1361110年研究生考试英语阅读真题分篇 text-3

2021年1月16日发(作者：毛汉礼)
2010全国硕士研究生入学考试英语试题
Text 3
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell argues that social epidemics are driven in large part by
the acting of a tiny minority of special individuals, often called influentials, who are unusually informed,
persuasive, or well- connected. The idea is intuitively compelling, but it doesn't explain how ideas actually
spread.
The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plausible sounding but largely untested theory called
the
everyone else. Marketers have embraced the two-step flow because it suggests that if they can just find and
influence the influentials, those selected people will do most of the work for them. The theory also seems to
explain the sudden and unexpected popularity of certain looks, brands, or neighborhoods. In many such cases, a
cursory search for causes finds that some small group of people was wearing, promoting, or developing whatever
it is before anyone else paid attention. Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea that only certain
special people can drive trends
In their recent work, however, some researchers have come up with the finding that influentials have far less
impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed. In fact, they don't seem to be required of all.
The researchers' argument stems from a simple observing about social influence, with the exception of a few
celebrities like Oprah Winfrey—whose outsize presence is primarily a function of media, not interpersonal,
influence—even the most influential members of a population simply don't interact with that many others. Yet it
is precisely these non- celebrity influentials who, according to the two- step-flow theory, are supposed to drive
social epidemics by influencing their friends and colleagues directly. For a social epidemic to occur, however,
each person so affected, must then influence his or her own acquaintances, who must in turn influence theirs, and
so on; and just how many others pay attention to each of these people has little to do with the initial influential. If
people in the network just two degrees removed from the initial influential prove resistant, for example from the
initial influential prove resistant, for example the cascade of change won't propagate very far or affect many
people.
Building on the basic truth about interpersonal influence, the researchers studied the dynamics of
populations manipulating a number of variables relating of populations, manipulating a number of variables
relating to people's ability to influence others and their tendency to be influenced. Our work shows that the
principal requirement for what we call cascades– the widespread propagation of influence through
networks – is the presence not of a few influentials but, rather, of a critical mass of easily influenced people, each
of whom adopts, say, a look or a brand after being exposed to a single adopting neighbor. Regardless of how
influential an individual is locally, he or she can exert global influence only if this critical mass is available to
propagate a chain reaction.
31. By citing the book The Tipping Point, the author intends to
[A] analyze the consequences of social epidemics
[B] discuss influentials' function in spreading ideas
[C] exemplify people's intuitive response to social epidemics
[D] describe the essential characteristics of influentials.
32. The author suggests that the
[A] serves as a solution to marketing problems
[B] has helped explain certain prevalent trends