关于考入剑桥，我的非官方、也不太够格的建议 My unofficial and insufficiently qualified advice about getting in to Cambridge

由于我一直在大学里协助计算机科学的教学工作，不时有人、中介或其他公司来找我，问准申请者们该怎么提高录取机会，这倒也情有可原。但我不是讲师，也不是课程主任，更不面试考生，所以我觉得你们可能问错人了。不过，我还是说说我的看法吧。
As I have been assisting with the Computer Science teaching in the university, it's understandable that individuals, agencies and other companies periodically approach me asking for advice about how prospective applicants can increase their chances of getting in. As I'm not a lecturer or a Director of Studies and I do not interview candidates, I feel like you might be asking the wrong person, but here's my take on it anyway.

别再觉得“必须”考上。如果亲戚或其他人给你的压力让你觉得自己必须考上，我相信你们彼此相爱，他们是为你好、心意是好的，但这番好意反而可能误导了你。那些真的觉得“必须”考上的人，如果面试官因此觉得考生太焦虑了，那他们实际考上的机会反而可能更低。
Stop believing you "must" get in. If any pressure from relatives or others has caused you to feel you must get in, well I'm sure you love each other but they are making a well-intentioned mistake. Those who do believe they "must" get in may have lower chances of actually doing so if it results in the interviewer coming away with the impression that the candidate's anxiety was too high.

不过，我也不想让你因为“自己在焦虑”这件事而更焦虑：有些焦虑是正常的，毕竟你在掌舵自己的整个未来。所以别开始想“这个人说我不该焦虑，但我确实在焦虑，所以我完了”——不，你没有完。我只是想说几句话，别让焦虑失控——有一点紧张完全正常，但别让它反过来拖你的后腿。
I don't want you to be anxious about being anxious though: some anxiety is OK when you're trying to steer your whole future, so don't start thinking "this guy's saying I shouldn't be anxious, but I am anxious, therefore I'm doomed"---no you're not. I'm just trying to put down some words to stop the anxiety from going too far---a little is OK but we don't want it to be self-defeating.

焦虑不应该是你学习的动力，否则你会给自己招来一段非常糟糕的时光。剑桥的面试官们已经公开说过，他们寻找的是诚实、不自大、不做作的热情——那种让你去尝试的热情，是因为你喜欢尝试，而不是因为你害怕如果没成功会发生什么。他们之所以想在面试时察觉这一点，是有原因的。这里我想跟你分享一个小秘密：面试过程并不完美。偶尔会有本不该通过的人通过了，而我从另一边看过那是什么样子。像我这样的人得去收拾残局，那场面可不好看——是的，真发生了我们也会尽力补救，但相信我，你不想成为那个其实并不喜欢这门学科、却通过了面试的人。我的意思是，三年都要学一门自己并不热爱的学科——谁会想要那样？
Anxiety should not be your motive for working or you're setting yourself up for a really awful time. Cambridge interviewers have gone on record as stating they look for honest, non-hubristic, non-artificial enthusiasm---the sort of enthusiasm that makes you try because you enjoy trying, not because you're terrified about what happens if you don't pull it off. And there's a reason why they try to catch this at interview time, and here's where I want to share with you a little secret: the interview process is not perfect. Occasionally someone gets through who probably shouldn't have got through, and I've seen what that looks like from the other side. People like me try to pick up the pieces and it's not pretty---yes we do try to make the best of a bad job when that happens, but believe me you do not want to be the person who got through the interview when they don't actually enjoy the subject. I mean it's three years of a subject you don't like---who'd want that?

