A)Earlier this month, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would appoint" critical habitat" for the endangered jaguar. Jaguars--the world's third-largest wild cats, weighing up to 250 pounds, with distinctive black rosettes ( 玫瑰花色 ) on their fur--are a separate species from the smaller, tawny (黄褐色的 ) mountain lions, which still roam large areas of the American West in the United States and take the first steps toward mandating (批准) a jaguar recovery plan. This is a policy reversal and, on the surface, it may appear to be a victory for the conservation community and for jaguars, the largest wild cats in the Western Hemisphere.
　　B) But as someone who has studied jaguars for nearly three decades, I can tell you it is nothing less than a slap in the face to good science. What's more, by changing the rules for animal preservation, it stands to weaken the Endangered Species Act.　　C)The debate on what to do about jaguars started in 1997, when, at the urging of many biologists ( including me), the Fish and Wildlife Service put the jaguar on the United States endangered species list, because there had been occasional sightings of the cats crossing north over the United States-Mexico border. At the same time, however, the agency ruled that it would not be "prudent" (谨慎的 ) to declare that the jaguar has critical .habitat--a geographic area containing features the species needs to survive--in the United States. Determining an endangered species' critical habitat is a first step toward developing a plan for helping that species recover.　　D)The 1997 decision not to determine critical habitat for the jaguar was the one, because even though they cross the border from time to time, jaguars don't occupy any territory in our country--and that probably means the environment here is no longer ideal for them.　　E)In prehistoric times, these beautiful cats inhabited significant areas of the western United States, but in the past 100 years, there have been few, if any, resident breeding populations here. The last time a female jaguar with a cub ( 幼兽 ) was sighted in this country was in the early 1900s.　　F)Two well-intentioned conservation advocacy groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife, sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to change its ruling. Thus in 2006, the agency reassessed the situation and again determined that no areas in the United States met the definition of critical habitat for the jaguar. Despite occasional sightings, mostly within 40 miles of the Mexican border, there were still no data to indicate jaguars had taken up residence inside the United States.　　G ) After this second ruling was made, an Arizona rancher ( 牧场主 ), with support from the state Game and Fish Department, set infrared-camera (红外摄像机 ) traps togather more data, and essentially confirmed the Fish and Wildlife Service's findings. The cameras did capture transient jaguars, including one male jaguar, nick named Macho, B, who roamed the Arizona borderlands for more than a decade. But Macho B, now dead, might have been the sole resident American jaguar, and his extensive travels indicated he was not having an easy time surviving in this dry, rugged region.　　H) Despite the continued evidence, the two conservation advocacy groups continued to sue the government. Apparently, they want jaguars to repopulate the United State seven if jaguars don't wan! to. Last March, a federal district judge in Arizona ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to revisit its 2006 determination on critical habitat.　　I)The facts haven't changed: there is still no area in the United States essential to the conservation of the jaguar. But, having asserted this twice already, the service, nowunder a new president, has bent to the tiresome litigation (诉讼). On Jan. 12, Fish and Wildlife officials, claimed to have evaluated new scientific information that had become available after the July 2006 ruling. They determined that it is now prudent to appoint critical habitat for the jaguar in the United States.　　J)This means that Fish and Wildlife must now also formulate a recovery plan for the jaguar. And since jaguars have not been able to reestablish themselves naturally over the past century, the government will likely have to go to significant expense to attempt to bring them back--especially if the cats have to be reintroduced.　　K)So why not do everything we can, at whatever cost, to bring jaguars back into the United States? To begin with, the American Southwest is, at best, marginal habitat for the animals. More important, there are better ways to help jaguars. South of our border, from Mexico to Argentina, thousands of jaguars live and breed in their true critical habitat. Governments and conservation groups (including the one I head) are already working hard to conserve jaguar populations and connect them to one another through an initiative called the Jaguar Corridor.　　L).The jaguars that now and then cross into the United States most likely come from the northernmost population of jaguars, in Sonora, Mexico. Rather than demand jaguars return to our country, we should help Mexico and other jaguar-range countries conserve the animals' true habitat it　　M )The recent move by the Fish and Wildlife Service means that the rare federal funds devoted to protecting wild animals will be wasted on efforts that cannot help save jaguars. It also stands to weaken the Endangered Species Act, because if critical habitat is redefined as any place where a species might ever have existed, and where you or I might want it to exist again, then the door is open for many other sense less efforts to bring back long-lost creatures.　　N)The Fish and Wildlife officials whose job is to protect the country's wild animals need to grow a stronger backbone--stick with their original, correct decision and save their money for more useful preservation work. Otherwise, when funds are needed to preserve all those small, ugly, non-charismatic endangered species at the back of the line, there may be no money left.

