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 — and a whole lot of other parents across the internet — took issue with McCullough's ego-puncturing words. But lost in the anger and protest 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 (膨胀的) 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 co-author Justin Kruger, suffer from a "dual burden": they're not good at what they do, and their wry ineptness (笨拙) prevents them from recognizing how bad they are.

In Dunning and Kruger's study, subjects scoring at the bottom of the heap on tests of logic, grammar and humor "extremely overestimated" their talents. Although their test scores put them in the 12^th percentile, they guessed they were in the 62^nd. What these individuals lacked (in addition to clear logic, proper grammar and a sense of humor) was "metacognitive skill" (元认知技巧): 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 (悖论) here, the authors note: “The skills that develop competence in a particular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate competence in that domain. "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 (两难). 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 underlined phrase "took issue with" in paragraph 1 most probably means      .

A.totally approved of B.disagreed with

C.fully understood D.held discussion about

2.The author thinks the problem that shouldn't be overlooked is that      .

A.we don’t know whether our young people are talented or not

B.young people can't reasonably define themselves

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

D.we always tend to consider ourselves to be privileged

3.Which is NOT mentioned about poor students according to the passage?

A.They lack the capacity to monitor how well they are performing.

B.They usually give themselves high scores in self-evaluations.

C.They tend to be unable to know exactly how bad they are.

D.They are intelligently inadequate in tests and exams.

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

A.are not confident about their logic and grammar

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

C.don't know how well they perform due to their stringent self-judgment

D.is very careful about their self-evaluations because they have their own limits

5.The strategies of becoming special suggest that      .

A.the best way to recognize excellence is to study past success and failure

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

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

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

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

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

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

C.Tips On Making Ourselves More Special

D.Tell The Truth: Kids Overestimate their Talents

Answer

1.B

2.B

3.D

4.B

5.C

6.A

【解析】

本文是一篇议论文，文章紧紧围绕“孩子是否特别”而展开，作者认为现在的孩子们不知道如何正确地评估自己的能力，我们应该教他们弄清楚——要变得特别，我们需要对自己诚实，也需要别人对我们诚实。

1.词义猜测题。根据画线词后的“McCullough's ego-puncturing words”及“But lost in the anger and protest 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.”可知，但是，在愤怒和抗议之后，我们真正应该记住的是：我们的年轻人实际上不知道他们是否特别有才华或有成就，因此此处是说出席典礼的父母们以及网上的许多其他父母都对麦卡洛戳穿自我的言论提出了异议，由此可知画线词的意思是“不同意”，故B项正确。

2.细节理解题。根据第一段中的“In our eagerness to elevate their self-esteem, we forgot to teach them how to realistically assess their own abilities,”可知，我们急于提升他们的自尊心，却忘了教他们如何现实地评估自己的能力，由此可知，作者认为不应该忽视的问题是年轻人不能合理地定义自己，故B项正确。

3.细节理解题。根据第二段中的“medical students who scored the lowest on an essay test were the most charitable in their self-evaluations”可知，分数低的学生在自我评价中最乐观（给自己打高分），根据第二段中的“Poor students, the authors note, "lack insight" into their own inadequacy.”及“their wry ineptness (笨拙) prevents them from recognizing how bad they are.”可知，他们对自己的不足缺乏洞察力，不知道自己到底有多糟糕；再根据第三段中的“What these individuals lacked (in addition to clear logic, proper grammar and a sense of humor) was "metacognitive skill" (元认知技巧): the capacity to monitor how well they're performing.”可知，除了清晰的逻辑、恰当的语法和幽默感之外，他们还缺乏“元认知技巧”：监控他们表现如何的能力，而文中没有提到他们在考试中不够聪明，故D项正确。

4.推理判断题。根据第二段中的“People who are incompetent, he writes with co-author Justin Kruger, suffer from a "dual burden": they're not good at what they do, and their wry ineptness (笨拙) prevents them from recognizing how bad they are.”可知，他与合著者贾斯汀·克鲁格写道，那些得分低的孩子会遭受一种“双重负担”：他们不擅长自己的工作，而且他们的笨拙使他们无法意识到自己有多糟糕，由此可知，高分学生往往在他们的高得分领域表现非常出色，故B项正确。

5.推理判断题。根据倒数第二段中的“First, we can learn to make honest comparisons with others.”及“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.”可知，首先，我们可以学会诚实地与他人进行比较；其次，寻找频繁、准确和具体的反馈，找一个批评家，他不仅会告诉你你做得有多糟糕，还会告诉你做错了什么（需要一个人将我们做得不好的以及做错的如实相告），由此可知，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，故C项正确。

6.主旨大意题。通读全文，特别是根据第一段中的“the “you’re not special” speech”、“"Do not get the idea you're anything special, because you're not."”以及最后一段内容可知，文章紧紧围绕“孩子是否特别”而展开，作者认为现在的孩子们不知道如何正确地评估自己的能力，我们应该教孩子们弄清楚————要变得特别，我们需要对自己诚实，也需要别人对我们诚实，如果教会了孩子们这个策略，他们就可以知道自己是否特别，或者已经在变得特别的路上，故A项（是否特别？教孩子弄清楚）正确。