外刊双语：学生的考试焦虑会决定考试成绩吗？

原文标题：
Exam nerves’ real cause
High anxiety
Anxious exam candidates’ problem is the run-up, not the main event
考试焦虑的真正原因
高度焦虑
考生的焦虑问题在备考阶段，而不是因为考试本身

Anxiety does not cause bad results in exams
焦虑不会导致考试成绩不佳

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EXAMS ARE nerve-racking, especially for those already of an anxious disposition.
考试让人紧张，对已有焦虑倾向的人尤是如此。

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.
考场的寂静；时钟的滴答声；监考老师的机警眼神；邻座考生提前15分钟交卷的得意表情。

It therefore seems hardly surprising that those who worry about taking tests do systematically worse than those who do not.
因此，那些担心考试的人比那些不担心考试的人一贯表现都更差，这似乎并不令人惊讶。

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.
莱布尼茨教育研究与信息研究所的玛丽亚·西奥博尔德及其同事最近在《心理科学》杂志上发表的一项研究表明：也许令人惊讶的是，不是因为考场压力而导致成绩不佳，而是因为复习压力。

[Paragraph 2]
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.
西奥博尔德博士理论认为，如果焦虑真的干扰了学生用笔将脑中已知信息写到纸上的能力，那么焦虑水平高的学生在实际考试中的成绩会比考前模拟测试或在线练习中的成绩更差。

Moreover, she expected this performance-drop to correlate with levels of self-reported exam nerves.
此外，她预计这种成绩下降与自我打分的考试焦虑水平有关。

[Paragraph 3]
She therefore worked with 309 German medical students who were preparing for their final state exam, the most important that they take.
因此，她与309名德国医学生一起合作完成了研究。这些医学生们正在准备最后且最重要的全国医师考试。

This test consists of 230 questions split into three five-hour sessions over three days.
这项考试有230个问题，分三天考，也就是3个五小时的考试。

[Paragraph 4]
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.
在正式考试前的100天里，她所有志愿者们都使用了一个数字学习平台，上面有旧的考试题目，还可以记录他们的成绩。

They also sat a mock examination, clearly presented to them as such, 40 days before the real thing.
他们还在正式考试前40天参加了一次模拟考试，题目就是从旧题库里抽取的。

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”.
为了评估他们的焦虑程度，在正式考试前的40天内，以及在考试当天，每天询问他们“我感到紧张和惶恐程度”这样的问题，并按照5分制打分。

On the day of the mock they were similarly asked to rate statements like, “I worry whether I have studied enough”.
模拟考试当天，询问他们“我担心我是否学习够了”之类的问题，并进行打分。

[Paragraph 5]
What Dr Theobald found was not what she expected.
西奥博尔德博士的研究结果超出预期。

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.
考试当天的焦虑并不能预测考试成绩。但可以通过学生在模拟考试及更早数字学习中所展示的知识水平来预测考试成绩。

Those who performed well in these also did well in the real thing, regardless of how anxious they were on the day.
在前期练习中的成绩优异者，他们在正式考试中也成绩优异，与他们考试当天的焦虑程度无关。

[Paragraph 6]
What actually hampered students, it turned out, were high levels of anxiety during the weeks before the exam took place.
事实证明，真正影响学生成绩的是考试前几周的高度焦虑。

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.
学生在考试前几天的焦虑程度越高，他们在考前阶段获得的知识就越少，这使得学生在考试期间调用的知识就越少。

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And this, paradoxically, is a positive discovery, for it suggests a change of approach to revision by the anxious might help improve their results.
矛盾的是，这是一个积极的发现，这表明考试焦虑者改变复习方法可能有助于改善他们的考试成绩。

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.
西奥博尔德博士指出，当学生对成功的期望很低，同时又知道通过考试极其重要时，他们的考试焦虑程度最高。

To reduce this anxiety, she proposes a two-fold strategy for students to consider as they revise.
为了减少这种焦虑，她提出了一种双重策略，供学生在复习时参考。

First, they can raise their belief in their own abilities by reminding themselves of just how much they know.
首先，他们可以通过提醒自己“我已掌握的知识”来提高自我效能感。

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.
第二，他们可以通过提醒自己“尽管考试很重要但无关生死”，来降低考试的重要性。

It really isn’t. Really…
事实并非如此。真的…

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量594左右）
原文出自：2022年11月5日《TE》Science & technology版块。

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理: Irene本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
在德国，医学并非是我们大家熟悉的本科-硕士-博士制，而是类似于一个总学时为6年零3个月的大学学习课程，结束后得到的毕业证书也并非一般的学位证或毕业证，而是行医资格证（Approbation）。德国的医师考试难度的确比较高，有笔试和口试两部分，大约需要3天的考试时间。通过的同学可在德国境内就业，工作比较好申请。

【重点句子】（3 个）
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.
考场的寂静；时钟的滴答声；监考老师的机警眼神；邻座考生提前15分钟交卷的得意表情。

Those who performed well in these also did well in the real thing, regardless of how anxious they were on the day.
在前期练习中的成绩优异者，他们在正式考试中也成绩优异，与他们当天的焦虑程度无关。

What actually hampered students, it turned out, were high levels of anxiety during the weeks before the exam took place.
事实证明，真正影响学生成绩的是考试前几周的高度焦虑。