哦，也许有人觉得他们的职业生涯就靠这个了。好吧，请让我现在就“消灭”这个想法：你的职业生涯并不取决于是否考上剑桥，很多没考上剑桥的人后来也都有了出色的事业。是的，我应该维护大学的声誉，但还没到要说假话的地步。校方的宣传确实会指出剑桥人做了哪些了不起的事，但他们不能让我们说世界上所有了不起的人都上过剑桥、没上过的就没有，因为那根本不是事实！（也有不少上了剑桥但最后并没有成为新闻人物的人，所以别让那些新闻稿让你觉得剑桥能保证这个。）是的，如果你恰好很适合剑桥，那你在这里的时光可能会很愉快，也可能有些好处，但这并不是必不可少的，反之，如果你在这里学得格外吃力，那么去一个更契合你的地方，反而会收获更多。
Oh, perhaps someone who thinks their career depends on it. OK please can you let me 'zap' that belief right now: your career does not depend on getting in to Cambridge and plenty of people who did not get in to Cambridge went on to have brilliant careers. Yes I'm supposed to uphold the University's reputation, but not to the point of dishonesty. Their official publicity will point out great things Cambridge people did, but they can't make us say all the world's great people went through Cambridge and none of them didn't, because that's simply not true! (There are also a fair few people who did go through Cambridge but didn't end up newsworthy, so don't let the press releases make you think Cambridge is a guarantee of that either.) Yes, if you do happen to be a good 'fit' for Cambridge then you are likely to enjoy your time here and it may be of some benefit, but it's not essential to your career, whereas if it's more of a struggle to fit then you might benefit more by doing something that fits you better.

与此相关的是，如果你有任何这种倾向，请别再觉得“成就”是单维度的。是的，那些搞“排名”的人试图把所有东西都归结成一个数字（最多也就是一小组数字），就像考试成绩最后变成一个声称definitive的分数，智力测试也想给你一个单一的IQ数字，声称是definitive的评估、没有误差范围。把这些太当真的人，最后很可能会很不开心。你作为一个人的价值是多方面的。有些事你可能不如我，但另一些事你可能比我强。你特定的长处和短处的组合，也许独特到有一天会出现一个似乎专门为你而设的问题，等着你去解决，而不是某个碰巧在某某考核上得分更高的人。一个木匠在还不知道要做什么活之前，会说锤子比钻头或螺丝刀更高级吗？
On a related note, please stop believing that 'achievement' is one-dimensional if you have any tendency to do so. Yes the 'rankings' people try to 'rank' everything by boiling it all down to a single number (or at best a small set of numbers), just as examination performance ends up in a supposedly-definitive mark, and intelligence tests try to give you a single IQ number that's supposed to be a definitive evaluation with no error bars, and people who take all that too seriously are likely to end up quite unhappy. Your value as a person is multi-faceted. You are likely worse than me at some things while being better than me at others. Your specific combination of strengths and weaknesses may be unique enough that one day there's a problem that seems specially made just for you to solve, not somebody else who happened to score higher in the whatever-it-is. Would a carpenter say if a hammer outranks a drill or a screwdriver before they know what the job is?

我这么说可能有bias，因为我祖母教过一个条件不好的班级，那个班排名一直很低，但她还是让他们变得有创造力。（有一次，全国传统上最好的学校之一决定赏脸跟他们辩论，他们输了，但伊顿说赢他们还真费了劲！）但排名不是一切，我希望不要有人因为某个排名而想考进来，因为那是做任何事的错误理由。
I may be biased here because I had a grandmother who taught a disadvantaged class that was consistently ranked low and she managed to get them being creative anyway (and there was one time when one of the traditionally finest schools in the land decided to give them the favour of a debate, which they lost but Eton said their win took real effort!) but ranking isn't everything and I wish we didn't have people trying to get in due to some ranking because that's the wrong reason to do anything.

面试官的任务之一是确认你真的会喜欢这里的课程，所以他们很可能会问一两个问题，来确认你对这门课的理解和实际内容是否一致。比如在计算机科学，每年都有人以为这门课会教他们怎么做计算机辅助平面设计。一个好的面试官应该说：非常抱歉，如果那是你想要的，那你其实申错了课程。我们能不能现在就纠正过来，免得你发现得太晚，因为中途换专业对所有相关人员来说都是大麻烦（是的，可以换，就像车祸后也能活下来一样——是的，我完全赞成活下来，但我宁愿一开始就别出车祸）。
As part of their mission to check you'll actually like the course here, interviewers are likely to ask a question or two to establish that what you think the course is about lines up with what it's actually about. For example in Computer Science, every year there's somebody who thinks it'll teach them how to do computer-aided graphic design, to which a good interviewer should say well I'm very sorry but if that's what you were wanting then you have in fact applied to the wrong course and can we please fix this now before you find out too late because changing half way through is a major hassle for all concerned (yes it can be done, but so can surviving a car crash---yes I'm all for surviving it but I'd rather it didn't happen to begin with).

