美国《纽约时报》是是美国严肃报刊的代表,长期以来拥有良好的公信力和权威性著称,18513年正式在美国出版发行,其新闻涵盖社会多个方面,当中文章更是囊括了丰富的词汇。所以可以通过阅读《纽约时报》来丰富自己的词汇量,从而更好地进备考。下面是小编推荐的GRE阅读纽约时报双语资料之除非你够有名,不然还是别“做你自己”。
Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice.
除非你够有名,不然还是别“做你自己”
IT was going to be the biggest presentation of my life — my first appearance on the TED Conference main stage — and I had already thrown out seven drafts. Searching for a new direction, I asked colleagues and friends for suggestions. “The most important thing,” the first one said, “is to be yourself.” The next six people I asked gave me the same tip.
这将是我人生里最大的一场表演——第一次在TED会议的主舞台上亮相——我已经扔掉了七个版本的草稿。为了寻找一个新的方向,我向同事和朋友征询了意见。“最重要的事,”我问到的第一个人说,“是做你自己。”接下来六个人也给出了同样的建议。
We are in the Age of Authenticity, where “be yourself” is the defining advice in life, love and career. Authenticity means erasing the gap between what you firmly believe inside and what you reveal to the outside world. As Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, defines it, authenticity is “the choice to let our true selves be seen.”
我们处在一个讲求真实的年代,“做自己”是我们在生活、爱情和职业中收到的最典型的建议。真实意味着消除你内心坚信的东西和你向外界展露的东西之间的差距。就像休斯顿大学研究教授布勒内·布朗(Brené Brown)定义的,真实是“暴露真我这样一种选择”。
We want to live authentic lives, marry authentic partners, work for an authentic boss, vote for an authentic president. In university commencement speeches, “Be true to yourself” is one of the most common themes (behind “Expand your horizons,” and just ahead of “Never give up”).
我们想过真实的人生,嫁给真实可信的伴侣,为真实可信的老板工作,选出一位真实可信的总统。在大学毕业演讲中,“真实面对自己”是最常见的主题之一(排在“开阔视野”的后面,“永不放弃”的前面)。
“I certainly had no idea that being your authentic self could get you as rich as I have become,” Oprah Winfrey said jokingly a few years ago. ”If I’d known that, I’d have tried it a lot earlier.”
“我当然不知道做真实的自己或许可以让一个人像我一样变得这么富有,”几年前奥普拉·温弗瑞(Oprah Winfrey)曾这样开玩笑地讲道。“如果我知道的话,在更早以前我就试着去做了。”
But for most people, “be yourself” is actually terrible advice.
但对我们大多数人来说,“做自己”实际上是个糟糕的建议。
If I can be authentic for a moment: Nobody wants to see your true self. We all have thoughts and feelings that we believe are fundamental to our lives, but that are better left unspoken.
容我此刻直言:没人想看到你真正的自我。我们都有我们觉得对自己的人生非常重要的思想和感觉,但这些东西最好还是留在心里。
A decade ago, the author A. J. Jacobs spent a few weeks trying to be totally authentic. He announced to an editor that he would try to sleep with her if he were single and informed his nanny that he would like to go on a date with her if his wife left him. He informed a friend’s 5-year-old daughter that the beetle in her hands was not napping but dead. He told his in-laws that their conversation was boring. You can imagine how his experiment worked out.
十年前,作家A·J·雅各布(A. J. Jacobs)花了几周时间试着保持完全的真实。他对一位编辑说,如果他是单身,就会设法和她上床。他告诉自己的保姆,如果妻子与自己分手,他会很乐意和她约会。他告知一个朋友5岁的女儿,她手里的甲壳虫不是睡着了,而是死了。他告诉他的岳父岳母,他们的谈话颇为乏味。你可以想像他的实验结果如何。
“Deceit makes our world go round,” he concluded. “Without lies, marriages would crumble, workers would be fired, egos would be shattered, governments would collapse.”
“欺骗令我们的世界运转,”他总结道。“没有了谎言,婚姻会破裂,员工会被解雇,自我会崩塌,政府会垮台。”
How much you aim for authenticity depends on a personality trait called self-monitoring. If you’re a high self-monitor, you’re constantly scanning your environment for social cues and adjusting accordingly. You hate social awkwardness and desperately want to avoid offending anyone.
