Anxiety does not cause bad results in exams

焦虑并不会直接导致考试成绩差

The problem is in the run-up, not the main event

问题出在准备阶段，而不是考试阶段

Exams are nerve-racking, especially for those already of an anxious disposition. The silence of the hall; the ticking of the clock; the beady eye of the invigilator; the smug expression of the person sitting at the neighbouring desk who has finished 15 minutes early. It therefore seems hardly surprising that those who worry about taking tests do systematically worse than those who do not. What is, perhaps, surprising, according to research published recently in Psychological Science by Maria Theobald at the Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education and her colleagues, is that it is not the pressure of the exam hall which causes the problem. It is the pressure of revision.

考试是一件伤脑筋的事，尤其是对那些本来就容易焦虑的人来说。大厅里的鸦雀无声;时钟的滴答作响;监考老师锐利的眼睛;还有那坐在邻桌得考生，提前15分钟就写完了的洋洋得意的表情。因此，那些担心参加考试的人比那些不担心考试的人表现得更差，似乎也就不足为奇了。莱布尼茨教育研究与信息研究所的玛丽亚·西奥博尔德和她的同事们最近在《心理科学》上发表了一项研究，可能令人惊讶的是，引发这一问题的并不是考场的压力，而是复习的压力。

Dr Theobald theorised that if anxiety was truly interfering with a student’s ability to transfer known information from brain to paper via pen, then those with high levels of it would perform worse in a real exam, when it actually mattered, than in either a mock beforehand or during online practice sessions. Moreover, she expected this performance-drop to correlate with levels of self-reported exam nerves.

西奥博尔德博士的理论是，如果焦虑真的干扰了学生将已知信息从大脑通过笔转移到纸上的能力，那么焦虑水平高的学生在真正重要的考试中表现会比在预先模拟考试或在线练习中表现更差。此外，她预计这种成绩下降与自我报告的考试紧张程度有关。

She therefore worked with 309 German medical students who were preparing for their final state exam, the most important that they take. This test consists of 230 questions split into three five-hour sessions over three days.

因此，她与309名德国医科学生合作，他们正在准备最后的国考，这是他们参加的最重要的考试。这个测试包括230个问题，分成三个五小时的考试，为期三天。

During the 100 days before the actual papers, all her volunteers used a digital-learning platform which presented them with old exam questions and logged their performance. They also sat a mock examination, clearly presented to them as such, 40 days before the real thing. To assess their levels of anxiety, they were asked, every day for 40 days in the run up to the real exam and also on the day of that exam, to respond on a five-point scale to statements like, “I feel tense and nervous”. On the day of the mock they were similarly asked to rate statements like, “I worry whether I have studied enough”.

在正式考试前的100天里，所有志愿者都使用了一个数字化学习平台，这个平台向他们提供以往的试题，并记录他们的表现。他们还在真正考试前40天参加了一场模拟考试。为了评估他们的焦虑水平，研究人员要求他们在真正考试前和考试当天的40天里，每天对诸如“我感到紧张和不安”之类的陈述进行五分制的反应。在模拟当天，他们同样被要求对诸如“我担心自己是否学得足够多”这样的陈述进行打分。

What Dr Theobald found was not what she expected. Anxiety on the day of the test did not predict exam performance at all. What did predict it was the level of knowledge a student displayed in the mock exam and the earlier digital-learning activities. Those who performed well in these also did well in the real thing, regardless of how anxious they were on the day.

西奥博尔德博士的发现与她预想的不同。考试当天的焦虑并不能预测考试成绩。真正能够预测这种现象的是学生在模拟考试和早期数字化学习活动中所表现出来的知识水平。那些在这些测试中表现良好的人在正式考试中也表现良好，不管他们当天有多焦虑。

What actually hampered students, it turned out, were high levels of anxiety during the weeks before the exam took place. The greater a student’s anxiety in the days before the exam, the lower his or her knowledge-gain was during that period, leaving that student with less material to regurgitate during the exam itself.

