孤單並不意味著孤獨，即使你身處人群裡，卻可能非常孤獨。
——維多利亞·希斯洛普《島》
這是 五分鐘外刊閱讀 第 149 篇更新
『It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way.』 Why Some Boys Can Keep Up With Girls in School.
CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Over all, girls outperform boys in school. It starts as early as kindergarten. By the time students reach college, women graduate at a higher rate than men.
整體而言，女生在學校的表現超過男生。這早在幼兒園就開始了。到學生上大學時，女性畢業成績高於男性。
📌 outperform
中文做動詞表示「勝過，比...做得好」（to do well in a particular job or activity compared to others of a similartype），如：
The marketing coup was devised entirely by Hyundai's U.S. managers and likely helped the company outperform its rivals during the downturn. 這個營銷方案完全是由現代汽車的美國經理們設計的，而它可能幫助公司在經濟衰退中勝過對手。
But there’s an exception. Asian-American boys match the grades of Asian-American girls in elementary school, a new study has found. For them, the gender achievement gap doesn’t appear until adolescence — at which point they start doing worse as a group than Asian-American girls.
但也有例外。一項新的研究發現，亞裔美國男孩在小學階段和亞裔美國女孩成績相當。對於他們，性別成績差異直到青春期才出現——此時他們的整體表現開始遜色於亞裔美國女孩。
📌 gender ['dʒendə]
中文作名詞表示「性別」(a grammatical category in inflected languages governing the agreement between nouns and pronouns and adjectives),如：
Increased recruitment of women engineers will help correct the gender imbalance in the profession.多聘請女工程師有助於平衡這一職業中存在的性別失衡。
補充一組常用的短語～
gender difference 性別差異
gender discrimination 性別歧視
gender equity 性別平等；男女平等
gender gap 性別差異
The study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that boys』 underperformance is not because of anything innate to boys. Instead, it seems, it’s largely because of something external: their school environments and peer influences.
越來越多的研究表明，男生表現不佳不是因為男生內在的任何原因，此項研究進一步鞏固了這一觀點。看起來，其原因很大程度上來自於外部：他們學校環境和同伴影響。
📌 innate [,i'neit]
中文表示「先天的，固有的」（not established by conditioning or learning）
We have an innate sense of duty. We admire people who sacrifice for the group. 我們的責任感是與生俱來的，我們敬仰為組織作出犧牲的人。
Girls are encouraged to be diligent, cooperative and ambitious — all things that serve them well in school. Boys are more sensitive than girls to environmental influences, according to a variety of research, and they feel pressure to be strong, tough and athletic. They get the message that doing well in school is not masculine, social scientists say. Even in peer groups that prize good grades, it’s considered uncool to seem to try hard to earn them.
女性被鼓勵要勤奮、合作、有志向——所有這些都對她們在學校很有好處。根據各類研究，男生對於環境的影響比女生更敏感，要強壯、堅韌、擅長運動也讓他們倍感壓力。社會科學家表示，他們得到的信息是，成績好是有失男子氣概的。即使是在好成績會獲嘉獎的同伴群體中，表現出努力要得獎也被認為不怎麼酷。
📌 masculine ['mæskjulin]
中文意思表示「男子氣概的」（having characteristics that are traditionally thought to be typical of or suitable for men），如：
She has a rather masculine voice.她的聲音有點男性化。
[辨析]
masculine: 指有男子特徵的，陽剛的。用於形容女性時，含輕蔑意味。
male: 單純指男性或雄性。如：
Some scientists thought that fight between the male animals headed up from their instinct. 有些科學家認為雄性動物之間的爭鬥源於其本能。
manly: 指適合男子的、有男子漢氣慨的。如：
He never learnt the manly and military virtues which his father prized. 他從未學得他父親所看重的男子氣概和軍人品質
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