托福口语TASK4话题范例：Education

Reading Part:

Social Learning
One way people learn is by watching the behavior of others. Sometimes called social learning, this type of learning involves the process of learning to copy – or not copy – the action of another. By observing the results, or consequences, of another’s behavior, people learn, over time, to either imitate or avoid imitating that behavior. In general, people tend to imitate the behavior of another when they see that it leads to a desirable consequence – hoping to repeat it for themselves. Of course, the opposite is also true – people tend to avoid imitating the behavior of another when they see it result in an undesirable consequence.

Listening Part：

Now listen to part of a lecture in a psychology class.
(male professor) OK, so an example to illustrate this, uh, you’ve often see this happen in families, let’s say, there’re these two kids, a sister and the brother. Uh, let’s say the girl is six and the boy’s four, and one day they’re all out shopping with their mother, and they’re in the store, and the girl sees a toy she wants. She asks her mother to buy, uh, to buy the toy for her but the mother says “no.” So, what does the little girl do? She starts crying and screaming and, you know, “Mommy, I want this!” And, finally, Mom gives in and says, “OK, fine, you can have it,” and buys the girl the toy.
Now, don’t forget, the little brother’s there and he’s watching all this happen, and maybe he sees these sorts of thing happen a lot, as mother giving in when his sister cries and screams. What do you think he’s going to start doing when he wants something from Mom? He’ll probably cry and scream, right?
But, what if the opposite happened? Say Mom didn't give in and didn't buy the girl the toy, if fact, say, the Mom instead disciplined the girl for screaming and crying when they got home she didn’t let the little girl watch her favorite TV program. Again, the little boy is watching. Now, what’s the little boy likely to do if he finds himself in a similar situation and he wants Mom to buy him something? Chances are, he’s not gonna cry and scream. Right?

Question:

Use the examples from the lecture to explain the concept of social learning.

Sample Answer：

The professor talks about social learning, which is a type of learning when people learn from watching and copying what others do. For example, a little girl cries and screams in a store when her mom refuses to buy her the toys she wants. The mom gives in and buy it for her. Her baby brother sees that the crying works, he is likely to cry and scream when he wants something from her mom in the future. On the other hand, if the mom stands her ground when the little girl cries and screams, even not allowing her to watch TV when they get back home. The boy sees this, he is less likely to do what his sister does in the store in the future.

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