Question

【題目】If your preschoolers turn up their noses at carrots or celery, a small reward like a sticker (貼畫) for taking even a taste may help get them to eat previously disliked foods, a UK study said.

Though it might seem obvious that a reward could encourage young children to eat their vegetables, the idea is actually controversial, researchers wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. That’s because some studies have shown that rewards can backfire and cause children to lose interest in foods they already liked, said Jane Wardle, a researcher at University College London who worked on the study. Verbal praise, such as “Brilliant! You’re a great vegetable taster”, did not work as well.

The study found that when parents gave their small children a sticker each time they took a “tiny taste” of a disliked vegetable, it gradually changed their attitudes. The children were also willing to eat more of the vegetables — either carrots, celery, cucumber, red pepper, cabbage or sugar snap peas — in laboratory taste tests, the study said.

Researchers randomly assigned (分派) 173 families to one of these groups. In one, parents used stickers to reward their children each time they took a tiny sample of a disliked vegetable. A second group of parents used verbal praise. The third group, where Parents used no special vegetable-promoting methods, served as a “control”.

Parents in the reward groups offered their children a taste of the “target” vegetable every day for 12 days. Soon after, children in the sticker group were giving higher ratings to the vegetables—and were willing to eat more in the research lab, going from an average of 5 grams at the start to about 10 grams after the 12-day experience. The turnaround(轉(zhuǎn)機) also seemed to last, with preschoolers in the sticker group still willing to eat more of the once-disliked vegetable three months later.

Why didn’t the verbal praise work? Wardle said the parents’ words may have seemed “insincere” to their children.

【1】The purpose of writing the passage is .

A. to show the procedure of an experiment on children’s diet

B. to introduce a practical method of making children eat vegetables

C. to explain why children hate to eat vegetables

D. to present a proper way of verbal praise to parents

【2】The underlined word “backfire” in Paragraph 2 probably means “_______”.

A. shoot from behind the back

B. make a fire in the backyard

C. produce an unexpected result

D. achieve what was planned

【3】【改編】Which of the following statements is not true according to the passage?

A. It remains a question whether rewarding is a good way to get children to eat vegetables.

B. Children in the sticker group will be interested in eating vegetables.

C. Oral praise doesn’t work quite well in encouraging children to eat vegetables.

D. Most children are born to dislike carrots or celery.

【4】What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A. Children like rewards, not verbal praise.

B. Parents should give up verbal praise.

C. Children are difficult to inspire.

D. Parents should praise their children in a sincere tone.

Answer 1

【答案】

【小題1】B

【小題2】C

【小題3】D

【小題4】D

【解析】

試題分析：一項英國研究稱，如果你的孩子不喜歡吃蔬菜，像貼畫這樣的一個小小的獎勵能夠讓孩子變得對原先不喜歡的蔬菜產(chǎn)生興趣。當然，這項研究仍然存在爭議。

【小題1】主旨大意題。根據(jù)文章內(nèi)容可知，本文主要講的是一項研究的成果，給孩子一些物質(zhì)獎勵能夠引導他們改掉不喜歡吃蔬菜的習慣。故選B。

【小題2】猜測詞義題。根據(jù)“rewards can...cause children to lose interest in foods they already liked”可知，獎勵可能會使孩子對喜歡的食物失去興趣，由and表并列可知，backfire指的是不好的事情，在此意為“適得其反”，有意想不到的結(jié)果。故選C。

【小題3】細節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)倒數(shù)第二段可知，這種轉(zhuǎn)機似乎可以持續(xù)很久，提到孩子愛吃蔬菜，排除B；根據(jù)最后一段“Why didn’t the verbal praise work?”可知，口頭表揚沒有起作用，排除C；文章只是一個假設(shè)的情況，沒有說多數(shù)孩子天生不喜歡胡蘿卜和芹菜。故選D。

【小題4】推理判斷題。根據(jù)最后一段口頭表揚不起作用，是因為父母的口頭表揚不夠真誠。由此可見，父母在表揚孩子時，要使用真誠的語氣。故選D。