In this commentary on Ziegler and Phillipson's article, "Towards a Systemic Theory of Gifted Education" (this issue), the author commends their attempt to discuss gifted education from a systemic and contextual perspective, which she considers inspiring in terms of theoretical advancement and practical reconsideration. However, Cheng finds the theory, in its current state, to be more descriptive than explanatory. The concepts like action repertoire and subjective action space are abstract constructs which probably require more concrete, precise and measurable operational definitions that allow empirical validation. Ziegler and Phillipson mention that all components in the actiotope model should co-evolve and interact with one another at every step in the developmental process. While Cheng acknowledges the importance of these dynamic-interactive processes in the development of exceptionality, she would prefer to understand more deeply how these processes actually take place within a systemic framework. Cheng believes that the theory will gain more explanatory and predictive power if the psychological mechanisms underlying the co-evolution and the interactions among components can be specified and explained. In this commentary, she limits her discussions to two components of the actiotope model, i.e., goals and environment, based on goal orientation theory (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). The purposes of these discussions are two-fold: First, to examine how the meanings of goals and goal structure in goal orientation theory can be incorporated into the conceptualization of goals and environment in the actiotope model; second, to identify some potential directions for research so that the actiotope model may be expanded and refined on the ground of empirical support.