Do Examinations Do More Harm Than Good?

                                        Text

                                On Eggs and Exams   鸡蛋和考试

    I've been acting like an egg striking a rock. What is this egg? It's the campaign against the old-fashioned way of teaching Intensive Reading . And what' s the rock?. It' s the old-fashioned way of setting exams. So long as the old type of I.R. examination remains in force, the campaign against the old method of teaching I.R. can't win. It's like an egg striking a rock.

     我的行动就象是以卵击石。这个鸡蛋是什么？它就是对应试教学法的反对。什么是岩石？它就是应试考试的方式。只要应试考试仍然有效，反对应试教学法的行动就不可能赢。

    Many people agree: Yes, this old-fashioned I.R. (OFIR) is certainly intensive; it calls for most intensive work by the students. But it doesn't teach them how to read. The more intensively the students study, the fewer books they read.

    许多人同意：是，这种古板的应试I.R. (OFIR)教学一定是高度集中的; 它要求由学生来做高强度的工作。但是它不教他们如何读。学生的学习越集中，他们读的书越少。
    And OFIR doesn't teach them language well either. Learning a language means learning to use it. OFIR doesn't do that. It teaches mainly about the language.

    并且应试OFIR不教他们学好语言。 学会语言就意味着学会使用它。 OFIR不那样做, 它主要教语言。

     Well, if so many teachers and students agree that OFIR doesn't teach people how to read, why aren't they willing to give it up? Because of that rock - the rock of the old examination system. If that rock is not smashed, the egg is smashed. The campaign against OFIR can't be won.

     那么，既然许多老师和学生知道应试OFIR不教人们阅读，为什么他们不愿意放弃它？因此老式应试考试这个岩石。如果那个岩石没有捣毁，鸡蛋捣毁。反对应试OFIR的行动就不可能取胜。
    Many I. R. exams, until now, have actually include reading material studied during the term. Does that examim how well the students have learnt to read? No. It examine how well they have learnt by heart the reading texts and the explanations the teacher has given them. A student might get high marks on such a test without having learnt to read much better than before she took the course. A true test would consist
of unseen passages. That would show how well a studew could read and how much she had learnt.

     实际上许多应试考试，直到现在，每学期都有学习读物。那些考试对学生学习阅读有什么帮助吗? 没有.因为它只是考察学生背会了多少书本和老师给他们的解释说明。在这样一个不需要学会阅读的应试考试中,和上课之前相比,一个学生可以在这方面获得很高的分数.而一个真实的测试由看不见的文章组成. 它能显示学生阅读的程度以及内容。
    Is that so important? Yes. A college student should know how to read and should learn to read much and fast. She should, on graduation, have read hundreds and hundreds of pages, dozens and dozens of books. .
    那是否很重要？是。大学生应该会读并且应该学会快速地大量的阅读。 她应该，在毕业时候，已经读了数百和上百页、十二个和数十本书。

    How else can our students inherit the knowledge that mankind has gained through the ages? For that is what China must do in order to modernize.

    除了这种办法之外我们的学生又怎么能继承人类一代一代的文化遗产？ 那是中国为了现代化必须做的。
    Of course, reading in itself is not enough. We must think - think about what we read and analyze its content, idea, and approach. "Cultivate the habit of analysis." That is the aim of education. But we must have something solid to analyze. We must have some knowledge of the world, of nature, of society, past and present, Chinese and foreign. So we must read much. Therefore we must learn to read fast.

    当然，只是阅读还不够。 我们必须思考,分析它的内容、想法和方法。 “培养分析习惯”。那是教育的目标。但是我们必须有坚实的事实去分析。我们必须有有关世界的一些知识,自然的,社会的，过去的和现在的，中国的和外国的。因此我们必须学会快速地和大量地阅读。 
    Naturally, we do need to know something about the language. We do need to know some grammar. But grammar is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. For grammar, after all, is theory. And "what is theory for and where does it come from ? It comes from practice and serves practice." The same applies to grammar. So we need to do some intensive reading for the sake of extensive reading, for the sake of reading whole articles, whole books. A little theory goes a long way. The final test is practice.

