英语四级六级阅读天天练如何提高学习的毅力.doc

每天前20名注册可获免费名师辅导 名额有限真人一对一口语训练 抢注网址： /wenkxd.htm作为四六级考试的重要题型，阅读的练习不可小觑。每日精选卫报时代周刊等外刊上的精华文章，带你扩大视野，积累词汇，提高阅读速度！【今日阅读推荐】本篇阅读材料“如何提高学习的毅力”选自Time（原文标题：How to Increase Your Stamina to Learn 2013.3.25）。A lot has been said lately about the phenomenon of MOOCs, or massive open online courses. But heres one fact you may not have heard in all thehype: less than 10% of people who sign up for a MOOC actually complete it. Thats right: less than 10%.This extraordinarily high attrition rate is a source of concern in the education world. A recent survey of chief academic officers at colleges around the country, for example, reported that the majority of them believe that “lowerretentionrates for online courses remain a barrier to the growth of online instruction.” Others point out that plenty of people drop out of traditional, in-person courses of instruction as well. This latter point only emphasizes the scope of the issue, however, which we can frame in this way: Why do we (and our children, and our students, and our employees) so often give up on learning?Most of us have set out to learn something a foreign language, a new sport, a skill that we need for work or one that wed just like to have only to fall well short of our goal. The rise of MOOCs (and of DIY sites, and how-to videos, and indeed all of the information-rich Internet) has shown that its technologically possible for us to learn anywhere, at any time. Now weve got to get to work on the psychological side of theequation.But a brute application ofwillpowerisnt the answer. We need to be clever in our cultivation of persistence, even “stealthy” (to borrow an apt term from a recent journal article on social-psychological interventions in education). We mustoutsmartour tendency to get too busy, too tired, too intent on catching the latest episode of Downton Abbey. Below, three ways to improve the odds that youll finish the learning you start.Bring People With YouWhy do you think most college students go to class? To see their friends. By contrast, much of the learning we do as adults whether its with an online course or a how-to manual or a videotutorial we do on our own, accountable to no one. This makes it all too easy to quit. Some online courses are beginning to incorporate social media into their design, but connectionsforgedthis way are likely to be weak, especially at first. Better to recruit people you already know, whose opinions you care about, to sign up for that course or commit to a series of lessons along with you.Use Data to Motivate YourselfMaybe youve heard about the Quantified Self movement the oddly addictive practice of tracking every calorie consumed or burned, every minute spent online or asleep. This practice of using data to monitor and motivate yourself can be applied to learning endeavors too. Often we get discouraged in our attempts to educate ourselves because we cant see the progress were making. Keeping a record of your learning helps make that forward motion visible. Its important to put numbers to your efforts hours practiced, problems completed, pages read and it can be helpful to represent those numbers visually, in a graph or chart.Redesign Your Choice ArchitectureIn their terrific book Nudge, authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein note that “small and apparently insignificant details can have major impacts on peoples behavior.” Often its not aninsurmountableobstacle preventing us from pursuing learning, but rather a few minor hurdles that we never get around to addressing. Now is the time to print out that application, to schedule that first session with a coach. Sometimes getting over the initial hump is all you need.Or maybe youre actually good at getting started, and its the middle and end stages where youbogdown. As Thaler and Sunstein remark, “Never underestimate the power ofinertia.” But, they add, “that power can beharnessed” harnessed to achieve your learning goals. This means making learning the default and not learning the moreeffortfulor expensive option. Work with a music teacher who charges you for the lesson whether you show up or not (if youve paid for it, you will). Schedule a meeting to demonstrate your new skill to your colleagues (its easier to learn it than to back out). “Choice architecture” is what Thaler and Sunstein call the context in which we make decisions. Make sure that the structures you build support learning in the short term, and over the longhaul.【重点单词及短语】attrition rate 损耗率；退学率retention rate 保留率；留购率drop out 退出；退学set out to 打算；着手fall short of 达不到；缺乏insurmountable a. 不能克服的；难以对付的get around to 抽出时间做；开始考虑做bog down 停顿；陷入困境inertia n. 惯性；惰性harness v. 治理；驾驭Q