小桌子有話說――也談BEC閱讀

字號:

最近BEC熱,所以好多同學(xué)問到有沒有考試的技巧,坦率說,我心里非常清楚,好多人想要的技巧則是能夠在做閱讀時不看文章就把題目全部做對,做聽力時不聽懂也能把題全部做對,寫作文時一個字都不寫也能做對,口語一句話都不說也能拿滿分。說得的確有點(diǎn)夸張,但真實地反應(yīng)了大家渴望捷徑的心態(tài)。那么,有沒有捷徑呢,是有的,然而所謂捷徑,要么省時,要么省力,要么省錢,但是不可能三樣全省,也就是說,不可能省功,所以用功是最關(guān)鍵的,那么用功和不用功的結(jié)果是不同的,而我的理念是,如果我們看到一個人成功,如同魔術(shù)表演一樣,但是卻不知道他準(zhǔn)備或者練習(xí)的過程,那么怎么可能和他一樣呢?所以碰巧有學(xué)生問到我一篇BEC高級的閱讀,我想把我的解題的思路放在這里,和大家分享一下,讓大家看看我達(dá)到這樣的結(jié)果的過程,希望能夠給大家一點(diǎn)啟示。
    In terms of pure quantity of research and debate, business schools have performed amazingly in promoting management as a distinctive activity. No other discipline has produced as much in such a short period. It is unclear yet how much of it will stand the test of time, but for sheer industry, the business school deserve credit. Not a day goes by without another wave of research papers, books, articles, and journals.
    In these terms, schools have produced a generally accepted theoretical basis for management. When it comes to knowledge creation, however, they find themselves in difficulties. They are caught between the need for academic rigour and for real-world business relevance, which tend to pull in opposite directions. The desire to establish management as a credible discipline leads to research that panders to traditional academic criteria. The problem for business school researchers is that they seek the approval of their academic peers rather than the business community. In the United States this has led to the sort of grand ‘paper clip counting’ exercises that meet demands for academic rigour but fail to add one iota to the real sum of human knowledge.
    Business schools have too often allowed the constraints of the academic world to cloud their view of the real world. Business school researchers seek provable theories – rather than helpful theories. They have championed a prescriptive approach to management based on analysis and, more recently, on fashionable ideas that soon disappear into the ether. The ‘one best way’ approach encourages researchers to mould the idiosyncrasies of managerial reality into their tightly defined models of behaviour. Figures and statistics are fitted into linear equations and tidy models. Economists and other social scientists label this cure smoothing. Meanwhile, reality continually refuses to co-operate.
    Central to this is the tension between relevance and rigour. In a perfect world, there would be no need to choose between the two. But in the business school world, the need to satisfy academic criteria and be published in journals often tilts the balance away from relevance. In other words, it is often easier to pursue quantifiable objectives than it is to add anything useful to the debate about management. To a large extent, the entire business school system works against useful, knowledge-creating research. Academics have five years in which to prove themselves if they are to make the academic grade. It seems long enough. But it can take two or even three years to get into a suitable journal. They therefore have around three years, probably less, to come up with an area of interest and carry out meaningful and original research. This is a demanding timescale. The temptation must be to slice up old data in new ways rather than pursue genuinely groundbreaking, innovative research.