    自然，我们确实需要学习语言。我们需要知道一些语法。但是语法本身不是我们的目的。对我们的目的来说它只是手段。语法终究是理论。并且“理论的目的和它的来源是什么？它来自实践并且服务实践”。同样适用于语法。因此为了读全部文章，全部书，我们需要为广泛的读书做一些集中的阅读。一个小小的理论走了很长的路。最后的考试是实践。
    True, reading is far from the only source of knowledge. Reading without observing life and taking part in life, without experimenting, will produce bookworms, not modernizers.
    其实，阅读远远不是获取知识的唯一来源。 如果阅读离开对生活的观察和体验,将成为书痴，而不是现代人。

    This does not show that all kinds of I. R. are absolutely useless and should be scrapped. Some I . R . should be kept but it should be kept within limit. It should not be "the super-power course", riding roughshod over the language curriculum
and taking over most of the timetable. And what I . R . we keep and teach should not be so long and so hard that the teacher is forced to use the duck-stuffing, lecturing method. And it should not just focus on "words, words, words ". It should focus on meaning, on ideas, on understanding, on communication - on forests as well as on
trees.

    这不表示，各种各样应试教育是绝对无用的，并且应该废弃。有些部分应试教育应该保留，但是应该是有限地保留。它不应该设立“超级课程”，完全不顾语言教学且占用大多数时间。我们保留的应试教育不应该这样长和这样难,以免老师被迫使用填鸭教学方法。并且它不应该仅局限于“词汇”, 它应该专注于意思，想法，了解，交流,也就是要关心森林而不只是树木. 
    But as long as students are forced to get good marks in order to get good jobs; and as long as teachers want their students to get good marks so that they themselves can gain fame as good teachers, then everything depends on examinations. It depends on what sort of exams

we teachers set and the educational authorities demand. Until we reform our exams we can hardly reform our teaching methods.

    但是，只要学生被迫追求高分和好工作，只要老师想要他们的学生得到好成绩，以便他们自己可以获得好老师的名望，那么一切就取决于考试。它取决于我们老师设置的考试和教育行政部门的要求。除非我们改革我们的考试否则我们可以几乎不可能改变我们的教学方法。
    So let's launch a new campaign, to discuss and reform the exam system; and at the same time continue the campaign against OFIR, the super-power. We need to fight on two fronts at once. Otherwise we'll be eggs striking rocks.

    因此让我们展开一场新的行动，谈论和改革考试制度, 并且同时坚持反对应试教育，以及超级大课。我们现在需要马上开始这场行动。否则我们将是以卵击石。

II. Read
    Read the following passages. Underline the important viewpoints while reading.

                    l. Different Views about Examinations  

    读以下段落。阅读时划出重要观点。

    l. 关于考试的不同的看法

John:   Examinations do more harm than good!
Michae:   I agree. We spend so much time revising for examinations that we
   haven't enough time for new work!

约翰： 考试弊大于利!
Michae ： 我同意。 我们非常花费时间去对付考试,没有足够的时间去准备新的工作!
Joan:   I don't agree. Without exams, no one would do any revision. We would soon
   forget everything.
Linda:   That's right. The only time I do any work is when there's going to be an
   exam! That's true of everyone, isn't it?

Joan ： 我不同意。 没有考试，没人复习。 我们很快会忘记一切。
Linda ： 那是不错。 我只有在考试之前才会复习! 大家确实是这样，是不是？
John:   No, I don't think so. Many people work steadily all the time, and they 
   remember what they learn. That's better than doing no work for weeks
   and then working all night before the examination. If there were
   no exams, more people would work like that, don't you agree?
Joan:   No, I don't think so. I think many people wouldn't do any work at all.
   I know I wouldn't.

约翰： 不，我不这样认为。 许多人一直持续地工作并且记住了他们学到的东西。 比考试之前临时抱佛脚要好的多. 如果没有考试,会有更多的人持续学习而不是临时突击,您同意吗?
Joan ： 不，我不如此认为。 我认为会有许多人根本不做任何工作。我知道我不会。
Linda:   Of course not. Besides, without exams, how could an employer
   decide whether to give us jobs?
John:   The teachers could write reports about us. Examinations can be
   unreliable, don't you think so? Our teachers know as well, don't they?
Linda:   Yes, they do. That's why I would rather have an examination!

  琳达：当然不会。另外，没有考试，雇主怎么能决定是否给我们工作？
John ： 老师可能写关于我们的报告。 考试有可能不可靠，您这样认为吗？ 我们的老师也一样，是不是？
Linda ：是。所以我宁愿有一次考试!          

