这是 2016 年 The New York Times『纽约时报』上的一篇文章，Deliberate Practice (刻意练习)。该文章是 2007 年考研真题的英语阅读，考研时读到这篇文章，感觉不错就把它记录下来了。
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.
“刻意练习”需要的不仅仅简单的重复练习。确切地讲，“刻意练习”包括制定具体的目标、得到迅速反馈以及既注重结果又注意技巧方法。
正文
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 in 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.
如果查看一下每位参加 2006 年世界杯足球锦标赛的足球运动员的出生证明，你很可能会发现一个值得注意的奇怪现象：出色的足球运动员更可能在一年的前几个月份中出生。如果再关注一下为世界杯和职业排名提供球员的欧洲国家青年队，那你就会发现这种怪现象更加明显。
What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies 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.
造成这种奇怪现象的原因是什么呢？下面是一些猜想：1) 某些星座赋予了球员精湛
的球艺；2) 冬天出生的孩子肺活量往往很大，使他们踢足球时体力过人；3) 春天是一年一度中足球最狂热的季节，喜欢足球的父母更容易在春天受孕；4) 以上原因都不对。
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 would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 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.”
弗罗里达州立大学 58 岁的心理学教授安徳斯・埃里克森说，他坚决认为“以上原因都不对”。埃里克森在瑞典长大，曾学习核工程，后来他意识到如果转行学习心理学，就可能有更多的机会进行自己的研究。大约三十年前，他做的第一个实验与记忆力有关：他训练一个人，让他听一系列随机的数字，然后再进行重复。“第一个受试者经过大约20个小时训练以后，数字记忆能力由 7 个上升到 20 个，” 埃里克森回忆说。“这个受试者的记忆水平在不断提高，经过大约 200 小时训练以后，他的数字记忆能力达到了80个以上。”
This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is 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.
这一实验的成功以及后来表明记忆力本身并非是由基因决定的研究让埃里克森得出一个结论：与其说记忆行为是直觉活动，不如说是一个认知过程。换句话说，无论两个人天生在记忆能力方表现出多大的差别，这些差别都会被个人对信息的编码能力所抵消。埃里克森认为，学习对信息进行有意编码的最好途径就是一种被称为“有目的的练习 (刻意练习)”的过程。“刻意练习”需要的不仅仅简单的重复练习。确切地讲，“刻意练习”包括制定具体的目标、得到迅速反馈以及既注重结果又注意技巧方法。
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 performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory 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.
因此，埃里克森和他的同事们研究了包括足球在内的很多领域的优秀人士。他们收集了能收集到的所有资料，不仅包括工作情况的统计数字、生平资料，还包括他们对卓越成就者的实验研究。他们的研究结果令人惊讶：我们通常所认定的天赋——也就是遗传特性被过分夸大了。或者换句话说，不管是记忆背通、外科领域、跳芭蕾还是计算机编程方面表现优秀的人都不是天生的，而是后天培养的。