预习！英创教育3月11日早读分享

英创教育「早鸟早读」计划第【3113】天明早8:30不见不散！??

Topic 14: A Prize You’ve Recently ReceivedQuestion: Describe a prize you have received recently.Answer: To be honest, I haven"t received many prizes recently. The only one I can think of is something I won in my cricket team, and that was the new player of the year. This happened a couple of years ago. I had recently returned to England, and I love playing cricket. Before I left to live in China and Colombia, I played cricket every summer, but I hadn"t played for eleven or twelve years, a very long time, so I was very rusty. I was very much out of practice, but I thought, I"ll give it a try now that I"m back in England and it"s the summer—it"s perfect cricket weather. Let"s find a team and see what happens.So I found a local team and I joined that team. In the first few games that I played, I was pretty bad. I enjoyed playing, but my performance was pretty bad. But over time, throughout the summer, over the course of several months, my performances improved as I remembered how to play cricket, and I scored a 50—a half century in the last game of the season. So that was a very satisfying way to end the season.Then, at the end-of-season award ceremony, there were different awards given: the player of the year, the young player of the year, and the new player of the year. Because I"d played lots of games in that season, and I think because in the last game I"d scored some runs, people voted for me as the new player of the year. It was quite surprising because I don"t usually win awards, but it was very nice. It was nice to have the recognition for coming every week and trying my best, and it was just a really enjoyable experience. So that was the prize that I received recently.Question: Do you think competition is all about the prize?Answer: No, no, not really. I think that competition, particularly in things like sports or in other not too important, more fun activities, competition is more about the taking part. It"s about being the best that you can be and just winning something. For example, if you"re running in a race, say a marathon, if you just win the marathon, or even if you beat your own previous best time, you set a personal best. That by itself is enough for many people to be the reward. You don"t need to have some kind of trophy or a cash prize. It"s taking part and doing your best and having fun that also is very important.Question: Why do many companies offer prizes to their customers?Answer: Well, I think the main reason, like with anything with a company, is to drive sales. So companies want their customers to come and spend as much money as possible. And one way of doing that is by getting their attention and giving them the chance to maybe win $100 or the chance to get a free product.Now, that might be great for the customer if they win. But what"s really happening is that the company is staying in front of that customer, which means they are forcing the customer to keep thinking about that company. For example, if it"s a company that makes shoes, the next time that customer needs shoes, they"ll still have the company that did the prize at the front of their mind, and then they"re more likely to buy from that company. So I think it"s all about improving sales.Question: Why do some companies encourage employees to compete with each other?Answer: Well, I think that"s all about improving performance, because people are motivated by different things. Some people are motivated by money. Some people are motivated by praise from their boss. But definitely one big motivation for many people is to be the best, to compete with their peers, with the other people around them. And so if you have a competition, for example, who can make the most sales or who can do something else important in the company, it"s going to push all of those employees to do more than they would normally do. So if they normally do an eight out of ten effort, perhaps with this competition, they give a nine out of ten effort or a ten out of ten effort. So it"s all about improving performance and getting better results as a result of the competition.编辑：Moon李▼IDE英创教育