A
The work of Rosenthal and Jacobson shows that teachers' expectations influence students' performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively. Rosenthal and Jacobson originally described the phenomenon as the Pygmalion effect. Rosenthal wrote in 1985, “When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.”
The original research of Rosenthal and Jacobson focused on an experiment at an elementary school where students took intelligence pretests. Rosenthal and Jacobson then informed the teachers of the names of 20% of the students in the school who were showing “unusual potential for intellectual growth” and would have excellent academic performance within the year. Unknown to the teachers, these students were selected randomly (随意地) with no relation to the pretest.
When Rosenthal and Jacobson tested the students eight months later, they discovered that the randomly selected students who the teachers thought would perform excellently scored much higher. Why does the Pygmalion effect occur? If the teacher thinks the students can't achieve very much, or are not bright enough, he/she may tend to teach simple stuff, do lots of drills, read from his/her notes, and give simple assignments calling for simplistic answers, according to scientists.
Therefore, there are some practical tips for teachers: Never forecast failure in the classroom. If you know a test is particularly difficult, tell your students that the test is difficult but you are sure that they will do well if they work hard to prepare for it. Do not participate in gripe (发牢骚) sessions about students. Teachers who gripe about students are establishing a culture of failure for their students, their department and their own teaching. Establish high expectations. Students achieve more when teachers have higher expectations. When you give students a difficult assignment, tell them, “I know you can do this.” If you genuinely believe that your students cannot perform the assignment, put off the assignment and reteach the material.
语篇解读：美国著名心理学家罗森塔尔和雅格布森提出了皮格马利翁效应，指出热切的期望与赞美能够产生奇迹。这一效应对教学会产生怎样的影响呢？
1．How did Rosenthal and Jacobson conduct their experiment?
A．They trained the selected students before experimenting.
B．They selected the students without referring to the test results.
C．They gave pretests in order to divide students into different groups.
D．They selected students according to the students' academic performance.
解析：选B 细节理解题。根据第二段最后一句可知，这些“有潜力的”学生是他们随意挑选的，同前期测试的结果毫无关系。
2．How do the teachers teach less potential students according to the scientists?
A．They praise them all the time.
B．They spare no efforts to help them.
C．They are likely to give them easy homework.
D．They ask them to practice more to catch up with others.
解析：选C 细节理解题。根据第三段最后一句可知，老师对于基础薄弱的学生会倾向于给他们教授简单的知识，布置简单的任务。
3．What is the best title of this passage?
A．No Pains, No Gains
B．Testing Matters in Education
C．How to Be a Qualified Teacher
D．The Higher Expectations, the Better Achievements
解析：选D 标题归纳题。根据第一段的内容尤其是第二句可知，热切的期望与赞美能够产生奇迹。根据全文大意，本文标题可归纳概括为“更高的期望可产生更好的结果”。