style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/ style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/    (A) What motivates employees to do their jobs well? Competition with coworkers, for some. The promise of rewards, for others. Pure enjoyment of problem-solving, for a lucky few.
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(B) Increasingly, companies are tapping into these desires directly through what’s come to be known as “gamification:” essentially, turning work into a game.“Gamification is about understanding what it is that makes games engaging and what game designers do to create a great experience in games, and taking those learnings and applying them to other contexts such as the workplace and education,” explains Kevin Werbach, a gamification expert who teaches at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(C) It might mean monitoring employee productivity on a digital leaderboard and offering prizes to the winners, or giving employees digital badges or stars for completing certain activities. It could also mean training employees how to do their jobs through video game platforms. Companies from Google to L’Oréal to IBM to Wells Fargo are known to use some degree of gamification in their workplaces. And more and more companies are joining them. A recent report suggests that the global gamification market will grow from $1.65 billion in 2015 to $11.1 billion by 2020.
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(D) The concept of gamification is not entirely new, Werbach says. Companies, marketers and teachers have long looked for fun ways to engage people’s reward-seeking or competitive spirits. Cracker Jacks has been “gamifying” its snack food by putting a small prize inside for more than 100 years, he adds, and the turn-of-the-century steel magnate Charles Schwab is said to have often come into his factory and written the number of tons of steel produced on the past shift on the factory floor, thus motivating the next shift of workers to beat the previous one.
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(E) But the word “gamification” and the widespread, conscious application of the concept only began in earnest about five years ago, Werbach says. Thanks in part to video games, the generation now entering the workforce is especially open to the idea of having their work gamified.“We’re at a point where in much of the developed world the vast majority of young people grew up playing [video] games, and an increasingly high percentage of adults play these video games too,” Werbach says.
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(F) A number of companies have sprung up—GamEffective, Bunchball and Badgeville, to name a few—in recent years offering gamification platforms for businesses. The platforms that are most effective turn employees’ ordinary job tasks into part of a rich adventure narrative. “What makes a game game-like is that the player actually cares about the outcome,” Werbach says. “The principle is understanding what is motivating to this group of players, which requires some understanding of psychology.”
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(G) Some people, Werbach says, are motivated by competition. Sales people often fall into this category. For them, the kind of gamification might be turning their sales pitches into a competition with other team members, complete with a digital leaderboard showing who’s winning at all times. Others are more motivated by collaboration and social experiences. One company Werbach has studied uses gamification to create a sense of community and boost employee morale. When employees log in to their computers, they’re shown a picture of one of their coworkers and asked to guess that person’s name.
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(H) Gamification does not have to be digital. Monica Cornetti runs a company that gamifies employee trainings. Sometimes this involves technology, but often it does not. She recently designed a gamification strategy for a sales training company with a storm-chasing theme. Employees formed “storm chaser teams” and competed in storm-themed educational exercises to earn various rewards.“Rewards don’t have to be stuff,” Cornetti says. “Rewards can be flextime. Rewards can be extension time.”Another training, this one for pay roll law, used a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs theme. Snow White is public domain, but the dwarfs are still under copy, so Cornetti invented sound-alike characters (Grumpy Gus, Dopey Dan) to illustrate specific pay roll law principles.
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(I) Some people don’t take as naturally to gamified work environments, Cornetti says. In her experience, people in positions of power or people in finance or engineering don’t tend to like the sound of the word.“If we’re designing for engineers, I’m not talking about a ‘game’ at all,” Cornetti says. “I’m talking about a ‘simulation,’ I’m talking about ‘being able to solve this problem.’”
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(J) Gamification is “not a magic bullet,” Werbach cautions. A gamification strategy that’s not sufficiently thought through or tailored to its players may engage people for a little while, but it won’t motivate in the long term. It can also be exploitative, especially when used with vulnerable populations. For workers, especially low-paid workers, who desperately need their jobs yet know they can be easily replaced, gamification may feel more like the Hunger Games. Werbach gives the example of several Disneyland hotels in Anaheim, California, which used large digital leaderboards to display how efficiently laundry workers were working compared to one another. Some employees found the board motivating. To others, it was the opposite of fun. Some began to skip bathroom breaks, worried that if their productivity fell they would be fired. Pregnant employees struggled to keep up. In a Los Angeles Times article, one employee referred to the board as a “digital whip.”“It actually had a very negative effect on morale and performance,” Werbach says.
style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 宋体; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);/　　(K) Still, gamification only stands to become more popular, he says, “as more and more people come into the workforce who are intuitively familiar with the structures and expressions of digital games.”“We are way ahead of the tipping point,” Cornetti agrees. “There’s no reason this will go away.”