字詞與表達(dá)

hone
For my dissertation I had honed a psychological research tool called "the think-aloud protocol" that was designed ...

hone是動(dòng)詞，表示磨煉、訓(xùn)練等。to develop and improve something, especially a skill, over a period of time

這與單詞原本的含義，“磨刀”有著相似含義。

hone.jpg

• 仿句練習(xí)： I honed my teaching skills when I was doing my second master in UK.
• 仿句練習(xí)：Kirr's body was honed to perfection when she stepped on the stage of the Victoria's Secret Show.

hitch
— and this time he repeated the whole thing back to me without a hitch.

hitch若做名詞使用，表示暫時(shí)的問(wèn)題或者障礙。a problem or difficulty that causes a short delay.

without a hitch就是指事情進(jìn)展非常順利，沒(méi)有任何磕絆。

without a hitch.jpg

• 仿句練習(xí) : His old parent flew to London to attend his graduation ceremony on their own without a hitch.

hitch做動(dòng)詞講，意思完全不同。首先，它可以表示“搭便車(chē)”，hitch a ride/lift； 其次表示“提起/拉起衣服”，比如伴娘提著新娘婚紗的裙擺； hitch something to smething還可以表示“拴住、套住”，例如，the wizard hitched the goat to the gate.

slowly but steadily
From this point on, Steve slowly but steadily improved his ability to remember strings of digits.

雖緩慢卻穩(wěn)定地，這兩個(gè)副詞押頭韻，而且有轉(zhuǎn)折關(guān)系。最近認(rèn)識(shí)到副詞和形容詞的使用要萬(wàn)分小心，非到萬(wàn)不得已，則以用動(dòng)詞和名詞（which add toughness and color to language）為主。若使用之，則一定要言之有物。這句話里的slowly but steadily就非常到位。

trial and error
Instead, these advances were all accomplished through trial and error, with the people...

trial and error，指的是反復(fù)試驗(yàn)不斷摸索。the process of solving a problem by trying various methods until you find a method that is successful. 【之前總見(jiàn)，從沒(méi)用過(guò)】

trial and error.jpg

• 仿句練習(xí)：I learned to cook by trial and error.

cagey
You know this, and the cagier of your opponents have noticed this too, so it is frustrating.

cagey是我沒(méi)見(jiàn)過(guò)的形容詞，be cagey about something 表示不愿意說(shuō)出來(lái)，not wanting to give somebody information。近義詞包括：evasive, secretive等。

cagey.png

• 仿句練習(xí)： She was so cagey about her family that I knew nothing about her parents even when we were roommates.

中文感想

我對(duì)這種邊講故事邊講道理的方式感到非常自在，可以隨時(shí)調(diào)整閱讀速度，不用字字都看，不認(rèn)識(shí)的單詞或者表達(dá)會(huì)先做標(biāo)記再去查閱。

本書(shū)的作者（們）非常user-friendly。講到學(xué)打tennis的部分時(shí)，作者采用第二人稱，創(chuàng)造了能讓讀者產(chǎn)生共鳴的故事發(fā)展過(guò)程。雖然我個(gè)人認(rèn)為該部分的描述略拖沓，但不得不說(shuō)，讀起來(lái)異常順暢，基本屬于“帶著好奇與微笑”讀下去的狀態(tài)。

在內(nèi)容上，我注意到了作者對(duì)于短句的使用。有個(gè)比較極端/典型的例子是：

They practiced. A lot.

短句有力，力量強(qiáng)大，非常能夠抓住讀者注意力。此處講They practiced a lot特意分成兩句話去寫(xiě)，就是為了突出和強(qiáng)調(diào)多次練習(xí)的重要性。

再例如，段首句：

These are not isolated examples.

讀到這句，身為讀者的我自然而然就會(huì)追問(wèn)——既然并不是孤立的例子，那這些在不同領(lǐng)域表現(xiàn)極為優(yōu)秀突出的人們到底有什么共性呢？

除了短句之外，我還關(guān)注了作者寫(xiě)長(zhǎng)句的時(shí)所采用的結(jié)構(gòu)。比較突出的一點(diǎn)是，常用插入語(yǔ)，而不是一味地寫(xiě)從句。類似的句型極其多，在此之舉兩個(gè)例子。

Long term memory doesn't have the same limitations—in fact, no one has ever found the upper limits of long-term memory—but it takes much longer to deploy.

I was reading the digits at a rate of one per second —too fast for him to transfer the digits into his long-term memory—so it was no surprise that he was running into a wall at numbers that were about eight or nine digits long.

對(duì)于我們這些EFL (English as a Foreign language) learner來(lái)說(shuō)，長(zhǎng)句讀起來(lái)相對(duì)費(fèi)勁，寫(xiě)起來(lái)更容易出錯(cuò)。合理使用破折號(hào)等標(biāo)點(diǎn)符號(hào)，插入語(yǔ)等成分是幫助減輕cognitive burden的好方式，檢查時(shí)也更容易發(fā)現(xiàn)錯(cuò)誤。另外一點(diǎn)就是，永遠(yuǎn)不要為了寫(xiě)長(zhǎng)句而去寫(xiě)。一個(gè)句子應(yīng)該是一個(gè)完整的意思，長(zhǎng)是因?yàn)榘嗟募?xì)節(jié)而非將幾個(gè)不同意思硬湊在一起。比如上面的第二個(gè)例子，講的是“我以一秒一個(gè)數(shù)字的速度念出來(lái)（這個(gè)速度太快了，他沒(méi)有時(shí)間將數(shù)字存儲(chǔ)為長(zhǎng)期記憶），導(dǎo)致他總是卡在八九個(gè)數(shù)字的水平上跨不過(guò)去?！?其核心意思是：速度太快，導(dǎo)致失敗。 非常簡(jiǎn)單的一個(gè)意思，沒(méi)有多余的idea，但說(shuō)清需要一些細(xì)節(jié)幫助理解，這就是兩個(gè)破折號(hào)中文字出現(xiàn)的意義。

總結(jié)來(lái)看：句子是完整表意的基本結(jié)構(gòu)，長(zhǎng)短只是結(jié)構(gòu)差異。短句表意鮮明且有力，通常是truth claim或者論點(diǎn)。長(zhǎng)句包含更多的細(xì)節(jié)，經(jīng)常是做explanation或者narrative.

long-hair-vs-short-hair-Keira-Knightley.jpg

Summary

The authors conducted a longitudinal experiment on the effect of purposeful practice. In the experiment, the "subject" was able to get way more digit strings right in the end than at the beginning. The authors have proved that the power of deliberate purpose is strong enough to facilitate extraordinary progress, way beyond people's imagination.

This section told us that we have already made some dramatic progress in various fields and these achievements seemed to be impossible just a few decades ago. Increase in the amount and sophistication of practice will result in steady improvement in ability.

We should not be over-optimistic, because once you reach some satisfactory skill level and stop "deliberate" practicing, and then no further improvement will ever take place. As a teacher, years of working experience won't make me an expert teacher— I can only be more experienced. Moreover, these automated abilities will finally deteriorate without purposeful practice. So, you are not only making no practice; you are getting worse. [SAD]

Get rid of the "just-enough" method. There is no ceiling for you, so, just go and see where we can get.