While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail spectacularly often flourish more in the long run, according to a new study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Researchers have found that people missing their goals perform much better in the long run. That is because they gain more knowledge from their failures than their successes and the lessons are more likely to stay longer in their minds.
“We found that the knowledge gained from success was often fleeting while knowledge from failure stuck around for years,” said professor Desai, who led the study. “But panies often ignore failure. Managers may fire people or turn over the whole workforce while they should treat the failure as a learning opportunity.”
Prof Desai pared the flights of the space shuttle Atlantis and the Challenger. During the 2002 Atlantis flight, a piece of insulation (绝缘体) broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster (助推火箭) but didn’t influence the program. There was little investigation. The Challenger was launched next and another piece of insulation broke off. This time the shuttle and its seven–person crew were destroyed. The disaster led to a major investigation resulting in 29 changes to prevent future disasters.
The difference in response in the two cases came down to this: Atlantis was considered a success and the Challenger a failure.
“Despite crowded skies, airlines are extremely reliable,” he said. “The number of failures is extremely small. And past researches have shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents.”
Prof Desai doesn’t remend finding out failure in order to learn. Instead, he advises organizations to analyze small failures to collect useful information rather than wait for major failures.
【小题1】Why did experts pay little attention to the problem of Atlantis?A．Because it worked perfectly.B．Because the right booster was still OK.C．Because nothing serious happened then.D．Because fewer people died in the flight.【小题2】Fewer accidents happen to older airlines in that .A．their planes couldn’t fly high in the skyB．they gained much from experience in failureC．their planes were often checked by the expertsD．they were unpopular among passengers【小题3】The passage is written mainly to .A．show failure is a better teacher than successB．explain why Challenger failed C．introduce something about Prof DesaiD．tell managers how to achieve success【小题4】Which writing strategy is NOT used in developing the passage?A．Giving definitions.B．Making parisons. C．Analyzing causes.D．Providing different examples.C
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(答案→)C
解析：文章告诉我们相对于成功，失败的意义更为重大，因为人们从失败中获得了很多的经验，对未来的成功有更多的启发意义。
【小题1】C 推理题。根据文章第三段第三行but didn’t influence the program说明Atlantis号也有一块绝缘体脱落，但是没有影响整个程序，发射成功了，没有发生严重的事情。人们认为其是成功的，故C正确。
【小题2】B 细节题。根据文章到书第二段最后一句And past researches have shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents.说明这些航空公司从失败中获得了很多的经验，所以他们的事故率很低，故B正确。
【小题3】A 主旨大意题。文章主要讲述的是与成功相比较失败对人的影响更大，人们可以从失败中获得更多的知识。故A正确。
【小题4】A 本文在写作的时候，举了例子，分析了原因，也做了比较。但是没有给出概念，故A没有被使用。