Part One    What I Have Learned From Chapter I&II

I delivered a presentation about GENIUS on the Extensive Reading class in mid-April. To focus on the topic, I cited many celebrities in such fields as physics, literature, music, etc. All of them have exceptional achievement in their own area, most of whom are born with high IQ, which led us to attribute their achievement to something like“talent”. But in this two chapters, the author told me that the most effective way to perform respectively in most area is exactly “ deliberate practice”, which is also the method of those successful.

What impressed me most is a concept named“naive practice”, which refers to the act to practice something repeatedly so as to improve the performance in this area. As its name implies, this kind of behavior is more than naive but low-efficiency. However, it just describes my learning method in most subjects before----no specific goals, no focus, no feedback, and no motivation. I had no idea to get over my mechanical and scatterbrained practice. But now, I learned that the key point for me is to get out of my comfort zone and try to push myself reasonably. So the big picture is clear: I need a detailed plan to practice purposefully and, harness the adaptability of my brain.

When it comes to harnessing adaptability, the title of Chapter II, there are also thousands of practicable methods can be applied to our daily behavior. According to cases exemplified, it is possible to reshape some structure and function of the brain since they are not fixed. Thus, only if I continuously stay out of my comfort zone but not to far, can I attain an ideal goal. Another point is challenging my homeostasis with deliberate practice. Actually,“good enough”can never be enough.

In a different light, I can also learn a lot from the author’s writing skill, which is refined, accurate, as well as unvarnished. Different from the majority of what I read before, he used quantities of examples to illustrate instead of boring preaching, and all of his conclusion is short but precise.

Part Two      Summary

To some degree, the titles of both two chapters have showed us what the author wanted to express at the beginning----the power of purposeful practice& harnessing adaptability.

Firstly, he told us that instead of“gift”,“deliberate practice”is actually the“gold standard”, to achieve which we are supposed to do“purposeful practice”. Furthermore, there are four characteristics of“purposeful practice”:

1.Purposeful practice has well-defined, specific goals.

2.Purposeful practice is focused.

3.Purposeful practice involves feedback.

4.Purposeful practice requires getting out of one’s comfort zone.

What’s more, both challenge and motivation are crucial factors.

In Chapter II, we can see that the function and structure of our brain are changeable, which means that intensive training can be useful to improve our performance. And again, he emphasized the importance of getting out of our comfort zone. Meanwhile, when we are pushing hard by regular training, the homeostasis can be reestablished in response to the stress. And there are three details should be noted:

1.The effects of training on the brain can vary with age in several ways.

2.Developing certain parts of the brain through prolonged training can lead to a result that people who have developed one skill or ability to an extraordinary degree seem to have regressed in another area.

3.The cognitive and physical changes caused by training require upkeep.

Last but not least, the key note is, challenging and building our potential, and never ever get satisfied.

Part Three     Words, Phrases and Sentences

flat out    (informal) with the maximum speed or effect  竭尽全力

flat-out    彻底地

e.g. Until the first decade of the twenty-first century, most scientists would have flat out denied that something like what Maguire has seen in the brains of London cabbies was even possible.

Imitation:   I flat-out told him that he was called " nerd" behind his back.

stem from   来自；起源于；由……造成

e.g. It all stems, ironically enough, from the fact that the individual cells and tissues try to keep everything the same as much as possible.

Imatation: His failure on the test, stems largely from his laziness.

there is a catch     内有玄机;有欠缺之处

e.g. But there is a catch: once the compensatory changes have occurred—new muscle fibers have grown and become more efficient, new capillaries have grown, and so on—the body can handle the physical activity that had previously stressed it.

Imitaton: There is still a catch in the plan.

beefy  (adj.) informal muscular; brawny  结实的；健壮的

这个词我觉得作者用得很形象，没有用strong, muscular, fleshy这一类的词，而是用了beefy, 我一下子就往beef联想，结合语境就能看出它的意思，而且放在句子里非常生动。

e.g.  Could it be that people like Einstein are simply born with beefier-than-usual inferior parietal lobules and thus have some innate capacity to be good at mathematical thinking?

Imitation: She has a preference for guys with beefy body.