A “Growth Mindset” Can Lead to Success
The most successful people are fond of telling us about their passion for their professions. And passion has been believed to be essential to not only their success, but also their happiness.
Unfortunately, ____11____ some people have a clear “calling” from a young age, many still leave education without knowing their vocation in life. They may spend their whole life without having ever discovered a career that truly ____12____ (interest) them. In the past ten years, the researcher ____13____ (demonstrate) that some people tend to see their abilities as “fixed”—they believe that they are either born with a talent for something or they don’t have it completely. What can they do?
Some answers come from the work of Paul O’Keefe. In his mindset theory, the most basic foundation of passion is having an intense interest in ____14____ you’re doing. Meanwhile, people also have the capacity to cultivate new interests outside their normal fields. ____15____ (consider) arts students looking at a piece about science, or “techy” students reading an article on literary criticism(文学评论). ____16____ the students have very little initial curiosity about the subject, with the growth mindset, they will change their ratings of the interest in that new subject after reading the piece.
In addition, a person’s mindset can also determine how long they would be interested in more difficult content and ____17____ they would plan to deal with the content or not. In one experiment, after ____18____(show) a video about black holes, people had to read a challenging academic paper on the subject. The people with the growth mindset maintained their interest: they were _____19_____ (willing) to know about the black holes despite the difficulties of grasping the technical material. By contrast, the flame of interest quickly burnt out in those with the fixed mindset. “Within the span of seven minutes they went from saying ‘this is fascinating’ ______20______saying ‘no, I’m done,’” says O’Keefe.
【答案】11. while/although/though
12. interests
13. has demonstrated
14. whatever/what
15. Consider
16. Even if/though
17. whether
18. being shown
19. more willing
20. to
