题型：阅读理解 题类：常考题 难易度：普通
天津市七校（静海一中，杨村中学，宝坻一中，大港一中等）2018-2019学年高二上学期英语期中考试试卷
An analysis of almost 50 years of competitions—including Eurovision Song Contests and world skating championships—has found that contestants are more likely to win if they are among the last to appear before the judges.
The study by an American university appears to provide scientific proof that the best man, or woman, does not always win. It found that, on average, the last competitor to appear in the Eurovision Song Contest was more than twice as likely to win as the one who went on first.
The first rounds of figure—skating championships, for which the running order is selected at random, showed more dramatic results. The final skater had a 14 percent chance of victory, making him or her more than four times as likely to win as the first skater.
The study showed a gradual worsening of chances for competitors who appeared earlier in the running order. A contestant who appears first in a contest is two percent less likely to win than one who appears second. A contestant who appears second is two percent less likely to win than one who appears third, and so on.
The findings are published in the March issue of Acta Psychologica, a scientific journal. Robert Hardman, a senior lecturer in psychology at London Metropolitan University who specializes in the science of decision-making, said that the results were interesting. He suggested that the effect was caused by the limitations of the human memory.
"When people make comparison, they aren't really able to make a lot of fine-grade discrimination. When contestants appear at the beginning of a contest, judges have little to compare them to and are perhaps cautious about the scores they give." he said.
"Later on, when judges are able to compare the contestants to those that have gone before, they might give more extreme marks because they feel more confident about their judgments."
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