本期和大家分享一篇来自雅思官方指南模拟题的文章《‘Just do it‘—Or - the subtle art of procrastination》。既可以增长知识，改善病情，又有助于提升英语表达，无论写作还是口语 

　　文章来源：雅思官方指南（红版）Academic Test 3-Reading P2.

　　学习建议：A类阅读对词汇的要求较高，G友们不要一看到生词就放弃，读下去，猜一猜，然后看中文翻译。下文中带下划线的是组长觉得值得大家学习并用于写作和口语的词汇和句子，蓝色是段内连接方式，橘色是治病用的。

　　‘Just do it‘

　　—Or - the subtle art of procrastination

　　Procrastination, a kind of chronic time-wasting, has long-been dismissed as an innocuous human foible. Researchers are now beginning a more sober examination of this practice, however, and there may be good reason for doing so: twenty percent of Americans now admit to suffering from procrastination, a fifteen percent jump from 1970. Researchers are bemused as to what explains this sharp rise in the figures, but there is no doubt that procrastination is wreaking havoc on people's lives. One side effect is perhaps the most predictable: procrastination hampers academic and work commitments as sufferers fail to meet deadline or achieve their goals. But there are other costs too. In shifting burdens of responsibility onto others and reneging on their promises, procrastinators undermine relationships both in the workplace and in their private lives, all of which takes a toll on their well-being. In one study, over the course of a semester, procrastinating university students were noted to be suffering from notably weaker immune systems, more gastrointestinal problems, and higher occurrences of insomnia than their non-procrastinating peers.

　　拖延，长期的浪费时间，一直被视为无害的人类弱点。然而，研究人员现在开始对此进行更冷静的研究，而且，有充分的理由这样做：20％的美国人有拖延症，比1970年增加了15％。研究人员困惑的是为什么有拖延症的人数增加的这么快，但是毫无疑问，拖延正在对人们的生活造成严重破坏。最可预测的一个副作用是：拖延妨碍了学习和工作，因为患者未能按期完成或实现目标。拖延也有其他代价。拖延者将责任的重担转移到他人身上并违背他们的承诺，破坏了工作场所和私人生活中的关系，所有这些都会损害他们的幸福。一项研究发现，在一个学期里，与不拖延的同学们相比，做事拖延的大学生的免疫系统明显较弱，胃肠病和失眠问题也更多。

　　Is there hope for procrastinators? Everyone admits it's a difficult demon to beat, but a few self-styled procrastination coaches have developed strategies to that end. Although evidence for their efficacy is largely anecdotal at this stage, some of these strategies at least offer promising avenues for future research.

　　拖延者有希望吗？每个人都承认这是一个难以击败的恶魔，但是一些自称是拖延教练的人研究出了一些方法。虽然这些方法的功效目前还只是传闻，但其中一些方法至少为未来的研究提供了有希望的途径。

　　Career counsellor Amy Sykes focuses on the basics. Firstly, she says, embrace peer pressure. Many weight loss and self-help groups encourage individuals to hold themselves accountable to a wider circle of their peers, and Sykes believes this social safety net can be harnessed just as successfully by procrastinators. A change in perspective is also considered vital. 'When we want people to do something for us, we really sell it to them,' Sykes observes. 'But when we need to do it ourselves, we focus on all the reasons we don't want to.' Instead, she argues, we should pique our own interest and find ways to make our important projects more attractive —— by turning them into little competitions or fact-finding missions, for example. If all else fails, Sykes believes we must recompense ourselves for our troubles, ideally with little treats upon finishing a task. 'It doesn't need to be big,' she says, 'Pancakes, a hot bath, or an episode of your favourite television show could all do the trick.'

　　职业顾问Amy Sykes专注于基本理论。首先，她说，拥抱同伴压力。许多减肥和自助小组鼓励个人对更广泛的同龄人负责，Sykes认为这种社会安全网可以被拖延者成功利用。视角的变化也是至关重要的。“当我们希望人们为我们做某事时，我们会积极地‘推销’”Sykes说，“但是当我们需要自己做某事时，却总是找理由不去做。”她认为，我们应该激起自己的兴趣，并想方设法让要完成的重要任务项目更具吸引力——比如，把它们当成小比赛或真相调查。如果这些不管用，我们可以在完成一个任务后，给自己一些小奖励，比如爱吃的煎饼，洗个热水澡，或者看一集最喜欢的电视节目。

