managers feel more embarrassed

5.According to Berg, managers are advised ________.

A. to think both evaluatively and creatively in judging an idea

B. to spend five minutes brainstorming before judging an idea

C. not to participate in certain decision-making processes

D. to reject any ideas that are not worthwhile

6.Which would be the best title for the passage?

A. The art of recognizing good ideas

B. The key factors in decision-making

C. The influence of false negatives

D. The two basic modes of judgment

Answer

1.D

2.C

3.C

4.B

5.B

6.A

【解析】本文是一篇议论文。文中介绍了有两种基本的判断方式：批评和赞美。批评是识别主体的缺陷；赞美是发现主体的优点。在大多数情况下，批评往往占据主导地位，特别是作为一个决策的管理者，墨守成规，不敢打破固有的思维模式。文中列举两个事例说明将管理者要从某些决策过程中解放出来，以此来识别良好想法的艺术。

1.词义猜测题。根据criticism and praise. The former consists of identifying a subject’s flaws中的关键信息criticism（批评，批判）和（前者是辨别…）可知，该词的意思是：瑕疵，A. Features特色；B. Dangers危险；C. Values价值；D. Faults错误，瑕疵。故选D。

2.细节理解题。根据第四段的关键信息the artists themselves were terrible judges of…和The circus managers, however, are too negative about…可知，无论这些演出者自己还是这些管理者都对作品做了有偏见性的评价。故选C。

3.细节理解题。根据第五段首句So why is this? Why do managers tend to find flaws, not reasons for praise? To answer that, Grant turns to the example of Seinfeld, an American sitcom (情景喜剧)可知，Grant提及Seinfeld的目的是想告诉我们管理者往往会（criticism）找作品的瑕疵而不是（praise）找优点的原因。故选C。

4.推理判断题。根据第六段中Managers, he says, are terrified of committing false positives和第七段中False negatives, by contrast, present little costs(与false positives相比之下, False negatives的成本很小)… Managers like to make safe bets and don’t mind the invisible losses.(经理们喜欢安全下注，不介意无形的损失)，故可推知，False negatives容易被管理者们接受。故选B。

5.推理判断题。根据最后一段中的managers can be taught to think like peers, and Berg found that… he asked managers to spend five minutes brainstorming about their own ideas before they judged other people’s ideas.可知，Berg借助Grant的话来建议管理者们在评判别人的想法之前先花五分钟进行头脑风暴，思考他们自己的想法。故选B。

6.主旨大意题。文中列举两个事例来说明管理者要从某些决策过程中解放出来，以此来识别良好想法的艺术。故选A。此题易误选D，文中没有对批评和赞美两种基本的判断方式进行分别的论述。B项“决策的关键因素”和C项“假否定的影响”均为断章取义。