很多童鞋認為托福閱讀是托福四單項中最容易拿分的部分而掉以輕心，其實是不對的。閱讀作為聽說讀寫四部分中偏向文本輸入的部分，可以為我們的寫作和口語這兩項輸出積累充分的語料素材，比如亮眼獨特的詞組或句式，比如地道的西方寫作風格。托福閱讀能力的提升除了需要做題，更需要在平時就增加英文文章的閱讀量。下面我們來看一篇經濟學人雙語閱讀素材：自由交流如何犯錯。
Free exchange
How to be wrong
To err is human. Society is suffering from an inability to acknowledge as much
自由交流
如何犯錯
人孰無過，但我們的社會卻因為不能認識到這一點而受損
A NEWSPAPER cannot publish for 174 years without some mistakes. This one has made its share. We thought Britain was safe in the European exchange-rate mechanism just weeks before it crashed out; we opined, in 1997, that Indonesia was well placed to avoid financial crisis; we noted in 1999 that oil, at $10 per barrel, might well reach $5, almost perfectly timing the bottom of the market; and in 2003 we supported the invasion of Iraq. For individuals, like publications, errors are painful—particularly now, when the digital evidence of failure is both accessible and indelible. But they are also inevitable. The trick, then, is to err well: to recognise mistakes and learn from them. Worryingly, humanity may be getting worse at owning up to its goofs.
沒有哪份報紙能發行174年而從不出錯，《經濟學人》也不例外。我們曾認為英國在歐洲匯率機制中是安全的，結果沒過幾周它就遭遇慘敗，黯然退出該機制;1997年我們認為印度尼西亞有足夠能力避免金融危機;1999年石油每桶10美元時，我們寫到油價很可能會跌到每桶5美元，但在幾乎同一時間，油價觸底;2003年我們還曾支持入侵伊拉克。和出版物一樣，個人犯錯也很痛苦，特別是現在，錯誤都會留下數字證據，既無從掩藏又無法抹除。但錯誤也是不可避免的，所以關鍵在于要“會”犯錯：認識到錯誤并從中吸取經驗。令人擔憂的是，人類可能會越來越不會承認錯誤。
Few enjoy the feeling of being caught out in an error. But real trouble starts when the desire to avoid a reckoning leads to a refusal to grapple with contrary evidence. economists often assume that people are rational. Faced with a new fact, rational actors should update their view of the world in order to take better decisions in future. Yet years of economic research illuminate the ways in which human cognition veers from rationality. Studies confirm what is obvious from experience: people frequently disregard information that conflicts with their view of the world.
很少有人喜歡犯錯被抓現行的感覺。但是，如果一心想要避免懲罰，以致于拒絕去面對相反的事實，真正的麻煩就來了。經濟學家通常都假定人是理性的，面對新的事實，理性的人應該更新自己的世界觀，好在今后做出更好的決定。然而，多年的經濟研究表明，人類認知存在偏離理性的情況。研究證實了經驗中顯而易見的情況：人們經常會無視與自己的世界觀相左的信息。
Why should that be? Last year Roland Bénabou, of Princeton, and Jean Tirole, of the Toulouse School of Economics, presented a framework for thinking about the problem. In many ways, beliefs are like other economic goods. People spend time and resources building them, and derive value from them. Some beliefs are like consumption goods: a passion for conservation can make its owner feel good, and is a public part of his identity, like fashion. Other beliefs provide value by shaping behaviour. The conviction that one is a good salesman may help generate the confidence needed to close sales; religious asceticism can help one avoid unhealthy habits.
為什么會這樣呢?去年，普林斯頓大學的羅蘭·貝納布(Roland Bénabou)和圖盧茲經濟學院(Toulouse School of Economics)的讓·蒂羅(Jean Tirole)提出了一個思考此問題的框架。在許多方面，信念就像其他經濟產品一樣。人們花費時間和資源制造信念，并從中獲得價值。有些信念就如同消費品：對環境保護的熱情可以讓一個人感覺良好，這種熱情和時尚一樣，是他個人身份塑造中對外展示的一面。其他信念通過塑造行為來提供價值，比如深信自己是一名優秀的推銷員可能有助于建立信心，做成生意;又比如宗教禁欲主義可以幫助人避免不健康的習慣。
Because beliefs, however, are not simply tools for making good decisions, but are treasured in their own right, new information that challenges them is unwelcome. People often engage in “motivated reasoning” to manage such challenges. Mr Bénabou classifies this into three categories. “Strategic ignorance” is when a believer avoids information offering conflicting evidence. In “reality denial” troubling evidence is rationalised away: house-price bulls might conjure up fanciful theories for why prices should behave unusually, and supporters of a disgraced politician might invent conspiracies or blame fake news. And lastly, in “self-signalling”, the believer creates his own tools to interpret the facts in the way he wants: an unhealthy person, for example, might decide that going for a daily run proves he is well.