事实证明，真正阻碍学生的是考试前几周的高度焦虑。一个学生在考试前的几天焦虑程度越高，他或她在这段时间学到的知识就越少，在考试期间可以利用的材料就越少。

And this, paradoxically, is a positive discovery, for it suggests a change of approach to revision by the anxious might help improve their results. Dr Theobald notes that test-anxiety is at its worst when students have low expectations of success and simultaneously know that passing the exam is exceedingly important. To reduce this anxiety, she proposes a two-fold strategy for students to consider as they revise. First, they can raise their belief in their own abilities by reminding themselves of just how much they know. Second, they can diminish the significance of the test by reminding themselves that, while it is important, it is not a life or death situation. It really isn’t. Really…

矛盾的是，这是一个积极的发现，因为它表明焦虑者改变复习方法可能有助于提高他们的成绩。西奥博尔德博士指出，当学生对成功的期望很低，同时又清楚通过考试非常重要时，考试焦虑就会达到最严重的程度。为了减少这种焦虑，她提出了一个双重策略，供学生在复习时采用。首先，他们可以通过提醒自己学到了多少知识来提高对自己能力的信心。其次，他们可以通过提醒自己，尽管测试很重要，但这不是生死攸关的情况，以此来降低测试的重要性。真的不重要。真的……

Notes：

regurgitate

    v.反刍；使（咽下的食物）返回到口中；照搬；拾人牙慧

paradoxically

    adv.似乎近于怪论；矛盾地

✦ anxious 焦虑

你可能会想到worried这个单词，I’m very worried about sth.，对某事非常担心焦虑，用anxiety来表达，就可以用there be句型，there is considerable anxiety about。另外，在美剧中经常能听到be stressed out这个表达，表示极度焦虑不安。

相关词汇：

nerve-racking

    adj.令人十分紧张的；令人焦虑不安的

an anxious disposition 焦虑的性格

✦ nerve n. 紧张

词意比较灵活。最常见的意思是神经，此时是可数的，比如脊神经，spinal nerves。除了神经，还可以指勇气或者胆量，是不可数的，但同时又有看似和勇气矛盾的意思，指神经紧张或情绪不安，而且是可数的。

✦ run-up 前期、准备阶段

up除了向上，还可以指朝向。比如come up to me，朝我走过来。run-up字面意思就是朝向什么跑过去，结合考试这个话题，在文中run-up指考前准备阶段。确实，run-up的意思是前期或者准备阶段，比如in the run-up to Christmas，在圣诞节的准备阶段。

✦ keep a beady eye on sth. 机警地注视

相关词汇：

invigilator

    n.〔教〕监考人；〔计〕监视器

✦ smug 沾沾自喜的、得意洋洋的

常见搭配有smug expression/look/smile等等

✦ revision （考前）复习

✦ mock 模拟考试

✦ session 一场、一节

The course is made up of 12 two-hour sessions.

这门课总共上 12 次，每次两小时。

✦ correlate 相关

统计学意义上的相关。possitive correlation「正相关」，negative correlation「负相关」。

✦ five-point scale 五点量表

相关词汇：

log 记录

statement 陈述；填写量表时的搭配respond to statements or rate statements

✦ two-fold 由两部分的

✦ diminish 使减少

复盘总结

① 焦虑和考试成绩之间的关系

✦ 考试准备期间焦虑影响考试成绩

✦ 考试时焦虑不是预测考试成绩的有效因素

② 对学生的建议

✦ 相信自己的能力

✦ 不要把考试看得太重

课后练习

试将下列句子翻译成英文

令人惊讶的是，考试时焦虑和考试成绩并不相关，能预测成绩的是学生在备考期间的表现。

参考答案：

It is surprising that anxiety during exams doesn't correlate with exam performance. What does predict it is how well a student performs in the run-up.