2013年考研英语有两篇文章源自The economist《经济学人》,一篇完型填空，一篇阅读理解。

    完型填空原文标题：A question of judgment，

    完型填空原文双语：

    Psychology心理学

    A question of judgment判断上的一个问题

    Interviewers favour those seen first面试者先入为主

    Jun 16th 2012 | from the print edition

    A NEVER-ENDING flow of information is the lot of most professionals. Whether it comes in the form of lawyers’ cases, doctors’ patients or even journalists’ stories, this information naturally gets broken up into pieces that can be tackled one at a time during the course of a given day. In theory, a decision made when handling one of these pieces should not have much, if any, impact on similar but unrelated subsequent decisions. Yet Uri Simonsohn of the University of Pennsylvania and Francesca Gino at Harvard report in Psychological Science that this is not how things work out in practice.
    对于许多专业人士来讲，命里不缺的就是信息，源源不断地信息，泛滥。律师之于案子，医生之于病人，甚至记者之于故事，四面八方而来的信息，零零散散，在一个既定的时间之内，这些事情会一个一个地被解决掉。理论上讲，虽然这些零散的问题在性质上是差不多的，可是彼此不相关联的话，对这个问题所做出的判断，跟对另外一个问题所做出的判断，应该是彼此不受影响的。可是宾夕法尼亚大学尤里?西蒙逊和哈佛大学的法兰西丝卡．吉诺，在《心理科学》杂志上的报告说，这一观点跟我们的实际生活有一定出入。

    Dr Simonsohn and Dr Gino knew from studies done in other laboratories that people are, on the whole, poor at considering background information when making individual decisions. At first glance this might seem like a strength that grants the ability to make judgments which are unbiased by external factors. But in a world of quotas and limits—in other words, the world in which most professional people operate—the two researchers suspected that it was actually a weakness. They speculated that an inability to consider the big picture was leading decision-makers to be biased by the daily samples of information they were working with. For example, they theorised that a judge fearful of appearing too soft on crime might be more likely to send someone to prison if he had already sentenced five or six other defendants only to probation on that day.
    博士西蒙逊和博士吉诺从其他实验室的研究中了解到，从总体上看，人们在做单个决定的时候是不怎么考虑背景信息的。乍一看，这貌似是一优点，判断不受外界因素的影响。但是这个世界是配额性和限制性的——换句话说，这个世界是由大部分的专业人士主导的——两位研究人员怀疑，这实际上是一种弊端。他们推测，没有这个能力掌握大局，就会导致决策者不能客观地做出判断，反而被日常生活中所接触的片面信息所影响。举个例子，两位研究员这样理论，一位害怕对罪犯心慈手软的法官，如果那天他已经连续判了五六个缓刑，那么接下来的那一个很有可能会被判关押。

    To test this idea, they turned their attention to the university-admissions process. Admissions officers interview hundreds of applicants every year, at a rate of 4? a day, and can offer entry to about 40% of them. In theory, the success of an applicant should not depend on the few others chosen randomly for interview during the same day, but Dr Simonsohn and Dr Gino suspected the truth was otherwise.
    为了验证这一想法，他们把目光对准大学招生程序。招生负责人每年要面试个数百人，每天的比例在4?，录用的人也就在40%。理论上讲，申请人是否能成功，这跟同一天里随机抽取的其他面试者是没有关系的，但是博士西蒙逊和博士吉诺怀疑，事实可能不是这么回事。

    They studied the results of 9,323 MBA interviews conducted by 31 admissions officers. The interviewers had rated applicants on a scale of one to five. This scale took numerous factors, including communication skills, personal drive, team-working ability and personal accomplishments, into consideration. The scores from this rating were then used in conjunction with an applicant’s score on the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, a standardised exam which is marked out of 800 points, to make a decision on whether to accept him or her.
    他们研究了由31位招生负责人主导的9323场MBA面试结果。面试过程是这样安排的，面试观，被面试者，一对五的比例。等级的划分考虑各种因素，包括交流技巧个人动机，团队合作能力，个人成就感。由此等级产生的分数，加上申请人GMAT考试的成绩，决定他或是她是否被录用。GMAT也就是管理研究生入学考试的意思，这是一种满分为800的标准考试。