你在多大程度上追求真实,取决于一种被称为自我监察的人格特质。如果你有很高的自我监察度,你会不停地审视周围的环境,寻找社交提示,进行相应地调整。你讨厌社交上的尴尬,非常想避免冒犯任何人。
But if you’re a low self-monitor, you’re guided more by your inner states, regardless of your circumstances. In one fascinating study, when a steak landed on their plates, high self-monitors tasted it before pouring salt, whereas low self-monitors salted it first. As the psychologist Brian Little explains, “It is as though low self-monitors know their salt personalities very well.”
但如果你是一个自我监察度比较低的人,你会更多地会听从内心的指引,而不管周边的环境。一项引人入胜的研究显示,当一盘牛排摆在眼前时,拥有高自我监察度的人会先品尝一下,然后决定是否再撒盐,而自我监察度低的人则会直接先撒盐。如同心理学家布莱恩·利特尔(Brian Little)所解释的,“就好像自我监察度低的人十分清楚自己的咸淡口味。”
Low self-monitors criticize high self-monitors as chameleons and phonies. They’re right that there’s a time and place for authenticity. Some preliminary research suggests that low self-monitors tend to have happier marriages and lower odds of divorce. With your romantic partner, being authentic might lead to a more genuine connection (unless your name is A. J. Jacobs).
自我监察度低的人指责自我监察度高的人见风使舵和虚伪。他们没错,的确存在适用真实的时间和地点。一些初步的研究显示,自我监察度低往往婚姻更幸福,离婚几率更低。对你的浪漫伴侣而言,表里如一可能会带来更真诚的关系(除非你像A·J·雅各布那样)。
But in the rest of our lives, we pay a price for being too authentic. High self-monitors advance faster and earn higher status, in part because they’re more concerned about their reputations. And while that would seem to reward self-promoting frauds, these high self-monitors spend more time finding out what others need and helping them. In a comprehensive analysis of 136 studies of more than 23,000 employees, high self-monitors received significantly higher evaluations and were more likely to be promoted into leadership positions.
但在我们生活的其他方面,太真实往往会令你付出代价。自我监察度高的人升迁更快,可以获得更高的地位,部分原因在于他们更关心自己的声誉。尽管这似乎奖励了自我鼓吹的欺诈者,但这些高自我监察人群的确花了更多时间弄清楚他人的需求,并去帮助他们。就2.3万多名员工的136种研究进行的一项综合分析显示,高度自我监察的人收获的评价要高出许多,也更有可能被晋升至领导岗位。
Interestingly, women are more likely to be low self-monitors than men, perhaps because women face stronger cultural pressures to express their feelings. Sadly, that puts them at risk for being judged weak or unprofessional. When Cynthia Danaher was promoted to general manager of a group at Hewlett-Packard, she announced to her 5,300 employees that the job was “scary” and that “I need your help.” She was authentic, and her team lost confidence in her initially. Some researchers even suggest that low self-monitoring may have harmful effects on women’s progress.
有趣的是,女性的自我监察度常常低于男性。这或许是因为她们面对着更多的文化压力去表达自身的感受。不幸的是,这可能会让她们面临被看成性格脆弱或行事不专业的风险。当辛西娅·达纳赫(Cynthia Danaher)被提拔为惠普(Hewlett-Packard)旗下某公司总经理的时候,她向手下的5300名员工宣布,这是一项“可怕的”工作,“我需要你们的帮助”。她很真实,于是她的团队从一开始就对她失去了信心。一些研究者甚至表示,低自我监察度可能会对女性发展造成有害影响。
But even high self-monitors can suffer from the belief in authenticity because it presupposes that there is a true self, a bedrock to our personalities that’s a combination of our convictions and abilities. As the psychologist Carol Dweck has long shown, merely believing that there’s a fixed self can interfere with growth.
