Blow to 10,000-hour rule as study finds practice doesn’t always make perfect

　　打破一万小时定律，正如研究所发现的，熟并不总能生巧

　　With blatant disregard for the public benefits of motivational idioms, researchers have concluded that practice does not, necessarily, make perfect.

　　研究人员公然反驳励志熟语对公众的好处，得出结论说“熟不一定能生巧”。

　　A study of violinists found that merely good players practised as much as, if not more than, better players, leaving other factors such as quality of tuition, learning skills and perhaps natural talent to account for the difference.

　　一项针对小提琴演奏者的研究发现，在不考虑教学质量、学习技能和天赋等差异的情况下，普通演奏者练习的次数与最优秀的演奏者是一样多，甚至可能更多。

　　The work is the latest blow to the 10,000-hour rule, the idea promoted in Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book, Outliers, which has been taken to mean that enough practice will make an expert of anyone. In the book, Gladwell states that “ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness”.

　　这些发现是对“一万小时定律”的最新挑战。马尔科姆·格拉德威尔在他2008年出版的《异类》一书中提出了这一定律，他认为只要练习足够多，任何人都可以成为专家。格拉德威尔在书中指出，“一万小时是成就伟大的神奇数字。”

　　The idea has become really entrenched in our culture, but it’s an oversimplification,” said Brooke Macnamara, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. “When it comes to human skill, a complex combination of environmental factors, genetic factors and their interactions explains the performance differences across people.”

　　俄亥俄州克利夫兰凯斯西储大学的心理学家布鲁克·麦克纳马拉说:“熟能生巧的观念在我们的文化中根深蒂固，但它过于简单化了。在人类技能方面，我们需要考虑环境、基因以及它们之间的相互作用，这样才能解释人与人之间表现的差异。”

　　The seed for the 10,000-hour rule was a 1993 study of violinists and pianists which found that accumulated practice time rose with musical prowess.

　　一万小时定律是基于1993年对小提琴和钢琴演奏者的一项研究，该研究发现，音乐技能会随着时间的推移而提高。

　　On average, top-ranked violinists had clocked up 10,000 hours of practice by the age of 20, though many had actually put in fewer hours. In the study, the authors rejected an important role for natural talent and argued that differences in ability, even among top musicians, were largely down to how much they practised.

　　平均来说，顶尖的小提琴手在20岁之前练习10000小时，但是很多小提琴手练习的时间还不到10000小时。这项研究的作者们忽视了天赋的重要性，他们指出，即使在顶尖音乐家中，能力的差异也在很大程度上取决于他们练习的多少。

　　Gladwell seized on the round number to explain the success of notables from Bill Gates to the Beatles.

　　格拉德威尔利用研究中提到的一万个小时来解释比尔·盖茨和披头士等名人的成功。

　　(全文共266个词)

　　重难点词汇：

　　blatant  adj. 喧嚣的；公然的；炫耀的；俗丽的

　　entrench  vt. 确立，牢固；用壕沟围住；挖掘 vi. 侵犯；挖掘壕沟

　　notable  adj. 值得注意的，显著的；著名的 n. 名人，显要人物