不過，信念不僅僅是幫助人們做出明智決定的工具，其本身就受人珍視。因此，挑戰這些信念的新信息就不受待見。人們經常通過“動機性推理”來應付這些挑戰。貝納布將動機性推理分為三類。“策略性忽視”是指持有某種信念的人回避與其信念相抵觸的證據。“否定現實”的人會把令其不安的證據合理化：看漲房價的人可能會提出稀奇古怪的理論，解釋價格為什么就應該表現異常;而一個遭人唾棄的政客的支持者可能會發明陰謀論或指責假新聞。最后，“自我提示”型的人為自己創造工具，以自己想要的方式來解釋事實。例如，一個病人可能會認為每天跑步就能證明自己身體健康。
Motivated reasoning is a cognitive bias to which better-educated people are especially prone. Not all the errors it leads to are costly: preaching the superiority of Arsenal despite contradictory evidence does little harm. But when biases are broadly shared—within troubled firms, say, or financial markets or political parties—danger lurks. Motivated reasoning helps explain why viewpoints polarise even as more information is more easily available than ever before. That it is easy to find convincing demolitions of climate-change myths, for example, has not curbed misinformation on the topic. But the demand for good (or bad) information is uneven. Polling shows, for example, that Democrats with high levels of scientific knowledge are more concerned about climate change than fellow partisans with less scientific background; among Republicans, the level of scientific awareness has no effect on climate beliefs. Even, or especially, sophisticated news consumers look for what they want to find.
動機性推理這種認知偏見特別容易出現在受過良好教育的人身上。不是所有因這種偏見而犯的錯誤都會付出巨大代價：無視相反證據而鼓吹阿森納隊有多出色并沒什么危害。然而，偏見如果被廣為接受，比如在出現問題的公司里，或者在金融市場或政黨內，就會危機四伏。動機性推理可以解釋為什么雖然人們現在更容易獲得更多的信息，觀點卻仍會兩極分化。例如，如今很容易就能找到令人信服的證據來推翻有關氣候變化的錯誤觀念，但關于這一問題的不實信息卻并未得到遏制。不過，對優質(或不良)信息的需求是不均衡的。例如，調查顯示，科學知識水平較高的民主黨人比科學背景較差的民主黨人更關心氣候變化;而在共和黨人中，科學認知水平對個人的氣候觀點并沒有影響。就連成熟的新聞消費者也會去找那些自己想看的東西看，或者說他們尤其會如此。
Work by Mr Bénabou suggests that groupthink is highest when people within groups face a shared fate: when choosing to break from a group is unlikely to spare an individual the costs of the group’s errors. If an individual politician’s fortunes rise and fall with his party’s, breaking from groupthink brings little individual benefit (and may impose individual costs). The incentive to engage in motivated reasoning is high as a result. Even as the facts on a particular issue converge in one direction, parties can still become increasingly polarised around starkly different belief-sets. That, in turn, can make it harder still for a member of one party to derive any benefit from breaking ranks. Indeed, the group has an incentive to delegitimise independent voices, such as statistical agencies or budget watchdogs. So the unanimity of views can be hard to escape until it contributes to a crisis.
貝納布的研究表明，如果群體中的人面臨共同命運，一個人并不可能靠脫離群體來免于承擔群體錯誤的代價，那么這種情況下趨同思維的水平是最高的。如果某個政客的命運與所屬黨派的命運休戚相關，那么跳脫趨同思維就不會帶來個人利益(而且個人還可能會付出代價)。如此一來，人們采取動機型推理的動力就會增強。即便某個問題的事實都已指向同一個方向，各方仍然會堅持迥然不同的看法而愈發兩極分化。這樣一來，一方某個成員就更難通過脫離群體來獲得任何利益。事實上，團體有動機去消弭獨立的聲音，比如來自統計機構或預算監督機構的意見，所以它很難擺脫整齊劃一的意見，直至這導致危機爆發。
Lowering the cost of admitting error could help defuse these crises. A new issue of Econ Journal Watch, an online journal, includes a symposium in which prominent economic thinkers are asked to provide their “most regretted statements”. Held regularly, such exercises might take the shame out of changing your mind. Yet the symposium also shows how hard it is for scholars to grapple with intellectual regret. Some contributions are candid; Tyler Cowen’s analysis of how and why he underestimated the risk of financial crisis in 2007 is enlightening. But some disappoint, picking out regrets that cast the writer in a flattering light or using the opportunity to shift blame.
降低承認錯誤的代價有助于緩解這些危機。在線雜志《經濟期刊觀察》(Econ Journal Watch)最新一期有一個專題研討，請杰出的經濟思想家說出他們 “最后悔的言論”。這樣的活動如果定期舉行，人們也許就不再那么恥于改變想法。然而，這個專題研討也顯示出，要專家們面對自己的錯誤判斷并非易事。有些專家很坦誠：泰勒·考恩(Tyler Cowen)分析了自己如何以及為何低估了2007年金融危機的風險，富有啟發性。但也有些專家令人失望。他們要么專門挑出一些實為增加自己光環的所謂錯誤，要么就利用這個機會來轉移責任。
I don’t want to be right
Public statements of regret are risky in a rigidly polarised world. Admissions of error both provide propaganda for ideological opponents and annoy fellow-travellers. Some economists used to seethe when members of the guild acknowledged that trade liberalisation could yield costs as well as benefits—though economic models had always allowed for this. In the long run, such self-censorship probably eroded trust in economists’ arguments more than it built support for trade. It is rarely in the interest of those in the right to pretend that they are never wrong.
無需永遠正確
在分化嚴重的世界中，公開表示后悔是有風險的。承認錯誤既落了敵對者的口實，又會惹惱同一陣營的人。一些經濟學家曾在其他同行承認貿易自由化既有利益又有代價時怒火中燒，盡管經濟模型一直都考慮到了這種情況。從長遠來看，相比為自由貿易爭取到更多的支持，這種自我審查可能會更多地削弱人們對經濟學家觀點的信任。有理的一方假裝自己永不會犯錯，這于他們自身無益。