            2. The General Certificate of Education at O Level

                              基本级别普通教育证书

    When people discuss education they insist that preparation for examiriations
is not the main purpose. They are right in theory, but in practice, we all realize how importarit examinations are. What do you know about the examinations taken at English secondary schools?

     当人们谈论教育时他们坚持考试的各种准备不是主要目的。他们在理论上是对的，但是实践上，我们全部意识到考试是多么重要。你知道英国中学考试的情况吗？

Here are a few facts about some of them. .
    Pupils who remain at school until they are sixteen normally take what is called the Geneial Certificate of Education at Ordinary level. The examination is a subject examination. This means you can take a number of subjects. Some pupils take as many as ten. The more subjects the better chance a pupil has of getting a job on leaving school.

     这有相关的一些事实。
     在学校，学生到了十岁六通常取得普通水平教育证书。考试是单科考试。你可以参与多学科的测试。有些学生报考科目多达十个。学生报考的科目越多，在他离开学校后得到工作的机会就越好。

                 3. Homework Row Led to the Death of a Girl

                       大量的作业导致女孩死亡

 

     A nine-year old girl was beaten to death by her mother for failing to finish the day's homework in time.

     一名9岁女童，因未能及时完成当天的功课被她的母亲殴打致死。

      Liu Lin was a third-year pupil in a primary school in a Tibetan autonomous
prefecture in Northwest Qinghai Province: She was one of the best students in her school, according to yesterday's Workers' Daily.
     根据昨天的《工人日报》，刘林是青海省西北部一所小学三年级的藏族学生，她是这所学校里最好的学生之一。

     But on July 10, she did not do her arithmetic homework when Sun Fengxia, her mother, got home from work at 16:00 p.m.

     但在7月10日下午16:00，她的母亲孙风霞下班回家时，她没有做她的算术功课的时候，

    Sun severely beat her daughter with a rolling pin, the newspaper said.
    By 19:30 p.m. that evening, she found that her daughter had done only part of the homework, and she became even more angry.Sun slapped her daughter in the face and kicked her, according to the paper.Lin became unconscious and later died despite efforts of doctors to save her.
        Such cases are not rare in China.

    孙用擀面杖毒打女儿。到当天晚上19:30时，她发现，她的女儿只做了功课的一部分，她变得更加愤怒。孙掌掴她的脸，踢她的女儿。林昏迷，后来尽管医生努力抢救也没能拯救她的生命。
     这类案件在中国并不罕见。

     In December last year in the province, Wu Yuxia beat her nine-year old son Xia Fei to death . She later committed suicide in a prison.
    In Dalian of Northeast Liaoning Province, Li Liansheng beat his 14- year old son Li Guobin to death in March last year because the boy was playing truant.
    In Nanjing, capital of coastal Jiangsu Province, 19-year old Wang Lin killed his parents at home because they forced him to try to get good marks in examinations.

      去年12月在该省，吴吁瑕打死了她9岁的儿子夏飞。她后来在狱中自杀。
      去年三月，在东北辽宁省大连市，因为男孩子逃学，李连生打死了他的14岁的儿子李国宾。
      在江苏省沿海城市南京，19岁的王林在家里杀死了他的父母，因为他们试图迫使他在考试中取得好成绩。

 

                     4. Examinations Are Primitive Methods
                        of Testing Knowledge and Ability

                         考试是测试知识和能力的原始方法

      We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study, but the methods of testing a Person's knowledge and ability remain as primitive as they ever were. It really is extraordinary that after all these years, educationists have still failed to devise anything more efficient and reliable than examinations. For all the pious claim that examinations test what you know, it is cotnmon knowledge that they more often do the exact opposite. They may be a good means of testing memory, or the knack of working rapidly under extreme pressure, but they can tell you nothing about a person's true ability and aptitude.

