Last year, on report card day, my son and a bunch of his 13-year-old friends piled into the back seat of my car, ready for the last-day-of-school party at McDonald’s. “Jack got a laptop for getting straight A’s, and Laurie got a cellphone,” one boy said. “Oh, yeah, and Sarah got an iPod Nano, and she’s only in third grade,” said another. “And how about Brian? He got $ 10 for each A.”
I suddenly became concerned. These payoffs might get parents through grammar school, but what about high school and beyond? What would be left after the electric guitar, the cellphone, and the portable DVD player?
I saw the road ahead: As the homework load increased, my income would decrease. I saw my comfortable lifestyle vanish before my eyes-no more of those $ 5 bags of already-peeled organic carrots. No more organic anything!
I started to feel surprised and nervous. Would every goal attained by my two children fetch a reward? A high grade point average? A good class ranking? Would sports achievements be included in this reward system: soccer goals, touchdowns, runs-batted-in? What about orchestra? Would first chair pay more than second? I’d be penniless by eighth-grade graduation.
“We never paid anything for good grades,” said my neighbor across the street, whose son was recently accepted at MIT. “He just did it on his own. Maybe once in a while we went out for pizza, but that’s about it.”
Don’t you just hate that? We’re all running around looking for the MP3 player with the most updates, and she’s spending a few dollars on pizza. She gets motivation; we get negotiation.
1．The sentence “As the homework load increased, my income would decrease.” in the third paragraph probably means _____________.
A．taking care of the children would influence my work
B．I would spend more money on my children’s homework
C．reducing children’s homework load would cost me a lot
D．more rewards would be needed as the children grew up
2．We can tell from the passage that the author’s son was in ___________.
A．primary school B．junior middle school C．high school D．university
3．It can be inferred from the passage that ____________.
A．if you pay the children for good grades, they would take it for granted
B．if you buy children pizza for good grades, they would work harder
C．children would not ask for rewards when they enter high school
D．children would not ask for rewards when they enter university
4．The example of the author’s neighbor shows that ____________.
A．pizza is the best way to motivate children
B．reward is not the only way to motivate children
C．the author’s neighbor was very poor
D．the author’s neighbor’s son didn’t like reward
5．What is the author’s attitude toward paying children reward for good grades?
A．Favorable B．Ambiguous C．Disagreeable D．Unknowable