    Dr Simonsohn and Dr Gino discovered that their hunch was right. If the score of the previous candidate in a daily series of interviewees was 0.75 points or more higher than that of the one before that, then the score for the next applicant would drop by an average of 0.075 points. This might sound small, but to undo the effects of such a decrease a candidate would need 30 more GMAT points than would otherwise have been necessary.
    博士西蒙逊和博士吉诺发现他们的直觉是对的。一如往常，每天面试一批，如果说这个被免试者的分数比前一个的分数高那么个0.75个点或是更多的话，下一个应征者的分数平均要降个0.075。听起来这分值可能很小，但是想要弥补这个很小的分值，应征者在GMAT上的分数就要再多考个30分。

    As for why people behave this way, Dr Simonsohn proposes that after accepting a number of strong candidates, interviewers might form the illogical expectation that a weaker candidate “is due”. Alternatively, he suggests that interviewers may be engaging in mental accounting that simplifies the task of maintaining a given long-term acceptance rate, by trying to apply this rate to each daily group of candidates. Regardless of the reason, if this sort of thinking proves to have a similar effect on the judgments of those in other fields, such as law and medicine, it could be responsible for far worse things than the rejection of qualified business-school candidates.
    为什么会这样呢？博士西蒙逊认为，已经接受了一批实力强劲的应征者，面试官潜意识里期望下一个是个菜鸟，当然这种想法毫无逻辑可言。他建议面试官或许可以这么来算这笔心理账，维持一个长期的接受率，太烦，我们不如简化它，把长期的肢解，每一天的每一批算一个。我们不管产生这种心理的原因是什么，如果这种心理同样适用于像法律、医学这样的领域，这事可就闹大了，不会像拒合格的商学院应征者于门外这么简单，这可是要负责任的。

    阅读理解原文标题：Microsoft and privacy Change of track

    阅读理解原文双语版：

    AN OLD saw has it that half of all advertising budgets are wasted—the trouble is, no one knows which half. In the internet age, at least in theory, this fraction can be much reduced. By watching what people search for, click on and say online, companies can aim “behavioural” ads at those most likely to buy.
人们常说：花在广告上的钱有一半都浪费掉了——问题在于没人知道是哪一半。在互联网时代，至少在理论上，被浪费的那一部分资金中，有很多都可以节省下来。根据人们搜索的关键词、点击的链接及他们在网上所说的内容，企业可以针对那些最有可能购买它们产品的用户投放“行为”广告。

    In the past couple of weeks three deals and a quarrel have illustrated the value to advertisers (and their suppliers of software) of such fine-grained information. The first deal came on May 23rd, when Oracle said it was buying Vitrue, which helps firms run their marketing on social media, for a reported $300m. On June 5th it added Collective Intellect, which analyses what people say about companies on Facebook, Twitter and so forth, for an undisclosed sum. A day earlier Salesforce.com, a cloud-computing company mustard-keen on social media, had said it would pay $689m for Buddy Media, a competitor of Vitrue’s. Buddy should fit in with Radian 6, which, like Collective Intellect, monitors social media—and for which Salesforce paid $326m last year.
    在过去几个星期中发生的三起交易及一场争论显示了这些精细信息对于广告商（及他们的软件提供者）的价值。第一起交易是在5月23日，当时甲骨文公司（Oracle）表示它们将收购Vitrue，这是一家协助企业开展社交网络营销业务的公司。据报道，收购金额为3亿美元。6月5日，甲骨文公司称它们还将收购Collective Intellect，但并未透露收购价格。Collective Intellect是一家对网民在Facebook、Twitter之类的网站上对企业的评价进行分析的公司。就在这一消息传出的前一天（6月4日），极想进军社交网络的云计算公司Salesforce称将斥资6.89亿美元收购Buddy Media（Vitrue的竞争者之一）。Buddy与Radian 6应该是可以兼容的。后者在去年被Salesforce以3.26亿美元买下，与Collective Intellect一样，这也是一家对社交网站的数据进行分析的公司。

    The quarrel is the latest round in a long-running argument. Should advertisers assume that people are happy to be tracked and sent behavioural ads? Or should they have explicit permission? Many people give scarcely a thought to being electronically snooped on as they browse, but some object furiously.
    前面提到的争论则是已经持续了相当长时间的一场论战的最新一轮。广告商们做出如下假设是否合理：用户愿意广告商记录他们的在线行为并且愿意接受广告商投放的行为广告？广告商是否应该得到用户明确的许可？许多人对于自己的在线行为被监控的做法毫不在乎，但有些人则强烈反对。

