Question

    By now you've probably heard about the "you’re not special" speech, when English teacher David McCullough told graduating seniors at Wellesley High School: “Do not get the idea you're anything special, because you're not." Mothers and fathers present at the ceremony 一 and a whole lot of other parents across the Internet — took issue with McCullough's ego-puncturing （伤自尊的） words. But lost in the uproar （喧嚣）was something we really should be taking to heart: our young people actually have no idea whether they're particularly talented or accomplished or not. In our eagerness to elevate their self-esteem, we forgot to teach them how to realistically assess their own abilities, a crucial requirement for getting better at anything from math to music to sports. In fact, it's not just privileged high-school students: we all tend to view ourselves as above average.

Such inflated self-judgments have been found in study after study, and it's often exactly when we're least competent at a given task that we rate our performance most generously, in a 2006 study published in the journal Medical Education, for example, medical students who scored the lowest on an essay test were the most charitable in their self evaluations, while high-scoring students judged themselves much more strictly. Poor students, the authors note, "lack insight" into their own inadequacy. Why should this be? Another study, led by Cornell University psychologist David Dunning, offers an enlightening explanation. People who are incompetent, he writes with coauthor Justin Kruger, suffer from a “dual burden": they're not good at what they do, and their very clumsiness prevents them from recognizing how bad they are.

In Dunning and Kruger's study, subjects scoring at the bottom on tests of logic, grammar and humor -extremely overestimated'' their talents. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile (百分位数).they guessed they were in the 62nd. What these individuals lacked (in addition 9 clear logic, proper grammar and a sense of humor) was “meta cognitive skill” :the capacity to monitor how well they're performing. In the absence of that capacity, the subjects arrived at an overly hopeful view of their own abilities. There's a paradox here, the authors note: The skills that lead to competence in a particular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate competence in that field? In other words, to get better at judging how well we're doing at an activity, we have to get better at the activity itself

There are a couple of ways out of this double bind. First, we can learn to make honest comparisons with others. Train yourself to recognize excellence, even when you yourself don't possess it, and compare what you can do against what truly excellent individuals are able to accomplish. Second, seek out feedback that is frequent, accurate and specific. Find a critic who will tell you not only how poorly you're doing, but just what it is that you're doing wrong. As Dunning and Kruger note, success indicates to us that everything went right, but failure is more ambiguous: any number of things could have gone wrong. Use this external feedback to figure out exactly where and when you screwed up.

If we adopt these strategies — and most importantly, teach them to our children — they won't need parents, or a commencement (毕业典礼)speaker, to tell them that they're special. They’ll already know that they are, or have a plan to get that way.

1.The author thinks the real problem is that        .

A.no requirement is set up for young people to get better

B.we always tend to consider ourselves to be privileged

C.we don't know whether our young people are talented or not

D.young people don't know how to assess their abilities realistically

2.We can infer from the passage that those high-scoring students      

A.know how to cultivate clear logic and proper grammar

B.tend to be very competent in their high-scoring fields

C.don^’t view themselves as competent because they know their limits

D.don't know how well they perform due to their strict self-judgement

3.The strategies of becoming special suggest that        .

A.we need internal honesty with ourselves and external honesty from others

B.the best way to get better is to carefully study past success and failure

C.through comparison with others, one will know where and when he fails

D.neither parents nor a commencement speaker can tell whether one is special

4.Which can be the best title of this passage?

A.Tip On Making Ourselves More Special

B.Let’s Admit That We Are Not That Special

C.Special or Not? Teach Kids To Figure It Out

D.Tell The Truth: Kids Overestimate their Talents

Answer

1.D

2.B

3.A

4.C

【解析】

这是一篇议论文。是特殊或者不是？我们要教会孩子理解它。作者认为真正的问题是年轻人不知道如何现实地评估自己的能力。想要变得特别，我们需要对自己诚实和他人对我们的诚实。

1.细节理解题。根据文章第一段的But lost in the uproar （喧嚣）was something we really should be taking to heart: our young people actually have no idea whether they're particularly talented or accomplished or not. In our eagerness to elevate their self-esteem, we forgot to teach them how to realistically assess their own abilities,可知作者认为人们应该在喧嚣之后记住：现在的年轻人不知道他们究竟有没有天赋，其根本原因是他们不知道如何实际地评估自己的能力。D. young people don't know how to assess their abilities realistically（年轻人不知道如何实际地评价自己的能力）符合以上说法，故选D项。

2.推理判断题。根据文章第二段的suffer from a “dual burden": they're not good at what they do, and their very clumsiness prevents them from recognizing how bad they are.得低分的学生遭受着双重负担，即他们不擅长自己所做的，并且他们的笨拙让他们无法意识到自己有多差。由此可推断，得高分的学生擅长自己所作的。B. tend to be very competent in their high-scoring fields（往往在他们的高分领域有能力）符合以上推测，故选B项。

3.推理判断题。根据文章倒数第二段的First, we can learn to make honest comparisons with others. 和Find a critic who will tell you not only how poorly you're doing, but just what it is that you're doing wrong.可知我们要学会诚实地将自己和他人进行比较，也需要一个人将我们做的不好的，以及做错了什么如实相告。由此可推测变得特别的策略表明我们需要对自己诚实，也需要别人对我们诚实。A. we need internal honesty with ourselves and external honesty from others（我们需要对自己内部的诚实和来自他人的外部诚实）符合以上说法，故选A项。

4.主旨大意题。根据文章所讲内容，尤其是最后一段If we adopt these strategies — and most importantly, teach them to our children — they won't need parents, or a commencement (毕业典礼)speaker, to tell them that they're special. They’ll already know that they are, or have a plan to get that way.可知教会了孩子文中提到的策略，孩子就可以知道他们自己是否特别，或者已经在变得特别的路上。C. Special or Not? Teach Kids To Figure It Out（特别与否，教孩子把它弄清楚）可以作文本文标题，故选C项。