考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

2023年12月4日发(作者：朱自清写景散文)

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Anxiety does not cau bad results in exams

焦虑不会导致考试成绩不好

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

问题出在准备阶段，而不是考试阶段

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.

考试是一件伤脑筋的事，尤其是对那些本来就容易焦虑的人来说。走廊里一片寂静；时钟滴答作响；监考老师目光锐利；邻桌的考试提前15分钟完成作答，露出得意的表情。因此，那些担心考试的人会比那些不担心考试的人表现更差，这似乎并不奇怪。

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.

莱布尼茨教育研究与信息研究所的玛丽亚·西奥博尔德和她的同事们最近在《心理科学》杂志上发表了一项研究，令人惊讶的是，引发这一问题的并不是考场的压力，而是复习的压力。

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.

西奥博尔德认为，如果焦虑真的干扰了学生通过笔将已知信息从大脑传递到纸上的能力，那么焦虑程度高的学生在真正重要的考试中的表现会比在预先模拟考试或在线练习中的表现更差。此外，她预计这种成绩下降与自我报告的考试紧张程度有关。

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，她与309名德国医科学生一起，准备他们最重要的期末考试。这场考试共包括230个问题，分为三天三次完成，每次五小时。

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.

在正式考试前的100天里，所有参与这项研究的考生都使用了一个数字学习平台，该平台向他们展示了往年考试真题，并记录了他们的表现。在考试前40天，他们还参加了一场模拟考试。

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”.

为了评估他们的焦虑程度，研究人员要求他们在真正考试前的40天里以及考试当天，每天对“我感到紧张和不安”这样的陈述以五分制作出评价。在模拟的那一天，他们同样被要求对诸如“我担心自己是否学得足够好” 这样的陈述作出评价。

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.

西奥博尔德的发现出乎她的意料。考试当天的焦虑程度并不能预测考试成绩。真正能预测考试成绩的是学生在模拟考试和早期数字学习平台中表现出的知识水平。那些在这些测试中表现良好的人在真正的考试中也表现良好，不管他们考试当天有多焦虑。

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.

事实证明，真正对学生造成影响的是考试前几周的高度焦虑。学生在考试前几天的焦虑程度越高，他（或她）在这段时间学到的知识就越少，在考试中所能用到的死记硬背的知识也就越少。

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，这是一个积极的发现，因为它表明焦虑者改变复习方法可能有助于提高他们的成绩。西奥博尔德指出，当学生对成功的期望很低，同时又知道通过考试非常重要时，考试焦虑的程度最为严重。

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…

为了减少这种焦虑，她提出了一个双重策略，供学生在复习时考虑。首先，他们可以通过提醒自己学到了多少知识来提高对自己能力的信心。其次，他们可以通过提醒自己，尽管测试很重要，但这不是生死攸关的情况，从而降低考试的重要性。真的不重要。真的……

重难点词汇：

regurgitate [rəˈɡərdʒəˌteɪt] v. 死记硬背；刻板地重复

paradoxically [ˌperəˈdɑːksɪkli] adv. 自相矛盾地；似非而是地

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