Part I
OLISA:OK, Greg, so I finally managed to read the article you mentioned - the one about the study on gender in physics.GREG:About the study of college students done by Akira Miyake and his team?Yeah. I was interested that the researchers were actually a mix of psychologists and physicists. That's an unusual combination.LISA:Yeah. I got a little confused at first about which students the study was based on. They weren't actually majoring in physics - they were majoring in what's known as the STEM disciplines. That's science, technology, engineering and ...GREG:… and math. Yes, but they were all doing physics courses as part of their studies.LISA:That's correct. So as I understood it, Miyake and Co started from the fact that women are under-represented in introductory physics courses at college, and also that on average, the women who do enrol on these courses perform more poorly than the men. No one really knows why this is the case.GREG:Yeah. But what the researchers wanted to find out was basically what they could do about the relatively low level of the women's results. But in order to find a solution they needed to find out more about the nature of the problem.但研究人员想要了解的是，他们能对女性相对较低的检测结果采取哪些措施。noun. the fact of being male or female性别E.g.:issues of class, race and gender
阶级、种族和性别问题
verb. if a student at a university or college in the United States majors in a particular subject, that subject is the main one they study 以…为专业E.g.: She majored in History at Stanford.
她在斯坦福主修历史。
noun. an area of knowledge; a subject that people study or are taught, especially in a university知识领域；（尤指大学的）学科，科目E.g.: We're looking for people from a wide range of disciplines.
我们正在寻找各类学科的人才。
4. under-represented|ˌʌndər ˌreprɪˈzentɪd|adj. not having as many representatives as would be expected or needed代表人数不够的；代表名额不足的
E.g.: Women are under-represented at senior levels in business.
商界高层的女性代表不足。
verb. used when no other auxiliary verb is present, to emphasize what you are saying（句中无其他助动词时，用以加强语气）E.g.: She did at least write to say thank you.
她至少还写了信道谢。
verb. to arrange for yourself or for sb else to officially join a course, school, etc.（使）加入；注册；登记E.g.: The centre will soon be ready to enrol candidates for the new programme.
中心将很快为新课程的招生做好准备。
noun. the basic qualities of a thing基本特征；本质；基本性质E.g.: It's difficult to define the exact nature of the problem.
很难给这个问题确切定性。
LISA:Right - now let's see if I can remember... it was that in the physics class, the female students thought the male students all assumed that women weren't any good at physics... was that it? And they thought that the men expected them to get poor results in their tests.GREG:That's what the women thought, and that made them nervous, so they did get poor results. But actually they were wrong... No one was making any assumptions about the female students at all.LISA:Anyway, what Miyake's team did was quite simple - getting the students to do some writing before they went into the physics class. What did they call it?GREG:Values-affirmation- they had to write an essay focusing on things that were significant to them, not particularly to do with the subject they were studying, but more general things like music, or people who mattered to them.LISA:Right. So the idea of doing the writing is that this gets the students thinking in a positive way.GREG: And putting these thoughts into words can relax them and help them overcome the psychological factors that lead to poor performance. Yeah. But what the researchers in the study hadn't expected was that this one activity raised the women's physics grades from the C to the B range.价值观确认——他们必须写一篇作文，重点关注对他们来说重要的事情，这些事情不一定与他们正在学习的科目有关，而是更一般的事情，比如音乐，或者对他们重要的人。verb. to think or accept that sth is true but without having proof of it假定；假设；认为
E.g.: It is reasonable to assume (that) the economy will continue to improve.
认为经济将继续好转是有道理的。
2. affirmative|əˈfɜːrmətɪv|adj. an affirmative word or reply means ‘yes’ or expresses agreement肯定的；同意的
E.g.: Haig was desperately eager for an affirmative answer.
Haig极渴望得到一个肯定的回答。
verb. to succeed in dealing with or controlling a problem that has been preventing you from achieving sth克服；解决
E.g.: She overcame injury to win the Olympic gold medal.
她战胜了伤痛，赢得了奥运会金牌。
Part III
LISA:A huge change. Pity it wasn't to an A, but still! No, but it does suggest that the women were seriously underperforming beforehand, in comparison with the men.GREG:Yes. Mind you, Miyake's article left out a lot of details. Like, did the students do the writing just once, or several times? And had they been told why they were doing the writing? That might have affected the results.LISA:You mean, if they know the researchers thought it might help them to improve, then they'd just try to fulfil that expectation?GREG:Exactly. So anyway, I thought for our project we could do a similar study, but investigate whether it really was the writing activity that had that result.LISA:OK. So we could ask them to do a writing task about something completely different... something more factual? Like a general knowledge topic.GREG:Maybe... or we could have half the students doing a writing task and half doing something else, like an oral task.LISA:Or even, half do the same writing task as in the original research and half do a factual writing task. Then we'd see if it really is the topic that made the difference, or something else.GREG:That's it. Good. So at our meeting with the supervisor on Monday we can tell him we've decided on our project. We should have our aims ready by then. I suppose we need to read the original study - the article's just a summary.我认为我们的项目可以做类似的研究，但要调查是否真的是写作活动导致了这种结果。1. beforehand|bɪˈfɔːrhænd|adj.earlier; before sth else happens or is done预先；事先E.g.: I wish we'd known about it beforehand.
要是我们预先知道这事就好了。
used to add sth to what you have just said, especially sth that makes it less strong（对刚说过的话加以补充，尤使语气减弱）请注意，说实话
E.g.: I've heard they're getting divorced. Mind you, I'm not surprised—they were always arguing.
听说他们要离婚了。告诉你吧，我并不感到意外，因为他们总是争吵。
adj. based on or containing facts根据事实的；事实的；真实的
E.g.: The essay contains a number of factual errors.
文章中有一些与事实不符的错误。
LISA:And there was another article I read, by Smolinsky. It was about her research on how women and men perform in mixed teams in class, compared with single-sex teams and on their own.GREG:Let me guess... the women were better at teamwork.LISA:That's what I expected, but actually the men and the women got the same results whether they were working in teams or on their own. But I guess it's not that relevant to us.GREG:What worries me anyway is how we're going to get everything done in the time.LISA:We'll be OK now we know what we're doing. Though I'm not clear how we assess whether the students in our experiment actually make any progress or not...GREG:NO. We may need some advice on that. The main thing's to make sure we have the right size sample, not too big or too small.LISA:That shouldn't be difficult. Right, what do we need to do next? We could have a look at the timetable for the science classes... or perhaps we should just make an appointment to see one of the science professors. That'd be better.GREG:Great. And we could even get to observe one of the classes.GREG:Well... OK maybe let's just go with your idea. Right, well...verb. if someone or something performs well, they work well or achieve a good result. If they perform badly, they work badly or achieve a poor result. 表现 (好/不好)E.g.: He had not performed well in his exams.verb. to make a judgement about the nature or quality of sb/sth评估，评定（性质、质量）E.g.: The young men were assessed as either safe or unsafe drivers.
