听力SCRIPT，高级听力 Unit 6 Part 5，Make It to the Top！

Make It to the Top!

We live in a society increasingly obsessed with material success. We are exhorted to “Get on!”“Get ahead!” or “Make it to the top！” If you don’t prosper, it’s easy to feel like a flop, that you’ve wasted your life and failed your family.

But is such success open to all? Do we all have the potential to be millionaires, and can success be taught? What can we learn from those who do make it to the top?

Becoming a millionaire is a surprisingly haphazard affair. At school we are told that if we work hard and pass exams we will do well. But a recent study by Professor Cary Cooper of University Manchester, refute this advice. When he studied the lives of successful entrepreneurs, he found that nearly 60 percent left school early either because they were thrown out or were “bored.” Other studies suggest there is little correlation between how well children do at school and the salary and job satisfaction they achieve as adults.

The most certain route to riches is to start out wealthy. Over half the people in the most recent Sunday Times survey of the richest 200 people in the country inherited money. Twenty-five percent of those who head large corporations were born into affluent families.

If you're not born wealthy, you may be able to capitalize on another advantage good looks. “Good looks make early life easier. Teachers and other children will expect you to be kinder, cleverer and do better than plainer peers,” explains Dr Raymond Bull of Portsmouth University, expert on the effects of facial appearance.

Being tall is also an advantage. Other qualities being equal, employers are more likely to select taller and more attractive people. However, unless you want to work with children, it can be a handicap having too pretty a baby face, You are likely to be regarded as kind, but not very efficient. You may fare better by taking to crime -- juries are far more likely to acquit you.

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