What is Mental Representations： can be seen as a conceptual structure designed to sidestep the usual restrictions that short-term memory places on mental processing.

A mental representation is a mental structure that corresponds to an object, an idea, a collection of information, or anything else, concrete or abstract, that the brain is thinking about.

Q: Is there any correlation between mental representations and deliberate practice?

A: Much of deliberate practice involves developing ever more efficient mental representations that you can use in whatever activity you are practicing. 

The key change that occurs in our adaptable brains in response to deliberate practice is the development of better mental representations, which in turn open up newpossibilities for improved performance.

Q: What sets expert performers apart from everyone else?

A: The quality and quantity of their mental representations.

Q: How can mental representations help hone our skill？

The relationship between skill and mental representationsis a virtuous circle: the more skilled you become, the better your mental representations are, and the better your mental representations are, the more effectively you can practice to hone your skill.

Q: Is it possible to develop a general way of mental representation that helps me with more than one area?

A: There is no such thing as developing a general skill. You don’t train your memory as a whole, you train your memory for strings of digits or for collections of words or for people’s faces. Of course, some people do become overall memory experts or athletes in a number of sports or doctors with a general set of skills, but they do so by training in a number of different areas.

Q: What makes the best mental representation in a given area?

A:  The most efficient and sophisticated ones involve as many details as possible. By putting all of these different elements into an overall map, people with well developed mentle representations will manage to do justice to both the forest and the trees, which helps them assimilate and consider a great deal more information at once.

Q: What is the hallmark of expert performance?

A: The ability to see patterns in a collection of things that would seem random or confusing to people with less well developed mental representations.

Q: How can I find the most effective training methods that work for me?

A: The better you are able to tailor your training to mirror the best performers in your field, the more effective your training is likely to be. Whenever possible, the best approach is almost always to work with a good coach or teacher. An effective instructor will understand what must go into a successful training regimen and will be able to modify it as necessary to suit individual students.

Insights into the study on violin students:

We found that the best violin students had, on average, spent significantly more time than the better.

Again, we found no sign of anyone born with the sort of talent that would make it possible to reach the upper levels of ballet without working as hard or harder than anyone else.

感悟：刻意练习的两个特征给我了最大的冲击。

1.练习要带着目的，什么目的？不是一个泛泛的写作达人这样的宏大目标。要像打怪搭房子一样，每一步都是非常specific，是一个meaningful task，一步步升级。

2.什么是有效的 mental representation？当你觉得那个information 时刻available 的时候; internalize it till it become yours, till you can automatically refer to it at any time. 就像读这本书一样，我们的目的都是想要吸取其精华，为我所用，但如果合上书，复述作者的Insight,发现乏善可陈，那么这就是对刻意练习这个概念的心理表征建立失败。

怎么做到？刻意练习，reflect on the MR while monitoring our performance and constantly modify it.

回到自己。有一个习惯我觉得很有必要现在开始建立——在 input之后迅速来一场output，目的是检验自己MR建立的程度。从每一篇阅读开始做起。问问自己到底学到了什么。具体到实践，就是写笔记。而关于feedback，因为条件有限，加上对于自己评估也算准确，所以目前先自我审视。

Among

1.among+n.

作为介词短语表示某opinion,event,concern...在特定人群中发生

·The problem is causing widespread concern among scientists.

2.used to talk about a particular person, thing, or group as belonging to a larger group:

·She was the eldest among them.

·Innocent civilians were among the casualties.

'latter-day

adj.[only before noun]

•being a modern version of a person or thing in the past

•(旧时的人或物的)现代翻版的

Vary

»'What time do you start work?''It varies.'

"你几点钟开始工作？" "没准儿。"

»The job enables me to vary the hours I work.

这项工作使我能够调整工作时间。

It was common for a judge to give scores that varied by plus or minus four points

注意介词by上下浮动

Act up

1.to behave badly

2.to not work as it should

•How long has your ankle been acting up?

Red Herring --- distraction

The expression is mainly used to assert that an argument is not relevant to the issue being discussed.

that's aboutˈall  |that's aboutˈit差不多就这样了

used to say that you have finished telling sb about sth and there is nothing to add

•‘Anything else?’ ‘No, that's about it for now.’

either way|one way or the other不管咋样

used to say that it does not matter which one of two possibilities happens, is chosen or is true

•Was it his fault or not? Either way, an explanation is due.

•And, either way, at eighteen or twenty, these students were nowhere near masters of the violin.