很多时候，学习方法的重要性不亚于知识本身。当我们面对难以理解的新信息和概念时，我们每个人都会用不同的方法去理解和吸收这些信息。当学生在学习时，不论他学的是物理还是语言，他所用到的学习方法可以决定他以后的学术生涯是否成功。而对大学来说，他们也更倾向于招收具有强大学习技能的学生。
Alot of times how you learn something can be as important as what you learn. Weall have our own ways to process new information and ideas. When we encounternew information that’s difficult to understand, we have different ways to tryto understand and absorb the new information. The way a student learns asubject, whether it’s physics or language, can determine his success later inhis academic career, and universities look for students with strong studyskills that help them to be successful.
作为一名招生顾问，我在上一个申请季遇到了一个十分有趣的文书题目-- “讨论一件让你感到不安的艺术、文学或科学作品”。 我的一位学生选择了“薛定谔的猫”作为主题。我们经常会在高中物理教科书里看到这个课题，所以我很不希望她写出一篇很老生常谈的文书。于我而言，我想在文书中凸显出她是一个在课堂之外也是对阅读如饥似渴的人，而不是她总置身于各种量子物理的复杂思维实验中。但她对于第二个想法的热情似乎更高，所以我也就接受了她的想法。当我收到初稿时，我以为她会给我一篇关于假设实验设置的冗长描述，以及对神秘结论同样冗长的解释。虽然她的文书确实包含了一些以上的内容，但她在留学文书写作meeloun论文网中的自我反思也相当有趣的。她承认，她和其他人一样对猫怎么能同时既活着又死了感到困惑，两件相反的事情是如何同时发生的呢？她在文书中描述了想要想通这个问题有多难。试图去理解这件事给她的智力上带来了很多焦虑，而这段经历却也给她留下了深刻的印象。于是我尽了我招生顾问的职责，删除了她文书开头的几段，帮助她根据最后一段写出大纲，并告诉她下次再给我一份草稿。
An interestingprompt I encountered as an admissions consultant this past season was to“discuss a work of art, literature or science that unsettled you”. The studentwas a young lady with a very interesting background who choose the topic ofSchrodinger’s cat. I didn’t want to see her write several hundred words about atopic that routinely appears in every high school physics textbook. Rather thanget entangled in some convoluted thought experiment on quantum physics, Iwanted to show that she has read voraciously outside of the cla***oom. I waswilling to entertain the idea simply because she was very enthusiastic. When Ireceived the rough draft, I expected a lengthy description of the hypotheticalexperimental setup and an equally prolonged explanation of the arcaneconclusion. While I certainly got some of that, her reflection was quiteinteresting. She admitted that she was just as perplexed as the next person asto how the cat could be alive and dead at the same time, and she described thedifficulty of trying to wrap her head around that idea. Trying to understandhow two opposite things can be true at the same time has caused her a fairamount of intellectual anxiety and this experience had left an impression onher. As a responsible admissions consultant, I deleted the first fewparagraphs, helped her come up with an outline based on the last paragraph, andtold her to bring me another rough draft next time. high quality essay writing service on essay.lxws.net
我很庆幸我没有阻止她写这个话题，即使这个话题可能会把她塑造成一个亚洲书呆子形象。在她的研究中，她遇到了一些让她困惑的事情，因为这只猫挑战了她的信念--即两个相反的事实不可能同时是真实的。我认为这篇文章可以写得很好，因为它抓住了她逻辑的基本原则在智力上受到挑战的时刻。虽然刚开始她对这个概念很不解，但最终她还是要发挥她最大的能力去理解它。我为什么要讲这个故事？为什么这样的事情会在经常在学生和老师之间发生？确实，这个故事表面上看是她在学习物理，但她也从中学会去接受一个她不能完全理解的观点。作为一个受过教育的成年人，我认为第二部分比第一部分重要得多。事实上，这个世界上有很多矛盾，人们需要学会如何处理它们。我敢说，大部分读过这篇文章的人现在都过着充实的成年生活，而他们早已遗忘高中时代对盒子里假想的猫的细节。
I am glad Ididn’t stop her from writing on a topic that I thought would typecast her as anerdy Asian student. In her studies, she had come across something thatstumbled her because the cat had challenged her belief that two opposite factscannot both be true. I thought this could make a good essay because it capturesthe moment when a basic tenet of her logic is intellectually challenged. Shewas confused by this but in the end has to process the idea to her mind’s bestability. why am I telling this story? Why should incidents such as this stickout in the numerous student teacher interactions that goes on everyday? Yes,she was learning physics but she also learned to accept an idea she could notfully understand. As an educated adult, I would argue that for most practicalpurposes the second part was a much more important lesson than the first part.The truth is there are many contradictions in this world, and a person needs tolearn to deal with them. I would further venture to say that a most readers ofthis article have long forgotten the details of the hypothetical cat in the boxfrom their high school days and lives a fulfilling and productive adult life.
