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Ask Americans which they think is more important to success, effort or talent, and they pick effort two to one. Ask them which quality they’d _________ most in a new employee, and they pick diligence over intelligence five to one. But deep down, they hold the _________ view.

We know this thanks to a researcher, Chia-Jung Tsay of University Collee London. Tsay asked professional musicians to listen to audio clips (片段) of two pianists, one described as a “natural” . The other as a “striver” . Despite the fact that the two pianists were really one pianist playing different sections of the same composition — and just contrary to the listeners’ _________ belief that effort won over talent — the musicians thought the “natural” sounded more likely to succeed than the “striver”, and _________. Tsay found a similar _________ among people considering an investment proposal. Their preference for backing a “natural” entrepreneur (企业家) over a “striver” entrepreneur was _________ only when the latter was given four more years of experience and $40,000 more in capital.

From where does the _________ for naturals come? Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, offered her best guess: We don’t _________ strivers because they invite self-comparisons. If what separates, say, Roger Federer from you and me is nothing but the number of hours spent at “deliberate practice” — as the most-extreme behavioralists argue — our _________ of the U.S. Open could be interrupted by the thought There but for the grace of perseverance go I.

Whatever its origins, the preference has __________ implications. Certainly, it suggests that my deep terror of letting anyone see my half-written article drafts makes sense. It perpetuates (使持续) a myth that I’m a natural—the words just flow out,folks as fast as I can type! — and __________ the truth that the words come out fitfully and woodenly, gradually leading to a state of readability only after many seemingly fruitless stages. “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not appear so __________ at all,” Michelangelo observed.

This can __________ confusing career advice. “Try hard enough and you can do just about anything, as long as you don’t __________ to be trying very hard” is not the stuff we can see on the school walls. However, private __________ and public ease may be a recommended combination.