Question

    Are kids getting too much praise? Too much praise may be doing kids more harm than good.

A cover story in Scholastic Instructor magazine asks whether kids today are over-praised. The worry is that while trying to build up kids’ confidence (自信), parents are paying little attention to kids’ real goals and achievements. In a recent study, eighth graders in Korea and the United States were asked whether they were good at math. Among the American students, 39 percent said they were excellent at math, compared to just 6 percent of the Korean eighth graders. But the reality was kind of different. The Korean kids scored far better than the over-confident American students.

The disadvantage of too much praise is that kids may start to focus on the reward (奖励) rather than what they are learning. Worse, when a student fails, whose confidence comes from a blind sense of achievement rather than his or her real abilities, the result can be devastating (毁灭性). This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t praise our kids or that teachers shouldn’t try to build up their students’ self-confidence. But self-confidence should be the result of good grades and real achievements instead of empty praise from others.

Last month, Cognitive Daily reported that parents and teachers should be specific rather than general when they offer praise. An example of general praise is telling a child, “You’re smart.” Specific praise would be to say, “You did a good job on reading...”, or “You did great on your math test.” Kids who receive general praise about their abilities probably show “helpless” behavior when they meet with problems with learning, compared with kids who receive specific praise about their achievement on a task. The reason: a child who knows she’s a smart girl feel defeated (挫败的) if she has trouble reading a sentence. But a child who has been told she is a good reader will probably have confidence in that specific ability and work a little harder to deal with a more difficult book.

1.The study of the eighth graders in Paragraph 2 shows that ________.

A.Korean students are over-praised so they got higher scores

B.American students are over-confident but they achieve less

C.American students are really good at math

2.According to Paragraph 3. kids’ self-confidence should come from ________.

A.teachers’ love and support

B.what they are able to do well

C.a blind sense of achievement

3.Which of the following is the best example about specific praise?

A.Mr. Miller told her daughter “You are a fantastic girl”.

B.The headmaster wrote to one of his students, saying “I am so proud of you”.

C.Your English teacher said to you, “Your writing has improved a lot because of practice.”

4.Kids getting general praise will ________ in the face of problems with learning.

A.probably give up easily

B.encourage themselves to try again

C.work harder than before

5.The writer of the passage means to prove that ________.

A.too much praise may be doing kids more harm than good

B.Korean students are less confident than American students

C.Achievement lies in self-confidence

Answer

1.B

2.B

3.C

4.A

5.A

【解析】

文章大意：本文主要讲过多的表扬可能对孩子弊大于利。自信应该来自好成绩和真正的成就，而不是来自别人空洞的赞扬。

1.

细节理解题。根据第2段中“Among the American students, 39 percent said they were excellent at math, compared to just 6 percent of the Korean eighth graders. But the reality was kind of different. The Korean kids scored far better than the over-confident American students.”可知美国学生中过于自信，但分数并没有韩国学生好。故选B。

2.

细节理解题。根据第3段中“But self-confidence should be the result of good grades and real achievements instead of empty praise from others.”可知自信应该来自好成绩和真正的成就，即他们能做好什么。故选B。

3.

推理判断题。根据最后一段中“Specific praise would be to say, ‘You did a good job on reading...’, or ‘You did great on your math test.’ ”及“kids who receive specific praise about their achievement on a task”可知具体的赞扬要说出具体在哪方面表现的好。结合选项可知AB都不属于具体的赞扬，而C项中则具体赞扬写作因为练习而提高了。故选C。

4.

推理判断题。根据最后一段中“a child who knows she’s a smart girl feel defeated (挫败的) if she has trouble reading a sentence”可知一个知道自己很聪明的女孩在读句子遇到困难时会感到挫败，可能很容易就放弃了。故选A。

5.

主旨大意题。根据第1段中“Too much praise may be doing kids more harm than good.”结合全文内容可知作者是为了证明过多的表扬可能对孩子弊大于利。故选A。