（一） 真题精选
Passage 1 (2007 年试题)
If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006’s
World Cup tournament you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer
players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than the
later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the
World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be
even more pronounced.
What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses：a)
certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills. b) winter-born bathes tend to
have higher oxygen capacity which increases soccer stamina. c) soccer mad parents
are more likely to conceive children in springtime at the annual peak of soccer
mania. d) none of the above.
Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State
University, says he believes strongly in “none of the above.” Ericsson grew up in
Sweden, and studied nuclear engineering until he realized he realized he would
have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology.
His first experiment nearly years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear
and then repeat a random series of numbers. “With the first subject, after about 20
hours of training his digit span had risen from 7 to 20,” Ericsson recalls. “He kept
improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers.”
This success coupled with later research showing that memory itself as not
genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more
of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever inborn
differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize those differences
are swamped by how well each person “encodes” the information. And the best way
to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a
process known as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice entails more than simply
repeating a task. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate
feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.
Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a
wide range of pursuits, including soccer. They gather all the data they can, not just
predominance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own
lavatory experiments with high achievers. Their work makes a rather startling
assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another
way, expert performers whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer
programming are nearly always made, not born.
1. The birthday phenomenon found among soccer players is mentioned to
[A] stress the importance of professional training.
[B] spotlight the soccer superstars in the World Cup.
[C] introduce the topic of what males expert performance.
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