    In December 2010 America’s Federal Trade Commission proposed adding a “do not track” (DNT) option to internet browsers, so that users could tell advertisers that they did not want to be followed. Mozilla’s Firefox, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari all offer DNT; Google’s Chrome is due to do so this year. In February the FTC and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), a consortium of trade bodies, agreed that the industry would get cracking on responding to DNT requests. In the European Union a new rule requires websites to ask before using “cookies” to gather data about users’ behaviour.
    2010年12月，美国联邦商务委员会建议在浏览器中加入“不允许跟踪（DNT）”的选项，通过启用这一功能，用户可以告诉广告商他们不希望自己的在线行为被跟踪。摩斯拉（Mozilla）的火狐（Firefox）、微软（Microsoft）的IE（Internet Explorer）及苹果的浏览器Safari都有“不允许跟踪”选项；今年，谷歌也将在Chrome中加入这一功能。2月份，联邦商务委员会（FTC:Federal Trade Commission）和数字广告联盟（DAA:Digital Advertising Alliance，一个商贸团体联盟）已经达成一致意见：广告行业应该着手处理用户提出的“不允许跟踪”请求。欧盟出台的一项新规定要求网站在利用“cookies”收集用户在线行为的信息之前需要征得用户的同意。

    On May 31st Microsoft set off the row. It said that Internet Explorer 10, the version due to appear with Windows 8, a new incarnation of the software firm’s operating system, would have DNT as a default.
    5月31日，微软率先挑起了争论。微软称即将与Windows8（该公司的新版操作系统）一起推出的IE10中，“不允许跟踪”是默认设置。

    Advertisers are horrified. Human nature being what it is, most people stick with default settings. Few switch DNT on now, but if tracking is off it will stay off. Bob Liodice, the chief executive of the Association of National Advertisers, one of the groups in the DAA, says consumers will be worse off if the industry cannot collect information about their preferences. People will not get fewer ads, he says. “They’ll get less meaningful, less targeted ads.”
    这个消息令广告商们惶恐不已。大多数用户都不会去修改浏览器的默认设置，这是人的本性使然。现在很少有人会开启“不允许跟踪”功能，但如果默认就是“不允许跟踪”，那么“跟踪”功能就会一直处于关闭状态。美国广告主协会（the Association of National Advertisers）是数字广告联盟下属的一个组织，该协会会长Bob Liodice称，如果广告商不能收集有关用户偏好的信息，那么这对于消费者来说将更为不利。这并不意味着用户会看到的广告会变少。“他们看到的将是那些更没有意义、更没有针对性的广告”，他说道。

    It is not yet clear how advertisers will respond. Getting a DNT signal does not oblige anyone to stop tracking, although some companies (including Twitter) have promised to do so. Unable to tell whether someone really objects to behavioural ads or whether they are sticking with Microsoft’s default, some may ignore a DNT signal and press on anyway.
    广告商们会对此作何反应仍不清楚。即使用户选择“不允许跟踪”，这也无法迫使任何一家广告商停止跟踪用户在线行为，尽管有些企业（包括Twitter）已经承诺会根据用户的要求决定是否跟踪。由于无法分辨用户是真的反对行为广告还是因为他们只是没有修改微软浏览器的默认设置，一些公司可能忽略“不允许跟踪”信号，继续记录用户的在线行为。

    Also unclear is why Microsoft has gone it alone. After all, it has an ad business too, which it says will comply with DNT requests, though it is still working out how. If it is trying to rile Google, which relies almost wholly on advertising, it has chosen an indirect method: there is no guarantee that DNT by default will become the norm. DNT does not seem an obviously huge selling point for Windows 8—though the firm has compared some of its other products favourably with Google’s on that count before. Brendon Lynch, Microsoft’s chief privacy officer, blogged: “We believe consumers should have more control.” Could it really be that simple?
    为什么单单微软会采取这样的措施？个中原因仍不清楚。要知道，微软自身也有广告业务。微软称它们将根据用户的“不允许跟踪”来决定是否记录用户在线行为，不过具体实施方案仍在研究当中。如果微软想要激怒Google（几乎所有收入都来自广告业务）的话，那么此举则是一个间接的方法：没人能保证将“不允许跟踪”作为浏览器的默认设置会成为行业规范。这似乎并不是Windows8很明显的一大卖点——在此之前，微软将其他产品与Google对应的产品进行了对比，认为自己的产品更胜一筹。微软的首席隐私官布伦丹?林奇（Brendon Lynch）在博客中写道：“我们认为用户应该有更大的话语权。”真的是这么简单吗？

    from the print edition | Business