Section A
Back in the day, a good report card earned you a parental pat
on the back, but now it could be money in your pocket. Experiments with cash
incentives (激励) for students have been catching on in public-school
districts across the country, and so has the debate over whether they are a
(47) tool for hard-to-motivate students.
According to a study (48) today by the social-policy
research group MDRC, a non-profit organization, cash incentives combined with
counseling offered "real hope" to low-income and nontraditional students at two
Louisiana community colleges. The program (49)
by the Louisiana Department of Social Services and the Louisiana
Workforce Commission was simple: enroll in college at least half-time,
(50) at least a C average and earn 1,000 a semester for
up to two terms. Participants, who were randomly (51) , were
30% more likely to register for a second semester than were students who were
not offered the supplemental financial (52) . And the
participants who were first offered cash incentives in spring 2004--and thus
whose progress was tracked for longer than that of subsequent groups before
Hurricane Katrina (53) forced researchers to suspend the
survey for several months in August 2005--were also more likely than their peers
to be enrolled in college a year after they had finished the two-term program.
Students offered cash incentives in the Louisiana program
earned more (54) and were more likely to attain a C average
than were nonparticipants. And they showed psychological (55)
too, reporting more positive feelings about themselves and their
abilities to (56) their goals for the future.
A) maintain B) brilliant
C) cooperative D) claim
E) aid F) selected
G) retain H) abruptly
I) credits
J) fulfilled K) benefits
L) accomplish M) released
N) naturally
O) funded