Anthropology sophomore Van Truong recently combined art and biology in an effort to ace her final exam in December. While most of her college mates used lists and flashcards to memorize stuff, Van used a whiteboard to write out all her notes in the form of ‘Starry Night’, Van Gogh’s famous masterpiece.

最近，为在12月的考试中取得拿高分，人类学专业大二学生梵·张把生物学和艺术结合在一起。她多数大学同学都用列表或卡片去记忆事物，而梵用白板记录她所有的笔记，构成梵高大作“星空”的形状。

“I knew I had to study for this exam, and I knew I’d be writing on this whiteboard for hours,” she said. “So I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if I did it in a form where people didn’t know how to feel about it?’”

她说：“我知道我必须准备这门考试，也清楚要在白板上写上几个小时，所以就想，如果我把笔记构成一个什么形状，大家会不会觉得很有趣呢？”

So when she got to Smathers Library on the University of Florida’s Gainesville campus, she started to write down all her notes with the words forming a replica of Van Gogh’s iconic painting. Three hours later, the masterpiece was complete.

于是，她去了佛罗里达大学盖恩斯维尔校区的司马瑟斯图书馆写下她的笔记，构成梵高标志性作品的形状。三个小时后，大作完成。

Truong said that the special technique helped her keep awake during the grueling study session, and actually learn more than she normally would have. “I knew if I had to read through a packet of notes, I’d fall asleep,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I would’ve lasted three hours just going through notes. I can explain chronologically the order of where I placed each word on that Starry Night replica better than a sequence of events in evolutionary history.”

张说，这种方法使她在繁重枯燥的复习中保持清醒，也帮助她比使用普通的学习方法学到更多的东西。她承认：“我知道要是我读成本的笔记一定会昏昏欲睡，肯定坚持不了三个小时。我能说出我在‘星空’中放置的每个词语的顺序，比讲历史事件的发生顺序说的还好。”

And the reason she chose ‘Starry Night’ was because of its composition. She realized that a painting of a person might look disjointed if made out of words. But she could easily make the sentences look like Van Gogh’s beautiful, wavy brush strokes.

她选择星空的原因是星空独特的结构。张觉得用词语画肖像画可能会看上去很乱，但是星空就不一样了。她可以轻松地用句子模拟梵高美妙起伏的笔触。

The young anthropology student is no stranger to original art. Last year, she and a friend recreated Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa using seaweed that had washed up on shore near her home.

张对原创艺术很熟悉。去年，她和朋友用她家附近海岸冲上来的海带重画达芬奇的名作蒙娜丽莎的微笑。

Vocabulary

anthropology: 人类学

sophomore: 大学二年级学生

ace: 得分

grueling: 累人的

packet: 数据包，信息包

disjointed: 杂乱的

(译者：小霹雳 编辑：祝兴媛)