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2016年5月20日 星期五

The Paradox of Choice

Less is more - the paradox of choice

(* 如何預習困難的文章: 首先一了解我們沒必要知道每一句和每一個字的意思,我們是來了解內涵和欣賞文章的構句,在我們學習的時候,一旦常接觸這種優美的文章,我們就會漸漸習慣閱讀長且漂亮的文句,絕對不要因為困難而感到沮喪或甚至怯步,要了解學習是一個不斷訓練和習慣新強度的過程. 以下是建議你讀文章的順序,且先用audio的語音檔配合文章先輕鬆的看過去打開我們的腦袋,接下來邊看文章邊聽summary大意,看大意如果不了解可以重複幾次或倒轉讓你自己慢慢進入狀況,差不多之後可以再回去看文章,看看你原本判斷不出的句子或是文句可不可以判斷出來了,點點單字的超連結,看看現在你是否可以判斷出正確的中文字義是哪一個了,在最後,這也可能是最重要的一步,把你對文章的看法或是大意用你所知的英文或甚至是中文寫出來或講出來和爸媽討論,最後的這個動作是我們可以把學到的東西變成自己的關鍵,這是一個關鍵的整理技巧. 最後如果你對這個呈現方式有任何的建議和意見你可以在下方留言給我,我也能根據大家的意見和需求重新設計以後的閱讀,讓大家讀起來更順利,這才是學習.)
(ps: 你也可以自己實驗閱讀的步驟找到更屬於自己的步調喔!!)
(ps: 最底下還有十個我建議學起來的單字和簡單的語音解釋,大家也可以想想自己的十個單字,有哪些重複,那些是新的,可以拿來班上分享喔!)

                                              (影片右下角可以選擇字幕)
Section 1 audio/ summary

    My sister and her husband bought an unfinished house a little while ago. Since then, we haven't been able to talk about anything else. the sole topic of conversation for the past two months has been bathroom tiles: ceramic, granite, marble, metal, stone, wood, glass and every type to laminate known to man. Rarely have I seen my sister in such anguish. ' There are just too many to choose from,' she exclaims, throwing her hands in the air and returning to the tile catalogue, her constant companion.
    I've counted and researched: my local grocery store stocks 48 varieties of yogurt, 134 types of red wine, 64 different cleaning products and a grand total of 30,000 items. Amazon, the Internet bookseller, has two million titles available. Nowadays, people are bombarded with options, such as hundreds of mental disorders, thousands of different careers, even more holiday destinations and an infinite variety of lifestyles. There has never been more choice.
   When I was young, we had three types of yogurt, three television channels, two churches, two kinds of cheese (mild or strong), one type of fish (trout) and one telephone, provided by the Swiss Post. The black box with the dial served no other purpose than making calls, and that did us just fine. In contrast, anyone who enters a phone store today runs the risk of being flattened by an avalanche of brands, models and contract options.
    And yet, selection is the yardstick of progress. It is what sets us apart from planned economies and the Stone Age. Yes, abundance makes you giddy, but there is a limit. When it is exceeded, a surfeit of choices destroys quality of life. The technical term for this is the paradox of choice. 

Section 2 audio/ summary

    In his book of the same title, psychologist Barry Schwartz describes why this is so. First, a large selection leads to inner paralysis. To test this, a supermarket set up a stand where customers could try as many as they liked and then buy them at a discount. The next day, the owners carried out the same experiment with only six flavors. The result? They sold ten times more jelly on day two. Why? With such a wide range, customers could not come to a decision, so they bought nothing. The experiment was repeated several times with different products. The results were always then same.
    Second, a broader selection leads to poorer decisions. If you ask young people what is important in a life partner, they reel off all the usual qualities: Intelligence, good manners, warmth, the ability to listen, a sense of humor and physical attractiveness. But do they actually take these criteria into account when choosing someone? In the past, a young man from a village of average size could choose among maybe twenty girls of similar age with whom he went to school. He knew their families and vice versa, leading to a decision based on several well-known attributes. Nowadays, in the era of online dating, millions of potential partners are at our disposal. It has been proven that the stress caused by this mind-boggling variety is so large that the male brain reduces the decision to one single criterion: physical attractiveness. The consequences of this selection process you already know - perhaps even from personal experience.
    Finally, large selection leads to discontent. How can you be sure you are making the right choice when 200 options surround and confound you? The answer is: you cannot. The more choices you have, the move unsure and therefore dissatisfied you are afterward.
   So, what can you do? Think carefully about what you went before you inspect existing offers. Write down these criteria and stick to them rigidly. Also, realize that you can never make a perfect decision. Aiming for this, given the flood of possibilities, is a form of irrational perfectionism. Instead, learn to love a 'good' choice. Yes, even in terms of life partners. Only the best will do? In this age of unlimited variety, rather the opposite is true: ' good enough' is the new optimum (except, of course, for you and me).
    

The ten words worth paying attention to are (audio): exclaim, bombard, option, infinite, brand, set.. apart from, result, sense of humor, consequence, discontent 


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