If you are someone who struggles with exam anxiety, know that you aren't alone.
If you are always successful, you may not learn much. Scientists have found that being wrong 15 percent of the time is the secret to learning new things. Although nobody likes to fail, scientists have long suspected that people learnt better when they were challenged to learn something just outside of their existing knowledge.
Make a task too hard and participants will give up without learning any new skills, but if it is too easy, they will also not pick up anything useful. To find out where the "sweet spot" lies, researchers at the University of Arizona conducted a series of machine-learning experiments in which they taught computers simple tasks, such as picking whether a number was odd(奇数的) or even(偶数的). They found that when the error rate was 15 percent, the computers learnt fastest.
It could help teachers adapt their classes to the right level. If the teachers give really easy examples, you get 100 percent right all the time. If they give really hard examples, you still won't learn anything new. Only when you are at this "sweet spot" can you get the most information from each particular example.
You shouldn't be disappointed if you aren't 100% right all the time. If you are taking classes that are too easy, then you aren't probably getting as much out of a class as someone who's struggling but managing to keep up.
| A. Accept challenges bravely. B. Then there's nothing left to learn. C. The more difficult the task, the better. D. In this way, you can maximize your learning. E. But that "sweet spot" has always been unknown. F. Some studies have shown that failure is not a bad thing. G. The scientists have named it "The 85 percent rule". |