     我们可能会惊讶，在各个研究领域取得进步的时候，测试一个人的知识和能力的考试仍然是过去就有的原始方法。这真的是很了不起，经过这些年来，教育家仍没有制定出比考试更有效更可靠的东西。尽管所有那些虔诚的说法说考试能测定你所知道的东西，但其结果常常是适得其反，这是众所周知的常识。他们可能是测试记忆的好方法或者是极大压力下迅速工作的诀窍，但它不能告诉你一个人的真实才能。

 

                         5. Examinations Are Anxiety-makers

                                  考试是焦虑制造者

 

    As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none. That is because so much depends on them. They are the mark of success or failure in our society. Your whole future may be decided in one fateful day. It doesn't matter that you weren't feeling very well, or that your mother died. Little things like that don't count: the exam goes on. No one can give of his best when he is in mortal terror,or after a sleepless night, yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him to do. The moment a child begins school, he enters a world of vicious competition where success and failure are clearly defined and measured. Can we wonder at the increasing number of "drop-outs": young people who are written off as utter failures before they have even embarked on a career? Can we be surprised at the suicide rate among students?

　   考试是首屈一指的焦虑制造者。这是因为太多的东西取决于它们。他们是我们在社会成败的标志。你的整个未来可能在一个重要的日子中决定。这个时候，你是不是感觉非常好，或者您的母亲去世都已经不再重要，要紧的是所有的小事情放在一边，考试下去。
     当他在极大的恐惧，或者在不眠之夜后，没有人可以给他最好的。但是这正是考试制度希望他做的。从孩子开始上学的时候起，他就进入了一个恶性竞争的世界里，成功和失败被明确界定和衡量。我们怎能奇怪那些越来越多的“辍学生”，年轻人甚至在开始职业生涯之前就被视为失败者？难道学生自杀率让我们感到吃惊吗？

 

                     6. The Examination System Never Trains
                             You to Think for Yourself

　　　　　　　　　　　　考试制度从来不训练你为你自己着想

    A good education should, among other things, train you to think for yourself. The examination system does anything but that. What has to be learnt is rigidly laid down by a syllabus, so the student is encouraged to memorise. Examinations do not motivate a student to read widely, but to restrict his reading; they do not enable him to seek more and more knowledge, but induce cramming. They lower the standards of teaching, for they deprive the teacher of all freedom. Teachers themselves are often judged by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects, they are reduced to training their students in exam technipues which they despise. The most successful, candidates are not always the best educated; they are the best trained in the technique of working under duress.

 　　良好的教育应是，除其他外，训练你为自己着想。而这个考试制度，做了许多却没有这项内容。硬性教学大纲严格地规定了教学内容，因此学生被鼓励记忆。考试不鼓励学生广泛阅读，而是限制其阅读，他们不使他能够寻求更多的知识，但诱导恶补式的填鸭教学。他们降低教学的标准，完全剥夺老师们的教学自由。教师自身的评价往往是考试成绩，而不是他们的教学科目，他们不得不训练学生们的应试技巧。那些最成功的人和候选人，并非都受过最好的教育，而是最懂得如何在受到强制的条件下进行工作的人。

 

                    7. Exam Is a Subjective Assessment by Some
                                 Anonymous Examiner

　　　　　　　　　　　　　考试是一些匿名考官的主观评估

 

    The results on which so much depends are often nothing more than a subjective assessment by some anonymous examiner. Examiners are only human. They get tired and hungry: they make mistakes. Yet they have to mark stacks of hastily scrawled scripts in a limited amount of time. They work under the same sort of pressure as the candidates. And their word carries weight.

　　这么多的依赖的结果，往往只不过是一些匿名考官的主观评估。考官也是人。他们会又累又饿和犯错误。然而，他们不得不在限定的时间内，给一大堆匆忙写成的笔试答卷批分。他们工作在和候选人竞选相似的压力下。而他们的每一句话都有分量。

 　　After a judge's decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner's. There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways of assessing a person's true abilities. Is it cynical to suggest that examinations are merely a profitable business for the institutions that run them? This is what it boils down to in the last analysis. The best comment on the system is this illiterate message recently scrawled on a wall: "I were a teenage drop-out and now I are a teenage millionaire. "

　　　分数下来之后你有查分的权利，但是在知道成绩之后。肯定是有很多更简单，更有效地评价一个人的真正能力的方法。是否玩世不恭暗示考试只是一个赚钱的机构在运行它们的生意？这是最后的分析得出的结论。在系统上最好的意见是一个文盲最近在墙上潦草的留言：“我是一个十几岁的辍学者，现在我是一个十几岁的百万富翁。”