所以，是的，如果你了解这门课的内容，并能表现出这就是你想要的，那会有帮助——没人指望你在还没开始上课前就把教学大纲背得滚瓜烂熟，但你会被期望对“想上这门课到底意味着什么”有个大致概念。反正你自己也应该去了解一下，所以务必去读一读相关资料。如果你有什么不确定的，尽管问面试官——这不是单向的考试，而是双向的对话，目的是帮你找出最适合你的地方。能提出一两个好问题的考生，可能会显得更有潜力。但别用那种套路化的、假惺惺的问题来装——那会露馅的——就放心问任何你真正想问的问题。
So yes it can help if you know what the course is about and can demonstrate that's what you want---you won't be expected to know the syllabus backwards before you've even started, but you will be expected to have a rough idea of what exactly you're letting yourself in for by wanting to be on this course, which is a good idea to check for yourself anyway so make sure to read up on it. And if there's anything you're unsure of, feel free to ask the interviewer---it's not a one-way test, it's a two-way conversation to help work out where's the best place for you, and candidates who have a good question or two of their own might come across as more promising. But don't fake this by asking a stock artificial question---that'll show---just feel free to ask any genuine questions you have.

没有什么可以学到的技巧能让你“伪装”进去。是的，偶尔面试官确实会犯错，但没那么频繁，不值得你指望。想想简单的“有效市场假说”：任何强大到足以骗过剑桥面试官的技巧，都不会长久保持有效，因为他们能录取的人数有限，所以如果太多人学了同一个花招，面试官就会干脆开始评估别的东西——没有花招能持久。如果有人声称能卖给你一种领先于这场“军备竞赛”的技巧，在今年他们还没反应过来之前有效，那他们说真话的概率小得可怜，根本不值得你付他们开的任何价钱，更绝对不值得你为此付出的机会成本——有那时间，不如去做些具体的事，比如读读关于这门学科的书。
There are no learnable techniques to 'fake' your way in. Yes, occasionally an interviewer does make a mistake, but not often enough for you to be able to count on that happening. Think of the simple 'efficient market hypothesis': any learned technique powerful enough to fool Cambridge interviewers will not stay that way for long, because there's only so many selections they're allowed to make, so if too many people learn the same trick, interviewers will simply start assessing something else instead---no trick can last. And if someone claims to be able to sell you a technique that's ahead of the "arms race" and will work this year before they cotton on to it, the incredibly tiny probability that they're telling the truth is not worth whatever price they're offering and definitely not worth the opportunity cost of spending your time on that rather than something concrete like reading about the subject.

（哦，还有，请千万别把牛津和剑桥合起来叫“牛剑”的英语Oxbridge，他们可讨厌这个了。我们曾有一位高层演讲时说，他从来没听说过世上有这么个地方，不过我当时不得不偷偷给他递了张纸条，说我长大的西多塞特附近确实有个村子就叫Oxbridge——想去那个“牛桥”的话，你可以在Melplash附近从Beaminster路拐进去，不过我上次查的时候，他们好像也没开什么课。）
(Oh and please don't call Oxford and Cambridge "Oxbridge" because they hate it. We had a higher-up give a talk in which he said he never heard of any such place existing, although I did have to discretely slip him a note that there's a village called Oxbridge near where I grew up in West Dorset---to get into that one you can turn off the Beaminster Road near Melplash but they weren't running any courses last time I checked.)

另一方面，确实有一些可以学习的技巧，能提高你的一般表达能力，也能帮你写出更好的个人陈述（提示：最了不起的东西放前面，不要按时间顺序写你的人生故事）。是的，在这上面花点精力可能是值得的，只要别让这事占据你的生活，挤掉了思考更重要事情的时间——比如，你想申请的那门课，到底是不是真的适合你。我觉得任何在表达能力上的投入都是件好事，不管你最后上不上剑桥，而不是专门为考上剑桥才做的事。但同时，我也不建议你为此花太多钱（而且如果你觉得多花钱就能少花自己的力气，恐怕你想错了）。
On the other hand, there are learnable techniques to improve your general presentation skills and to write better personal statements (hint: most impressive thing first, not your life story in chronological order), and yes it probably is worth a bit of effort investing in those to a degree as long as it doesn't take over your life at the expense of thinking about far more important things, like whether it's actually a good idea to do the course you're thinking of entering. I'd view any investment in your presentation skills as a nice thing to have whether or not you end up at Cambridge rather than something done for the specific purpose of getting in to Cambridge, but at the same time I wouldn't suggest overpaying for it (and if you think paying more money means you can put in less of your own effort, I'm afraid you're mistaken).