不过,就连自我监察度高的人,也有可能因为信奉真实而吃苦头。因为其前提是:存在一个真实的自我,一块构建个性的基石,它是我们的信念和能力的结合体。正如心理学者卡罗尔·徳韦克(Carol Dweck)长期以来证明的那样,全然相信存在一个固定的自我,会对成长构成干扰。
Children who see abilities as fixed give up after failure; managers who believe talent is fixed fail to coach their employees. “As we strive to improve our game, a clear and firm sense of self is a compass that helps us navigate choices and progress toward our goals,” Herminia Ibarra, a professor of organizational behavior at the business school Insead, notes. “When we’re looking to change our game, a too rigid self-concept becomes an anchor that keeps us from sailing forth.”
如果孩子认为能力是固定的,那他们遇到失败就会放弃;如果经理人认为才干是固定的,那他们就无法好好培训员工。“当我们想要改进为人处事的方式时,一种清晰而又坚定的自我感相当于指南针,可以帮助我们做出选择,朝着既定的目标前进,”欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)组织行为学教授埃米尼亚·伊巴拉 (Herminia Ibarra)指出。“当我们想要改变为人处事的方式时,过于死板的自我概念又会成为妨碍我们前行的牵绊。”
If not our authentic selves, what should we be striving to reach? Decades ago, the literary critic Lionel Trilling gave us an answer that sounds very old-fashioned to our authentic ears: sincerity. Instead of searching for our inner selves and then making a concerted effort to express them, Trilling urged us to start with our outer selves. Pay attention to how we present ourselves to others, and then strive to be the people we claim to be.
如果说我们竭力抵达的目标并不是真实的自我,那么又该是什么呢?文学批评家昂内尔·特里林(Lionel Trilling)数十年前给出的答案是诚恳。在我们真实的耳朵听来,这个答案非常老派。特里林建议我们先去关注外在的自我,而非去探寻内在的自我,然后竭力将其表达出来。要留意我们向他人展现自己的方式,然后尽量成为我们自己宣称的样子。
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Rather than changing from the inside out, you bring the outside in.
不是进行由内自外的改变,而是进行由外自内的改变。
When Dr. Ibarra studied consultants and investment bankers, she found that high self-monitors were more likely than their authentic peers to experiment with different leadership styles. They watched senior leaders in the organization, borrowed their language and action, and practiced them until these became second nature. They were not authentic, but they were sincere. It made them more effective.
伊巴拉博士对顾问和投资银行家群体进行研究后发现,自我监察度高的人比他们那些率性真实的同行更愿意尝试不同的领导风格。他们会留意观察组织内的高层领导者,模仿其言行举止,并不断练习,直到这些变成第二天性。他们并不真实,但他们很诚恳。这让他们更有效力。
The shift from authenticity to sincerity might be especially important for millennials. Most generational differences are vastly exaggerated — they’re driven primarily by age and maturity, not birth cohort. But one robust finding is that younger generations tend to be less concerned about social approval. Authentic self-expression works beautifully, until employers start to look at social media profiles.
从真实到诚恳的转变对千禧一代而言可能尤为重要。大多数代际差异被严重夸大了——它们主要取决于年龄和成熟程度,而非出生在哪个年代。但一项颇为可靠的研究结果显示,年轻一代可能不那么在意社会的认同。真实的自我表达显得十分美好,直到雇主们开始查看社交媒体上的个人简介。
As an introvert, I started my career terrified of public speaking so my authentic self wouldn’t have been giving a TED talk in the first place. But being passionate about sharing knowledge, I spent the next decade learning to do what Dr. Little, the psychologist, calls acting out of character. I decided to be the person I claimed to be, one who is comfortable in the spotlight.
作为一个内向的人,我初入职场时非常害怕公开发言,因此我当初的真实自我是不会愿意发表TED演讲的。但我对分享知识充满热情,因此在随后十年里,我学着像利特尔博士说的那样,做与性格不相符的事情。我决定成为自己宣称的那种人,一个能在聚光灯下挥洒自如的人。
It worked. Next time people say, “just be yourself,” stop them in their tracks. No one wants to hear everything that’s in your head. They just want you to live up to what comes out of your mouth.
这种办法奏效了。下次再听到有人说“做你自己”,请让他们赶紧打住。没人想听你脑子里的每个真实想法。大家只希望你能说到做到。
通过分析以上分析,更好的提升词汇的积累程度,也可以选择性的记忆一些短语的使用方法!
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