Bad luck always seems to strike at the worst possible moment. A man about to

Bad luck always seems to strike at the worst possible moment. A man about to interview for his dream job gets stuck in traffic. A law student Taking her final exam wakes up with a blinding headache. A runner twists his ankle minutes before a big race. These are all perfect examples of
cruel fate (命运）.
Or are they? Psychologists who study such common accidents now believe that in many instances they may be carefully arranged schemes of the subconscious mind and that people often engage in a form of self-defeating behavior known as self-handicapping—or, in plain terms, excuse-making. It’s a simple process： By taking on a crippling handicap, a person makes it more likely that he or she will fail at an endeavor (努力，事业）.Though it seems like a crazy thing to do, researchers say it is actually a clever trick of the mind, one that sets up a win-win situation by allowing a person to save face when he or she does fail.
A classic self-handicapper is the French chess player Deschapelles who quickly became champion of his region. But when competition grew tougher, he adopted a new condition for all
matches： He would compete only if his opponent would remove one of Deschapelles’ pawns (〈国
际象棋中的〉兵，卒）and make the first move，increasing the odds (概率)that Deschapelles would lose. If he did lose, he could blame it on the other player's advantage； but if he won against such odds, he would be more respected for his amazing talents. Psychologists now use the term “Deschapelles coup” to refer to acts of self-handicapping prevailing in today’s world.
Overall, men are more likely than women to make excuses. Several studies suggest that men feel the need to appear competent in all realms, while women worry only about the skills in which

they’ve invested heavily. Ask a man and a woman to go scuba diving (水肺潜水）for the first time, and the woman is likely to jump in, while the man is likely to first make it known that he's not feeling too well.
In fact, the people most likely to become chronic excuse makers are those obsessed with success, says the researcher. Such people are so afraid of being labeled a failure at anything that they constantly develop one handicap or another in order to explain their failures.
Self-handicapping may be an effective way of coping with performance anxiety. In the end, researchers say, it is a Faustian bargain (浮士德契约）.Over the long run, excuse makers fail to live up to their true potential. And despite their protests to the contrary, they have only themselves to
blame.

Which of the following is the chief topic of the passage?
1. An analysis on how people avoid failure.
2. A comparison between the ways men and women avoid failure.
3. The story of a classic self-handicapper, Deschapelles.
4. The psychological tricks some people use to avoid failure.
It can be inferred from the passage that a student who wanted to engage in self-handicap-ping would most probably .
1. work as hard as possible for an important exam
2. try to cheat on a test to get a high score
3. get drunk the night before a big exam
4. take down only the key points in the class
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
1. Men are more competent than women in most trades.
2. Deschapelles’ way of self-handicapping was to give his opponents more advantages.
3. By self-handicapping, Deschapelles succeeded in showing the true limits of his ability.
4. Men are more ready to face new challenges than women.
By saying “it is a Faustian bargain,” researchers mean that .
1. self-handicapping is often an effective method of dealing with anxiety
2. chronic excuse-making is an indication of one's depression
3. excuse-makers will suffer from the destructive behavior eventually
4. self-handicapping behavior is a difficult and complex process to understand