2024年4月11日发(作者：)

2019年职称英语考试理工类C级补全短文冲刺试题4

How to Jump Queue Fury

If you find yourself waiting in a long queue at an

airport or bus terminus this holiday, will you try to analyze

what it is about queuing that makes you angry? Or will you

just get angry with the nearest official?

Professor Richard Larson, an electrical engineer at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hates queuing but

rather than tear his hair out, he decided to study the

subject. 46. He cites an experiment at Houston airport where

passengers had to walk for one minute from the plane to the

baggage reclaim and then wait a further seven minutes to

collect their luggage. Complaints were frequent, especially

from those who had spent seven minutes watching passengers

with just hand baggage get out immediately.

The airport authorities decided to lengthen the walk from

the aircraft, so that instead of a one-minute fast walk, the

passengers spent six minutes walking 47 The extra walk

extended the delay by five minutes for those carrying only

hand baggage, but passenger complaints dropped almost to zero.

The reason? Larson suggests that it all has to do with

what he calls “social justice”. If people see others taking

a short cut, they will find the wait unbearable. 48

Another aspect Larson studied was the observation that

people get more fed up if they are not told what is going on.

49

But even knowing how long we have to wait isn't the whole

answer. We must also believe that everything is being done to

minimize our delay. Larson cites the example of two

neighboring American banks. One was highly computerized and

served a customer, on average, every 30 seconds.50. But

because the tellers at the second bank looked extremely busy,

customers believed the service was faster and many

transferred their accounts to the slower bank. Ultimately,

the latter had to introduce time-wasting ways of appearing

more dynamic.

A So in the case of the airport, it was preferable to

delay everyone.

B The other bank was less automated and took twice as

long.

C When they finally arrived at the baggage reclaim, the

delay was then only two minutes.

D His first finding, which backs up earlier work at the

US National Science Foundation, was that the degree of

annoyance was not directly related to the time.

E It's unbearable for the airport to delay everyone.

F Passengers told that there will be a half-hour delay

are less unhappy than those left waiting even twenty minutes

without an explanation.

答案：46 D 47 C 48 A 49 F 50 B