　　Though these tips may be a little too garden variety for some, others have thought up more cunning twists on the human psyche. One such approach was developed by the crime writer Raymond Chandler, who built his strategy on a basic yet critical observation: procrastinators rarely sit about completely inactively, but rather tend to engage themselves in useful but less pressing tasks: vacuuming behind the bed, cleaning out the fridge, washing the windows and so on. The result is that they 'cheat' themselves into experiencing feelings of productivity and satisfaction that offer further distraction from the original project. Chandler's method, which he successfully used to help himself write detective stories, involves setting aside a period of time in which the procrastinator may do one of two things: absolutely nothing or work on the project that he or she wishes to complete. Sitting still, without the satisfaction of busying himself with less urgent tasks, Chandler slowly felt the itch of tedious monotony sink in. Within five or ten minutes, this itch had become intolerable, and he felt compelled to begin writing his stories.

　　虽然上述办法对一些人来说很平常，但有些人关注人们内心更复杂的方面。犯罪作家Raymond Chandler在既基础性又批判性的观察的基础上开发了一种这样的方法：拖延者很少是完全什么都不干，他们是更倾向于参与有用但不那么紧迫的任务，比如：吸尘，清理冰箱，擦玻璃等。结果是，他们“欺骗”自己经历了一种做了很多事的满足感，而实际上这些事情这进一步分散了他们本该集中在该做的事情上的注意力。Chandler的方法成功地帮助他自己编写了侦探故事，这种方法就是：留出一段时间，在这段时间里，拖延者只可以在两件事中二选一：要么什么都不做，要么就去自己想完成的那件事。Chandler自己的经验是，就那么静静地坐着什么都不做，5-10分钟内就会觉得单调、乏味、无聊到难以忍受，从而迫使自己去写书。

　　Another procrastinator, professor of philosophy John Perry, developed his strategy against procrastination based on essentially the same insights as Chandler's — that procrastinators are actually quite good at doing 'marginally useful' tasks, just not the tasks they really ought to be doing. He thus surmised that the enemy of successful task completion is not, in fact, that great engine of productive activity — procrastination itself — but rather how we order our projects in the hierarchy of urgency. If a procrastinator needs to finish an assignment before 8 o'clock the following morning, for instance, he is likely to find himself sharpening pencils instead. 'But if all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils', Perry observes, 'no force on earth could get him to do it'. The key to this approach is to rank one's priorities, then bump the most urgent tasks a little further down and place at the top some potentially daunting and important-sounding projects which are ultimately not all that essential. If the student with the essay deadline can convince himself he absolutely must reorganise his email box, or finish reading that old, dusty novel he only got halfway through, then suddenly the essay deadline is going to seem a far superior option.

　　另一位拖延者，哲学教授John Perry，基于与Chandler基本相同的见解，制定了反对拖延的策略 - 拖延者实际上相当擅长'略微有用'的任务，而不是他们真正应该做的事。因此，他推测，阻碍任务完成的因素并不是拖延本身，而是我们给任务安排的紧迫级别。例如，如果拖延者需要在第二天早上8点之前完成作业任务，他可能会开始削铅笔。但是，如果拖延者要做的就剩削铅笔这件事了，地球上没有任何力量能让他去立即削好。这种方法的关键在于对自己的任务优先级进行排序，然后把目前认为最紧急的任务降级，把艰巨的、听起来重要项目置于最优先。如果快到论文截止日期的学生确信自己必须整理电子邮箱或读完那本读了一半很久没看的小说，那么他会突然发现论文截止日期是更优先的任务。

　　If the Ancient Greeks struggled with it, and all the life coaches, councelors and motivational speakers in the modern world are unable to erase it from our existence either, it seems unlikely that procrastination will ever truly be put to rest. As these procrastination gurus have shown, however, the right strategies have the potential to minimise its impact — if you ever get around to using them.

　　如果古希腊人就已经与拖延症斗争，并且现代世界的所有生活顾问和励志演说者都无法将它从我们的生活中抹去，那么拖延症似乎不太可能真正解决。正如这些拖延症专家说的那样，正确的策略有可能最大限度地减少其影响 - 如果你开始使用它们。

　　画重点：拖延症有害，不仅影响学习和工作效率，还影响人际关系和身体健康。拖延症可以克服，方法一是分解任务并给自己小奖励，方法二是强迫自己二选一，方法三是调整任务优先顺序。

　　词汇总结：自己动手 

　　郑州新东方猜你的读后感：不用考A类好幸福……

　　现在就通读！

　　别骗自己了！去做真正重要的事！

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