做選擇題時應該堅持最初選項嗎?
The standard advice for multiple-choice tests is: if in doubt, stick with your first answer.
在做選擇題的時候，大家奉行一條：如果在選項中糾結，那麼就選你最先認定的那個答案。
College students believe it: about 75% agree that changing your first choice will lower your score overall (Kruger et al., 2005). Instructors believe it as well: in one study 55% believed it would lower students' scores while only 16% believed it would improve them.
75%大學生認爲更改選擇題中自己最先認定的答案會降低他們的考試分數。在一項研究中，也有55%的老師這麼認爲，只有16%的老師認爲更改自己最初認定的選項會提高考試分數。
And yet this is wrong.
但是這種想法是錯的。
One survey of 33 different studies conducted over 70 years found that, on average, people who change their answers do better than those who don't (Benjamin et al., 1984). In none of these studies did people get a lower score because they changed their minds.
70多年裏的33項研究顯示，一般來說，修改選擇題答案比不修改答案的考試結果要好。在這些研究中，沒有哪項結果顯示修改選擇題答案會降低考試分數。
Study after study shows that when you change your answer in a multiple-choice test, you are more likely to be changing it from wrong to right than right to wrong. So actually sticking with your first answer is, on average, the wrong strategy.
衆多研究顯示，在做選擇題時，把答案改對的情況比把答案改錯的情況要多。所以堅持自己最初選擇的答案也不算是正確的考試策略。
Why do so many people (including many who should know better, like the authors of test-preparation guides) still say that you should stick with your first answer? Kruger et al. (2005) argue that it's partly because it feels more painful to get an answer wrong because you changed it than wrong because you didn't change it.
那爲什麼這麼多人說應該做選擇題時應該堅持自己最初選的那個答案呢？Kruger等人認爲一部分原因是：本來選對了後來卻改錯了的痛苦程度相較於不改答案而做錯題來說要大多了。
So we tend to remember much more clearly the times when we changed from right to wrong. And so when taking a test we anticipate the regret we will feel and convince ourselves that our first instinct is probably right (when it's probably not).
所以我們會把改錯答案的事情記得更清楚。於是在糾結要不要改答案的時候這種痛苦之情就會出現，讓我們覺得堅持最初的選項會是對的。
