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(wèn)卷結(jié)果來(lái)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(wèn)卷題目的數(shù)量來(lái)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(wèn)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(shuō)，如果來(lái)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(wèn)卷上的每一個(gè)問(wèn)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(wèn)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(lái)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(shuō)，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](méi)有說(shuō)完成問(wèn)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(shuō)，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(wèn)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)。