Gamification (The Trend of Applying Video Game Mechanics such as Points and Achievement

Reading Passage Question

Gamification (the trend of applying video game mechanics such as points and achievements to non-gaming work processes such as innovation, training, and employee performance) is increasingly being used by organizations, with many realizing significantly improved performance and increased profitability as a result. Michael Wu sees significant potential for increased corporate performance through gamification of processes, but expresses a concern that gamification could also result in decreased employee performance over time. Gamified processes can create a short-term increase in performance and productivity as employees seek to earn points and badges, but eventually the employees, like even the most avid gamers, would grow bored with playing and move on. Furthermore, a danger inherent in the gamification of processes is the so-called “moral hazard” of game play--that people will become focused on the extrinsic rewards and mechanics of the game play rather than on the intrinsic rewards to be gained by participating in the activity. As a result, a corporation might become significantly more efficient and profitable as a result of gamifying its internal processes, while at the same time its employees become gradually less motivated by the intrinsic rewards of their work as well as developing a stronger expectation for external rewards that increase over time.

Wu argues that in order for companies to successfully employ gamification, they must develop a strategy to make it sustainable over the long term, such as tying extrinsic rewards to specific intrinsic benefits that have long-term value to the individual, or using the gamification process only long enough to discover each employee''s intrinsic motivations and develop new reward systems that address each employee individually. Focusing narrowly on gamification, while offering a significant opportunity for businesses to increase efficiency and profitability over the short term, may ironically result in decreased employee performance and corporate earnings over the long term.

“Gamification (the trend of applying video game mechanics such as points and achievement” - is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.
This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 3 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

Q1) The primary purpose of the passage is to

A) suggest a potential alternative to a business strategy that may result in a lack of employee motivation
B) demonstrate that a specific business strategy will not be successful over the long run
C) explain why intrinsic motivations are more important to employee performance than extrinsic rewards are
D) describe the dangerous moral implications of a particular business strategy
E) explain concerns about the potential effects of implementing a specific business strategy

Q2) The passage implies that which of the following is a potential consequence of a company's implementation of gamification processes?

A) A company that does not see improvements in efficiency or increases in profitability as a result of gamification may have little reason to continue implementing such processes.
B) Employees with little or no previous exposure to game-style processes could find the gamified process to be confusing, leading to less employee motivation and reduced morale.
C) In order to continue to see results from a gamified process over a longer term, the company may need to adjust the gamification process by implementing increases in the extrinsic rewards provided to employees.
D) The increased profits generated by the company as a result of the implementation of the gamification process might be reinvested in other, non-gamified areas of the company, with no guarantee that gamification processes will result in additional future performance improvements.
E) The company will become significantly more efficient and profitable over the long term, while its employees gradually lose motivation.

Q3) According to the passage, which of the following is a possible effect of gamifying a company process?

A) Giving employees the opportunity to treat work like a game and earn points and badges would lead to improved company morale.
B) Company employees who are avid gamers would earn more rewards than those who are not, because they are familiar with the process of earning points and badges.
C) The employees would expect increasing intrinsic rewards the longer they participate in the system, and would gradually lose motivation if such rewards were not periodically increased.
D) After a time, employees may lose interest in competing in the system to earn rewards, and choose to focus instead on other aspects of work.
E) The improvements in productivity and profitability may cause the company to implement gamification processes in a more widespread manner throughout the company.

Suggested GMAT Reading Comprehension Samples

• A One-Child Policy was Implemented in China in 1979
• The Pioneers of the Teaching of Science Imagined that its Introduction into Education would Remove the Conventionality, Artificiality, and Backward-Lookingness
• A Fundamental Principle of Pharmacology is that all Drugs have Multiple Actions. Actions that are Desirable in the Treatment of Disease are Considered therapeutic
• In the 1980's, Astronomer Bohdan Paczynski Proposed a Way of Determining Whether the Enormous Dark Halo Constituting the Outermost Part of the Milky Way Galaxy
• The General Density Dependence Model can be Applied to Explain the Founding of Specialist Firms
• Many People Believe that Wages are Lower in Developing Countries than in Developed Countries
• More Selective than Most Chemical Pesticides in that they Ordinarily Destroy only Unwanted Species
• Citing the Fact that the Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was Higher in 1997
• Historians have Identified Two Dominant Currents in the Russian Women's Movement of the Late Tsarist Period.
• Some Historians Contend that Conditions in the United States During the Second World War
• Comparable Worth, as a Standard Applied to Eliminate Inequities in Pay
• The United States Government has a Long-Standing Policy of Using Federal Funds to Keep Small Business Viable.
• A Recent Study has Provided Clues to Predator-Prey Dynamics in the Late Pleistocene Era.
• Even More Than Mountainside Slides of Mud or Snow, Naturally Occurring Forest Fires Promote the Survival of Aspen Trees.
• The Black Death, a Severe Epidemic that Ravaged Fourteenth Century Europe
• The System of Patent-Granting, Which Confers Temporary Monopolies for the Exploitation of New Technologies
• Ethnohistoric Documents from Sixteenth-Century Mexico Suggesting that Weaving and Cooking were the Most Common Productive Activities for Aztec Women
• Solar Ponds are Bodies of Water in Which Circulation is Incomplete and There is a Very High Salt Concentration that Increases with Depth
• Traditional Social Science Models of Class Groups in the United States are Based on Economic Status
• Conventional Wisdom has it that Large Deficits in the United States Budget Cause Interest Rates to Rise.