2007北京太奇培訓學�？佳杏⒄Z強化班授課講義 (十二)

II. 選擇搭配題

Directions: You are going to read a text about Learning to Cope with Complexity, followed by a list of examples. Choose the best example from the list A-F for each numbered subheading (41-45). There is one extra example which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.  (10 points)

    During times of great crisis, human beings typically turn to one of two strategies: fight or flight. There is, however, a third strategy: learning and deep change. It is based on the principle that all events, especially the most tragic, are ripe with opportunities for learning.

    The lesson we must learn from September 11 is that our management practices, private and public, are one-dimensional. Whether it is with regard to civil aviation safety or real estate, our world is dominated by concerns about profitability. These constrain us from implementing needed and proven safety procedures in aviation and high-rise office design. The focus on profitability also pushes our systems to grow unreasonably large, rendering them more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

    Approximately 76% of the criteria used to measure organizational efficiency are financial. Only 24% consider nonfinancial indicators such as health, safety, or the global impact that organizations have on communities and the world in general. Devoting more of our attention to nonfinancial indicators can help us develop new strategies to match the complexity of fighting terrorism. The fields of risk and crisis management already use some of these strategies.

41. Search for the destructive side of complexity.
42. Increase safety by redesigning products.
43. Separate the different elements of systems to reduce their impacts on each other.
44. Promote a more ethical distribution of wealth.
45. Build a true culture of civil security. We should develop the capacity to envision the destructive side of our complex systems and to prepare for it.

    Promote active learning from previous crises. It is imperative that we learn to tolerate cultural and religious differences, especially bearing September 11 in mind, while at the same time neutralizing terrorism as much as we can. We must also remember that there is no better way to drive people to undertake desperate acts than to humiliate them.

    These lessons are not merely about learning how to fight more effectively or better prepare for flight. The lessons are really about learning how to live in ways that can reduce the chances of future assaults, especially since we can never fully prevent them.

[A] The Pentagon resisted terrorist attacks much more readily than the World Trade Center because it was built with safety in mind. This has important implications for the future design of offices towers, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear power facilities.

[B] For instance, New Zealanders are prepared to survive independently for up to three days in the event of major catastrophes. Unfortunately, far too many of us expect to live in a zero-risk world. This means that widespread panic can be triggered if fewer than 10 letters out of millions in the postal system have been tampered with.

[C] After the poisoning of Tylenol capsules in 1982, Johnson & Johnson concluded that future terrorist attacks directed against their products were highly probable. As a result, they modified both the packaging and the products themselves.

[D] The French revolutionaries of 1789 screamed, “Let’s risk everything, since we have nothing.” People in countries such as Afghanistan, who earn less than $1 per day, may be provoked to violent measures to alter their desperate conditions.

[E] In the case of the World Trade Center, terrorists deliberately exploited the “destructive side” of aircraft and highly populated office towers. If one simply joins hijacking with car bombing, and magnifies their effects, then September 11 is the result.

[F] It is well known that to neutralize the potential spread of smallpox in animals we need to separate animal populations from the virus. This has profound implications with regard to globalization. Globalization constantly creates connections between disparate elements of complex systems and regions of the globe. It pushes us to increase the volume of financial and nonmonetary transactions and the speed between connections.