異類之不一樣的成功啟示錄 第171期:工作態(tài)度與數(shù)學(xué)能力

Now, here is the interesting part. As it turns out, the average number of items answered on the TIMMS questionnaire varies from country to country.

從問卷結(jié)果來看，國(guó)家間的差異很大，這是個(gè)有趣的現(xiàn)象。

It is possible, in fact, to rank all the participating countries, according to how many items their students answer on the questionnaire.

事實(shí)上，參加競(jìng)賽的各個(gè)國(guó)家的選手，其排名很可能是根據(jù)回答問卷題目的數(shù)量來決定的。

Now, what do you think happens if you compare the questionnaire rankings with the math rankings. They are almost exactly the same.

現(xiàn)在，當(dāng)你將問卷排名與數(shù)學(xué)競(jìng)賽的排名比較之后，你會(huì)得出怎樣的結(jié)論？他們的結(jié)果幾乎完全一致。

In other words, countries whose students are willing to concentrate and sit still long enough

換句話說，如果來自某個(gè)國(guó)家的學(xué)生能夠長(zhǎng)久

and focus on answering every single question in an endless questionnaire are the same countries whose students do the best job of solving math problems.

并專注地回答一份冗長(zhǎng)的問卷上的每一個(gè)問題，那么通常這個(gè)國(guó)家的學(xué)生也具有解決數(shù)學(xué)問題的卓越能力。

The person who discovered this fact is an educational researcher at the University of Pennsylvania named Erling Boe, and he stumbled across it by accident.

發(fā)現(xiàn)該情況的是一名來自賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)的教育學(xué)者，俄林波，他偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了這個(gè)事實(shí)。

"It came out of the blue," he says. Boe hasn't even been able to published his findings in a scientific journal, because, he says, it's just a bit too weird.

他說，這純屬意外發(fā)現(xiàn)。波甚至未曾在科學(xué)雜志上發(fā)表他的看法，這有一點(diǎn)奇怪，

Remember, he's not saying that the ability to finish the questionnaire and to excel on the math test is related.

因?yàn)樗]有說完成問卷的能力和贏得競(jìng)賽的能力有任何相關(guān)。

He's saying that they're the same: that if you compare the two rankings, they are identical.

他只說，它們是一樣的；如果你將兩個(gè)排名進(jìn)行對(duì)比，結(jié)果會(huì)非常鮮明。

Think about this in another way. Imagine that every year, there was a math Olympic in some fabulous city in the world.

換種方式思考一下，如果每年世界上的知名城市全都舉行一場(chǎng)奧林匹克數(shù)學(xué)競(jìng)賽，

And every country in the world sent its own team of one thousand eighth graders.

并且每個(gè)參賽的國(guó)家都派出一組由高中生和初中生組成的小隊(duì)加入1000名參賽選手的陣營(yíng)，

Boe's point is that we could predict precisely the order in which every country would finish in the Math Olympics without asking a single math question.

那么不需要問任何一道數(shù)學(xué)難題，我們就可以精確地得知每個(gè)國(guó)家在奧林匹克數(shù)學(xué)競(jìng)賽中的排名。波指出我們只需要給他們布置同一項(xiàng)任務(wù)，

All you'd have to do is to give them some task measuring how hard they were willing to work. In fact, we wouldn't even have to give them a task.

并衡量他們?cè)谌蝿?wù)中的付出程度，實(shí)際上，我們甚至都不用布置任務(wù)，

We should be able to predict which countries are best at math simply by looking at which national cultures place the highest emphasis on effort and hard work.

僅僅觀察一下哪個(gè)國(guó)家的文化最注重工作態(tài)度，就可以預(yù)測(cè)哪個(gè)國(guó)家的數(shù)學(xué)能力最強(qiáng)。