还有，请不要做“饼干模子”式的考生。课上表现好，各科成绩顶尖，课外活动？哦——还打篮球。很好，但我们怎么从几十个看起来都这样的候选人中挑出你呢？你有没有在业余时间做过什么有趣的东西，可能跟别人做的不同，甚至可能跟学科相关？你有没有办过学校社团或校报，或者做过其他什么事，能让招生导师觉得“嗯，这个可能有意思”——他们不仅考虑你在这门课上能学得多好，也在考虑你是否会喜欢这里的气氛，甚至能为气氛做点什么贡献？如果有，就说出来！如果没有，别装——他们会（几乎肯定）在面试中一眼看穿，比如他们问你那个你声称有的爱好，结果那恰好是教授的发明什么的——假的个人陈述是重大灾难的配方。
Also, please don't be a "cookie cutter" candidate. Did well in class, top marks at everything, extracurricular activities? oh---played basketball. Great but how exactly are we supposed to pick you out of dozens of other candidates all looking like that. Have you ever created something interesting in your spare time, which might be different from what others have done, and might even be subject-relevant? Did you ever run a school club or newspaper or do anything else that just might make an admissions tutor think "now this could be an interesting one" when they're thinking not only of how well you'll do in the subject but also if you'll enjoy and perhaps contribute to the general atmosphere? If you did, say it! If you didn't, don't fake it---they will (almost certainly) detect a fake just as soon as they ask in interview about that hobby you said you had which just so happens to be the professor's invention or something---fake personal statements are a recipe for major disaster.

但如果你想做点有趣的事，却一直不被允许，因为你生活中那些出于好意却方向错误的人把你导向了“只要成绩，别的都不要”（我说的就是你，虎爸虎妈的刻板印象），而且如果还有时间补救，请温和地指给那个人看，很多已经发表的说法都表明，“比成绩更有趣”是受到鼓励的。
But if you'd like to do something interesting, but you haven't been allowed to do anything interesting because well-meaning but misguided people in your life have steered you into "just the grades and nothing else" (I'm looking at you, tiger-parent stereotype), and if there's still time to fix this, please gently point whoever it is at the many published statements that being more interesting than "just the grades" is encouraged.

但基本上，我想让你别再觉得这事有那么重要——如果你想努力，那就努力，因为你喜欢努力，而不是因为结果决定了一切。如果你能把那个平衡找对，其他的一切很可能都会随之而来。
But basically I want you to stop thinking it matters that much---if you want to try hard, try hard because you enjoy trying hard, not because anything hinges on the result. If you can get that balance right, everything else is likely to follow.

最后，给已经通过面试的人留几句话。我提过几次面试官有时会犯错，如果这让你开始想“他们是不是在我这里也犯了错”，但你其他方面还挺享受结果的，那么欢迎来到我的冒名顶替综合症世界。我自己的解决办法是试着告诉自己：是的，我是有点差劲，但有时我可能仍然是那个最不坏的选项，然后记住我说过的话，成就不是单维度的。所有这些评估，都是试图在一个事实上美丽而混沌的大脑世界里强加一些秩序。如果你考上了某个地方，而且最后确实没因此变得更糟，那也许在你这个特定的情况下，这毕竟不算是个太坏的决定。
Finally a note to those who've already passed their interviews. I mentioned a couple of times that interviewers sometimes make mistakes, and if that made you start thinking they did so in your case but you're otherwise enjoying the result, then welcome to my world of imposter syndrome. My own solution is to try to tell myself that yes I am a bit rubbish but sometimes I might still be the least-bad option and remember what I said about achievement not being one-dimensional. All this assessment is trying to impose some order on a world of brains that is in fact beautifully chaotic, and if you got in somewhere and did in fact end up no worse for it then perhaps in your particular case it wasn't such a bad decision after all.

Disclosure: all words are my own but I did ask two Chinese LLMs to fix my Chinese.