考研英語閱讀理解外刊原文經濟學人

2023年12月4日發(作者：朱自清寫景散文)

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Anxiety does not cau bad results in exams

焦慮不會導致考試成績不好

The problem is in the run-up, not the main event

問題出在準備階段，而不是考試階段

Exams are nerve-racking, especially for tho already of an anxious disposition.

The silence of the hall; the ticking of the clock; the beady eye of the invigilator; the

smug expression of the person sitting at the neighbouring desk who has finished 15

minutes early. It therefore ems hardly surprising that tho who worry about taking

tests do systematically wor than tho who do not.

考試是一件傷腦筋的事，尤其是對那些本來就容易焦慮的人來說。走廊里一片寂靜；時鐘滴答作響；監考老師目光銳利；鄰桌的考試提前15分鐘完成作答，露出得意的表情。因此，那些擔心考試的人會比那些不擔心考試的人表現更差，這似乎并不奇怪。

What is, perhaps, surprising, according to rearch published recently in

Psychological Scienceby Maria Theobald at the Leibniz Institute for Rearch and

Information in Education and her colleagues, is that it is not the pressure of the exam

hall which caus the problem. It is the pressure of revision.

萊布尼茨教育研究與信息研究所的瑪麗亞·西奧博爾德和她的同事們最近在《心理科學》雜志上發表了一項研究，令人驚訝的是，引發這一問題的并不是考場的壓力，而是復習的壓力。

Dr Theobald theorid that if anxiety was truly interfering with a student’s ability

to transfer known information from brain to paper via pen, then tho with high levels

of it would perform wor in a real exam, when it actually mattered, than in either a

mock beforehand or during online practice ssions. Moreover, she expected this

performance-drop to correlate with levels of lf-reported exam nerves.

西奧博爾德認為，如果焦慮真的干擾了學生通過筆將已知信息從大腦傳遞到紙上的能力，那么焦慮程度高的學生在真正重要的考試中的表現會比在預先模擬考試或在線練習中的表現更差。此外，她預計這種成績下降與自我報告的考試緊張程度有關。

She therefore worked with 309 German medical students who were preparing for

their final state exam, the most important that they take. This test consists of 230

questions split into three five-hour ssions over three days.

因此，她與309名德國醫科學生一起，準備他們最重要的期末考試。這場考試共包括230個問題，分為三天三次完成，每次五小時。

During the 100 days before the actual papers, all her volunteers ud a digital-learning platform which prented them with old exam questions and logged their

performance. They also sat a mock examination, clearly prented to them as such, 40

days before the real thing.

在正式考試前的100天里，所有參與這項研究的考生都使用了一個數字學習平臺，該平臺向他們展示了往年考試真題，并記錄了他們的表現。在考試前40天，他們還參加了一場模擬考試。

To asss their levels of anxiety, they were asked, every day for 40 days in the run

up to the real exam and also on the day of that exam, to respond on a five-point scale

to statements like, “I feel ten and nervous”. On the day of the mock they were

similarly asked to rate statements like, “I worry whether I have studied enough”.

為了評估他們的焦慮程度，研究人員要求他們在真正考試前的40天里以及考試當天，每天對“我感到緊張和不安”這樣的陳述以五分制作出評價。在模擬的那一天，他們同樣被要求對諸如“我擔心自己是否學得足夠好” 這樣的陳述作出評價。

What Dr Theobald found was not what she expected. Anxiety on the day of the

test did not predict exam performance at all. What did predict it was the level of

knowledge a student displayed in the mock exam and the earlier digital-learning activities. Tho who performed well in the also did well in the real thing, regardless

of how anxious they were on the day.

西奧博爾德的發現出乎她的意料。考試當天的焦慮程度并不能預測考試成績。真正能預測考試成績的是學生在模擬考試和早期數字學習平臺中表現出的知識水平。那些在這些測試中表現良好的人在真正的考試中也表現良好，不管他們考試當天有多焦慮。

What actually hampered students, it turned out, were high levels of anxiety

during the weeks before the exam took place. The greater a student’s anxiety in the

days before the exam, the lower his or her knowledge-gain was during that period,

leaving that student with less material to regurgitate during the exam itlf.

事實證明，真正對學生造成影響的是考試前幾周的高度焦慮。學生在考試前幾天的焦慮程度越高，他（或她）在這段時間學到的知識就越少，在考試中所能用到的死記硬背的知識也就越少。

And this, paradoxically, is a positive discovery, for it suggests a change of approach

to revision by the anxious might help improve their results. Dr Theobald notes that

test-anxiety is at its worst when students have low expectations of success and

simultaneously know that passing the exam is exceedingly important.

矛盾的是，這是一個積極的發現，因為它表明焦慮者改變復習方法可能有助于提高他們的成績。西奧博爾德指出，當學生對成功的期望很低，同時又知道通過考試非常重要時，考試焦慮的程度最為嚴重。

To reduce this anxiety, she propos a two-fold strategy for students to consider

as they revi. First, they can rai their belief in their own abilities by reminding

themlves of just how much they know. Second, they can diminish the significance of

the test by reminding themlves that, while it is important, it is not a life or death

situation. It really isn’t. Really…

為了減少這種焦慮，她提出了一個雙重策略，供學生在復習時考慮。首先，他們可以通過提醒自己學到了多少知識來提高對自己能力的信心。其次，他們可以通過提醒自己，盡管測試很重要，但這不是生死攸關的情況，從而降低考試的重要性。真的不重要。真的……

重難點詞匯：

regurgitate [r??ɡ?rd???te?t] v. 死記硬背；刻板地重復

paradoxically [?per??dɑ?ks?kli] adv. 自相矛盾地；似非而是地

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