First Listening
Please listen to a short passage carefully and prepare to answer some questions.
What is the place of basic old-fashioned values — such as honesty, kindness and generosity—in the consumer culture of today’s society? That’s the question the writer asks after reflecting on a newspaper story about a little boy who found some lost money and returned it to its owner. What bothers the writer is that some of the teachers at the boy’s school were not happy with the token reward for his good deed. They wanted more. The author, on the contrary, thinks that a good deed itself is its own reward. Any external stuff corrodes the integrity of human beings. Inner peace and happiness do not rely on material incentives.
Second Listening
Listen to the tape again. Then answer the following questions.
1. What other basic traditional values can you think of in addition to those listed in the above paragraph?
2. Why weren’t some of the teachers at the boy’s school happy with the token reward?
3. What does the author think about the material incentives for doing something correct?
