异类之不一样的成功启示录 第46期:惊呆众人的天才

 　　In school, Langan could walk into a language test where he had not studied at all,

　　上学之后，他对语文之类的课程漫不经心，根本就没有怎么学过，

　　and if there were two or three minutes before the instructor¹ arrived, he could skim through the textbook and ace² the test.

　　但是他只需要在老师到来之前的两三分钟草草浏览一遍课本，测试就能拿到高分。

　　In his early teenage years, while working as a farmhand, he started to read widely in theoretical physics.

　　少年时期，他成了一个农场工人，他开始广泛涉猎物理学理论知识。

　　At sixteen, he made his way through Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead's famously abstruse³ masterpiece Principia Mathematica.

　　16岁那年，他开始阅读伯特兰.罗素的作品以及阿尔弗雷德.诺斯.怀特黑德深奥难憬的《数学原理》。

　　He got a perfect score on his SAT, even though he fell asleep at one point during the test.

　　在美国大学本科标准入学考试（SAT)中，他得到了很高的分数，便在考试的时候，他打了一会儿瞌睡。

　　"He did math for an hour," his brother Mark says of Langan's summer routine in high school.

　　“他用一个小时学习数学，”他的兄弟马克说到兰根高中时候的夏季日常安排，

　　"Then his did French for an hour. Then he studied Russian. Then he would read philosophy. He did that religiously, every day."

　　“然后，他用一个小时学习法语，接着是俄语。最后他会读一些哲学方面的书籍。每一天，他都这样坚持。”

　　Another of his brothers, Jeff, says,

　　克里斯的另外一个兄弟杰夫说道：

　　"You know, when Christopher was fourteen or fifteen, he would draw things just as a joke, and will be like a photograph.

　　“你知道，当克里斯托弗十四五岁的时候，他画什么东西都轻而易举，画出来就像照片一样惟妙惟肖。

　　When he was fifteen, he could match Jimi Hendrix lick for lick on a guitar. Boom. Boom. Boom.

　　在他15岁的时候，他在吉他上弹出的乐曲，可以和吉米.亨德里克斯的演奏相媲美。

　　Half the time, Christopher didn't attend school at all.

　　克里斯托弗有一半时间都不在学校，

　　He would just show up for tests and there was nothing they could do about it.

　　他只需要在考试的时候露一下面就行，考试对他来说只是小菜一碟。

　　To us, it was hilarious⁴.

　　对我们来说，要是能够这样轻松就搞定，那真是该狂欢一番。”

　　He could brief a semester's worth of textbooks in two days,

　　他只用两天时间就能掌握一个学期的内容，

　　and take care of whatever he had to take care of and then get back to whatever he was doing in the first place."

　　兼顾他需要兼顾的任何学科，然后又重新做之前他一直在做的事。

　　On the set of 1 VS. 100, Langan was poised⁵ and confident. His voice was deep. His eyes were small and fiercely bright.

　　在《以一敌百》的节目中，兰根表现得泰然自若，信心十足。他说话的语调低沉，一双小眼暗熠熠发亮。

　　He did not circle about topics, searching for the right phrase, or double back to restate a previous sentence.

　　他说话从不拖泥带水，已经说过的句子从不再重复，他不假思索就能找到合适的措辞。

　　For that matter, he did not say um, or ah, or use any form of conversational⁶ mitigation:

　　事实上，他从来不说“嗯”、“啊”这些调节语速的叹词：

　　His sentences came marching out, one after another, polished and crisp, like soldiers on a parade ground.

　　他说起话来妙语连珠，一句紧接一句，犹如阅兵式上士兵的步调那样明快完美。

　　Every question Saget threw at him, he tossed aside, as if it were triviality.

　　萨吉特拋向他的每一个问题，他都轻松应对，仿佛这只是小事一桩。

　　When his winning reached $250,000, he appeared to make a mental calculation

　　当他获得的奖金达到250 000美元的时候，他似乎开始衡量是否应该退出挑战，

　　that the risks of losing everything were at that point greater than the potential benefits of staying in.

　　现在，如果坚持下去就存在失去所有奖金的风险，这远高于潜在的收益。

　　Abruptly⁷, he stopped. "I'll take the cash," he said.

　　他突然来了个急刹车，“我愿意就此打住”他说道，

　　He shook Saget's hand firmly and was finished, exiting on top as, we'd like to think, geniuses invariably do.

　　坚定地摇了摇萨吉特的手，停了下来——我们也许会想，就如很多天才那样，他总是见好就收。

1 instructor   

n.指导者，教员，教练

参考例句：

• The college jumped him from instructor to full professor.大学突然把他从讲师提升为正教授。
• The skiing instructor was a tall,sunburnt man.滑雪教练是一个高高个子晒得黑黑的男子。

2 ace   

n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的

参考例句：

• A good negotiator always has more than one ace in the hole.谈判高手总有数张王牌在手。
• He is an ace mechanic.He can repair any cars.他是一流的机械师,什么车都会修。

3 abstruse   

adj.深奥的，难解的

参考例句：

• Einstein's theory of relativity is very abstruse.爱因斯坦的相对论非常难懂。
• The professor's lectures were so abstruse that students tended to avoid them.该教授的课程太深奥了，学生们纷纷躲避他的课。

4 hilarious   

adj.充满笑声的，欢闹的；[反]depressed

参考例句：

• The party got quite hilarious after they brought more wine.在他们又拿来更多的酒之后，派对变得更加热闹起来。
• We stop laughing because the show was so hilarious.我们笑个不停，因为那个节目太搞笑了。

5 poised   

a.摆好姿势不动的

参考例句：

• The hawk poised in mid-air ready to swoop. 老鹰在半空中盘旋，准备俯冲。
• Tina was tense, her hand poised over the telephone. 蒂娜心情紧张，手悬在电话机上。

6 conversational   

adj.对话的，会话的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
• She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。

7 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。