Passage 61
学霸导读 怎样帮助家境贫寒的大学学子渡过学业方面的难关？美国西北大学的教授发现了一个好方法。
Having a clear p 1 in mind of what their future will look like can motivate students to keep going despite the challenges of college life. This strategy seems to be particularly effective for female students from relatively low socioeconomic status （ SES，社会经济地位 ） backgrounds says Mesmin Destin of Northwestern University in the U.S. College is a time of great opportunity for some， but can be stressful for o 2 . Weak students from lower SES backgrounds often encounter greater f inancial and psychological challenges than others， and this can lead to hesitation and even withdrawal from diff icult situations， such as when interacting with their lecturers or taking tests and exams.
Destin and his colleagues wanted to understand if students’ responses to academic challenges i 3 when they look forward to the future. This idea is built around the theory of identity-based motivation. It holds that people can take positive action during times of unfavorable conditions when they imagine s 4 future for themselves.
“The theory of identity-based motivation proposes that stimulating a focus on a successful future identity may be especially powerful in motivating students who are w 5 during challenging academic situations to develop a sense of action readiness,” explains Destin. This involves feeling ready and able to take appropriate action when encountering diff iculties.
In two almost identical laboratory experiments—one involving 93 female students， the other 185 students （ including 101 women ）—participants were f irst asked either to write about their past or their future success. After their deep thoughts， the participants were f ilmed during an imitated interview with a so-called lecturer， and then had to c 6 a diff icult academic test. The research team noted whether participants’ body language was bold （ 勇敢 ） and conf ident， and measured the amount of effort participants put into the academic test.
The results were in agreement with the theory of identity-based motivation. Destin and his team found that having a successful future identity can p 7 especially female students from lower SES backgrounds from withdrawing during challenging academic situations. Specif ically, lower SES women who wrote about their future identities displayed greater action readiness compared to those who considered their p 8 . They showed more conf ident body language. It helped them to make more e 9 to tackle the test with better performance.
“Stimulating imagined successful future identities appears to provide a potential pathway （ 通路 ） to enable weak students to effectively deal with pressure，” says Destin. “The f indings therefore suggest that certain students may benef it from strategies that remind them to imagine their successful futures before any diff icult and important task that they might otherwise be l 10 to avoid.”
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高频词汇
motivate /'məʊtɪveɪt/ v. 激励
strategy /'strætədʒi/ n. 策略；计策
encounter /ɪn'kaʊntə（r）/ v. 遭遇，遇到
readiness /'redinəs/ n. 准备就绪；愿意；乐意
otherwise /'ʌðəwaɪz/ adv. 否则；不然