导语:
我认为信念可左右你的决定以及在面对艰巨的目标时的态度,并最终影响你在重大赛事(或考试)中的表现。所以不妨问问自己“阻挡我前进的‘一英里跑四分钟’极限是什么?”,可能大有裨益。
Lead:
Your beliefs will influence the decisions youmake, your attitude towards a challenging objective, and ultimatelyyour performance in important events like a race (or a test). So itcan be useful to ask yourself what are the “four minute mile”barriers that are holding you back?
第六步:突破“一英里跑四分钟”的极限,发挥自己的最佳水平
你的书房是什么样子?
睡觉有益 (漫画来自www.xkcd.com)
记住,“人谁无过”(格里格·毕谢供图)
Step 6: Breaking Your “FourMinute Mile” - Achieving your BestPerformance.
In 1945 the world record for running a mile (1609meters) was 4 minutes 1 second – so close to the 4-minute barrierthat everyone was expecting it to be broken quickly. But the recordremained unbroken for the rest of the decade andby the beginning of 1954, after Hillary and Norgay hadreached the top of Mount Everest, many people started to think that it wasphysically impossible to run a mile in less than 4 minutes withoutyour heart exploding!
Even some of the elite runners who were trying tobreak the record believed that the task was impossible. “It’s liketrying to break through a brick wall,” said John Landy one of thebest runners of the day. “I think the 4 minute mile is beyond mycapabilities.” Then on the 6th of May 1954, at anathletic competition in England, the English medical student RogerBannister ran a mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. Landy camesecond.
Bannister had done it! He had not only runhimself into the history books but he had proved everyone whothought it was impossible wrong.
The amazing part of the story is that six weekslater, John Landy broke the record again and ran an incredible 4seconds faster than he had ever run before to finish in 3 minutes57.9 seconds! Over the next three years, another 16 athletes hadalso crashed through that “impossible” 4-minute mile brickwall.
The reason for this sudden improvement inperformance was that Bannister had broken through the four-minutemile psychologicalbarrier. He had shown that running a four-minute mile was possibleand that the barriers we perceive are sometimes only barriers inour own minds. Landy and the other runners had been held back bytheir own beliefs.
Just to be clear, I am not the sort of person whothinks that you can achieve absolutely anything as long as youbelieve it in strongly enough. In fact, as we saw with MauriceWilson’s story in blog 2 that kind of philosophy can be disastrous.But I do think that your beliefs will influence the decisions youmake, your attitude towards a challenging objective, and ultimatelyyour performance in important events like a race (or a test). So itcan be useful to ask yourself what are the “four minute mile”barriers that are holding you back?
The relationship between mind and body is notfully understood but it is generally accepted and mental techniquesfor improving performance are now almost universally used by topathletes. Unfortunately these have not been adopted that widelyoutside of sports and many students in academic contexts are notaware that their performance can also be influenced by externalfactors such as their physical and mental state. Many students seemto believe that their performance is directly related to the amountof time spent studying and nothing else.
Quote: “The greatest pleasure in life is doing thethings people say we cannot do.” WalterBagehot
These are my Top Tips for improving yourperformance in the IELTS test:
Create anarea which is just for study and where there are no otherdistractions from the TV, radio, family or friends. You should haveall your study aids (dictionaries, books, study plan etc) close athand, and all your websites saved in a folder or in favourites. Notonly can you concentrate better in such an environment but yourmind will associate this area with study and your productivity willincrease.
What does your study area looklike?
To help you focus on your work, clear your deskof everything except the study materials that you are working onthat day. To keep your concentration high don’t forget to takeregular breaks (about 5 minutes every hour) and get up and moveabout.
In the last few weeks before the test, you mayalso want to temporarily limit other activities that aredistractions such as hobbies or socialevents.
It is important to remember that everyone will bea little nervous – this is a normal reaction to an important testand shows that you take the situation seriously. In fact, athletesknow that some pre-race nerves also help them to focus on what theyneed to do and can improve performance.
However, excessive nervousness can cause anxiety,physical tension and mental stress. During the test these canaffect performance by causing you to produce language that is tootentative and below your actual capabilities, you may find it hardto focus on task and fail to follow the instructions or answer theexaminer’s question. So you will need strategies to control yournervousness.
Firstly,don’t make the very common mistake of last minute cramming for thetest. If you don’t know something by 8 pm the night before it istoo late to learn it and you may start to panic about what youdon’t know.
It’s good to sleep(comic: www.xkcd.com)
On the morning of the exam don’t study and try torelax, maybe go for a quiet walk, listen to soothing music, or talkto your friends or family about other things not related to thetest.
Good preparation is a great way to prevent nervessince the more familiar the situation is the more you will feelmore in control and the less stressful it will be. Many athletesprepare for an important competition by “walking through” the eventin their mind. So make sure you know where thetest centre is, how you plan to get there, and remember to leavesome extra time for traffic problems. Make sure you know all thepractical details of exactly what you have to do and what youshould or should not take with you to the testvenue.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that themind is a completely separate entity from the body and so neglectto take good care of it. Students who are focussed on passingimportant examinations often deprive themselves of sufficientsleep, exercise or a proper diet and yet still expect their mind toperform at its best.
A little regular exercise is an extremelyimportant part of your study programme as it allows your body torelease stress and so prevents the negative consequence of too muchtension and nervousness on exam performance.
For the same reasons, it is equally important toeat well, avoid junk food with lots of sugar and carbohydrates andto drink lots of water. On test day don’t drink too much coffee orsmoke too much as this can also over stimulate your nervoussystem.
Fear of making mistakes isvery common in language learners but errors are actually a normalpart of learning – just think about how children make grammar andvocabulary errors while learning their own mothertongue!
Don’t forget “everyone makesmistakes” (image: Greg Biche)
No one is expecting you to be perfect in the test.So when you make a mistake in the test the important thing is toaccept it and quickly move on. A technique to help you to removethese negative thoughts is to focus your mind on the task athand and what you need to do to finish that taskwell. To help you do this it is useful to have prepared a listof key techniques for success in each paper (like ‘listen to thequestions’, ‘write down the key points’ or ‘check your answers atthe end’).
Anddefinitely don’t fall into the temptation of comparing answers withother candidates after each paper – this self-comparison can makeyou doubt yourself
Ohh…and by the way, the current world record forthe mile is 3:43.13, set by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco on July7, 1999.
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