单选题 How to Visualize Your Success
Have you ever heard of visualization (可视的)? Of course you have. Everybody's heard &visualization and everybody partakes in it whether they realize it or not. How it works though is an altogether different matter. I want to take a closer look today at the mechanics of why visualizing works without necessarily delving into concepts and theories that cannot be proven.
The brain has great difficulty in distinguishing between what's true and what's imagined. There is an oft-cited (经常被引用的) example of an experiment conducted by Australian Psychologist, Alan Richardson. He took some basketball players and split them into 3 equal groups. One group was told to practice their free throw technique twenty minutes per day. The next group was told to spend twenty minutes per day visualizing, but not attempting free throws, and the final group wasn't allowed to either practice or visualize. At the end of the test period the group that had done nothing remained as they were, but both the other groups showed similar degrees of improvement. The people who only visualized playing basketball were able to perform almost as well as the ones who had actually practiced.
"How can that be so?"
Firstly, the people practicing would miss some shots. Each time they missed they had in effect, practiced how to miss. The people that were visualizing would be hitting every basket so they were building up the feelings and memory of how to be successful.
Forging a Path through a Meadow
Imagine walking home from a new job. You suddenly realize that there is a meadow of long grass that will cut 20 minutes of fyour walk. If you live in New York you're going to need a great imagination for this one.
The first few times you can barely see which way you had walked the previous day. However, after 10 or 20 times you can clearly see a pathway starting to form, and after 100 times all the grass is worn away and there's a farmer with a shotgun and large dog waiting for you at the end. Let's presume our gun-toting friend is a big softie and he allows you to use that route as long as you want. What are the odds that next time you try a slightly different direction? Slim to none would be my guess. After all, you know this way works and you have a lovely easy path.
On the other hand, if Farmer Giles starts taking pot shotsat you and sportingly lets the dog try and shoot you too, before releasing it to sink its gnashers into your rear end, then you'll probably find a new way home once you're released from hospital.
The next time you're walking home you opt against reacquainting yourself with Fido and spot another meadow further along the road. The same process then begins to take place only this time the original path you made has started to grow back.
How We Create a Path in Our Mind
That is what happens when we form thoughts in our mind. The first time we have a new thought it is a weakling(虚弱的) of a thought that has sand kicked in its face by stronger thoughts and beliefs. Each time you re-think it though it grows in strength as the physical pathway becomes more and more well-defined. Not only that, but if it is a belief that contradicts one you a ready hold, the older belief starts to atrophy and die.
his also explains why we have the same thoughts over and over again and why people have difficulty snapping negative loops (循环) of thinking. The pathway has been established and it's just easier to continue following it than trying to think about something new and form a new connection in the brain. Making Visualization Work for You
Visualization is an incredibly successful and simple way of speeding up the process by fooling the unconscious into believing that you have already done something before you have. That's what the basketball visualizers were doing, fooling their own unconscious into thinking they know how to hit basket after basket. Of course this in and of itself will not turn you into an NBA star, you do actually have to practice as well, but it will help you succeed more quickly.
All you need to do to be successful at this is to visualize yourself doing something, as you would like to do it. Profound stuff, huh? Seriously though, that is all there is to it. How long you do it each day will affect the speed of change and it's really not advisable visualizing your success for 20 minutes per day and then spending l0 hours worrying about failing and replaying negative stuff in your head. It kind of defeats the object.
You can also incorporate the "fake it till you make it" method in with your visualization to help speed up the process. This is simply a matter of pretending you are already proficient at something before you really are. Again, it's simply a way of tricking your unconscious and getting it to do what you want it to do.
Some people have difficulty with this process and tell me it's being unrealistic. Well yeh, maybe they're right, but who cares? If you want to be shackled by the chains of realism then go ahead, knock yourself out, but let me tell you this. There are few highly successful people out there that haven't used this method or visualization at one time or another. In fact, successful people don't care too much for reality; it just gets in the way and slows them down. What about you?

单选题 According to the passage, visualization works______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】根据题干信息词visualization和works定位到文章第一段末句,即:视觉化并不需要专研其概念和理论也能运作,选项B中的searching deeply into相当于原文的delving into,故选B。选项A与原文相反。原文中提到那些概念和理论还未被证实,所以选项C也不对。
单选题 What were the results of the experiment conducted by Alan Richardson in the first two groups?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】根据题干信息词experiment和Alan Richardson定位到文章第二段。本题问的是“Alan Richardson试验中前两个队的结果是什么?”文中提到:被要求每天想象打篮球的人与实际练习打篮球的人水平相似,故选A。
单选题 How could the people who only visualized playing basketball do as well as the ones who had actually practiced?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】根据题干信息词visualized和actually practiced定位到文中“How can that be so?”问题下,即文章第四段。本题问的是“那些仅仅想象打篮球的人是怎么做到与每天实际练习打篮球的人做的一样好呢?”文中提到:被要求想象打篮球的人是依靠在思维中建立感觉和记忆达到成功的,故选B。文中并未提及他们是否聪明、是否以前练习过扣球或者看过别人练习打球,故排除A、C、D。
单选题 What probably makes you want to try another different direction when you already have one path made?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】根据题干信息词try another different direction定位到文章第六、七段。本题问“当你已经找到了一条路 时,在什么情况下会使得你想尝试换另一个不同的方向?”文中提到:如果农夫用枪袭击你,并放狗咬你,一旦你从医院康复出来,你就有可能寻找一条新的路回家,故选C。选项A(你已经知道这条路行 得通而且是一条愉快且轻松的路),原文中捉到,在这种情况下换路的可能性几乎没有,slim在这里意为“(希望、可能性)微小的,渺茫的”。选项B(有一个长满长草的牧场可以缩短20分钟步行时间),这是指没有抄近路之前,而题干是you already have one path made的情况,所以排除。
单选题 According to the passage, why do people have difficulty snapping negative loops of thinking?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】根据题干信息词difficulty snapping negative loops of thinking定位到文章第二个小标题下的第二段。本题 问的是“日常生活中,人们为什么很难停止消极思维的恶性循环”,该段第二句提到:由于思维已经形成,保持它比在大脑中试着想象新的事情、形成新的连接更容易,故选A。文中并没有提到消极思维是否比积极思维更容易形成并巩固,所以其他三项均排除。
单选题 How is visualization working in the basketball visualizers' brains?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】根据题干信息词basketball visualizers定位到文章中第三个小标题下的第一段。本题问的是“视觉化在被要求想象打篮球的人的大脑里是怎么运作的”,该段第二句提到:想象打篮球的人是这么做的,他们将 自己无意识的思想变成认为他们知道怎么打篮球的思想,故选D。文中并未提及他们在想象之前打过篮球,也没有提到他们是否日思夜想如何打球,故排除A、B。该段最后一句提到仅仅是想象的话不可 能把他们变成NBA球星,选项C也不对。
单选题 According to the passage, which of the following will help you turn into an NBA star more quickly?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】根据题干信息词NBAstar定位到文章第三个小标题下的第一段最后一句。即:当然这不会使你成为一名NBA球星,你需要实际练习,但是它能够帮助你加速成功。也就是说练习加上视觉化可能让你变成球星,故选D。