通过以上两部分经历可见，相对于物理课本身的内容来说，现在的教育体系（包括教师、学生和家长）对学生如何吸收新思想的智力体验这一部分关注相对较少。这就是为什么我一开始不太赞成她选择的话题。当然，内容和智力体验都很重要，非要说哪一个更重要没有任何意义。学生必须吸收学校所教的内容，但他们也应该看重这种经历。然而，就现在而言，相对于智力体验，知识本身还是会得到更多的重视。
Given these twoparts of the learning experience, the education system, including teachers,students and parents, pay relatively little attention to the intellectualexperience of how students absorb new ideas compared with the content of thephysics lesson. This is why I initially didn’t quite approve of her choice oftopic. Of course both the content and the intellectual experience are bothimportant, and to say either is more important would be an invalid statement.Students must absorb the content of what is taught in school, but they shouldalso appreciate the experience. However it is quite fair to say that thecontent get disproportionately more consideration than the learning experienceof working through that content.
语言学习也是一个很好的例子。学生必须牢记大量的词汇和语法，虽然记忆是语言训练的一个必要部分，但学习者需要有效、灵活、甚至巧妙地运用语言，才能真正掌握它。换句话说，语言使社会互动成为可能，但真正要掌握语言还是需要理解社会环境。通过了解每个人在互动中如何传递信息，可以让我们更熟练地使用语言。因此，当学生必须使用不完善的词汇进行交流时，反思是很重要的一步。他们应该考虑如何用有限的词汇尽可能表达出他们的意图。如果他们在交谈中出现了错误，这将非常有助于学生了解其原因，因为学生必须要了解自己是怎么使用语言的，以及他的听众是如何理解他的话的。然而，当沟通中出现错误时，人们往往会立即关注词汇和语言机制，而不去关注怎样更有效沟通。很少有老师思考如何能帮助学生在词汇量有限的情况下更好地去传递信息。相反，他们只是要求学生去记住更多单词，而这些单词学生在实际口头或书面交流中根本不会使用到。
Languagetraining illustrate the situation quite well due to the huge amount ofvocabulary and grammar that must be committed to memory. While memorization isa necessary part of language training, true mastery of a language comes fromthe ability to effectively, flexibly and even artfully use the language. Inanother words, language enables social interaction and true mastery requiresunderstanding of the social context. The skillful use of language is betterlearned through understanding how each person in the interaction transmitsinformation. Therefore, it is important for students to reflect on incidenceswhen they must communicate using imperfect vocabulary. They should think abouthow to get their message across with the limited vocabulary they have. If thereis a miscommunication, it would be extremely helpful for the student tounderstand its causes. In order to do so, the student must be aware of his ownlanguage use as well as how his audience perceive his words. However, when amiscommunication occurs, attention more often placed immediately on thevocabulary and the mechanics of the language rather than effectivecommunication. Little thought is place on how to help the student to improvethe way they deliver the message using the words they already have. Instead,each day they are asked memorized more words they do not how to use in realverbal or written communication.
那么，谁应该更关注智力学习体验呢？这当然是学生的责任，但单靠学生是无法使智力学习得到更多关注的。因为长久以来，他们的注意力总是更多地集中在学习内容上，所以我们不能期望学生突然理解这种学习经历的意义。以我刚开始提到的那位学生为例，虽然她的困惑可能促使她写一篇关于这次经历的文章，但她仍然不能完全将这次经历融入到她的长期学术生涯中。她太喜欢关注例子中的细节，而不是思考这种经历如何适用于生活的其他方面。帮助学生更仔细地思考他们的学习经历，培养批判性思维习惯，这对于信息密集的学术环境是非常必要的。关注大学招生的读者可能已经注意到，前面提到的文书题目正是弗吉尼亚大学所用的文书题目。和任何文书题目一样，我们要去思考为什么招生人员认为这个题目很重要，这可以帮我们找到一些方法来解决这个题目。
So who shouldpay more attention to the intellectual learning experience? This is certainlythe responsibility of the student, but he should not be expected to go downthis path alone. Students cannot be expected to understand the significance ofsuch learning experiences especially since their focus has always directedtowards the mechanics of content. Take the student in the example given at thebeginning, while the intensity of her perplexity may have triggered her towrite an essay about the experience, she was still not able to fullycontextualize the experience and apply it to her long term academic career. Sheis too like to focus on the details in the example than to think about how thisexperience applies to contradictions in other parts of life. Helping studentsto think more circumspectly about theirlearning experience develops critical thinking habits necessary for ainformation dense academic environment. Readers who keenly follow collegeadmissions may have noticed that the essay prompt mentioned in the earlier isused by University of Virginia in its application. As with any essay prompt,some thought about why the question is deemed important by admissions officerscan shed some light on possible ways to approach the prompt.