Against Laxity in Grading

驳大学评分松弛

Educators in the USA are aware: it has become much too easy to get A's these days. They're calling for a return to the standards of yesteryear.

这一点，美国教育界人士是非常清楚的。那就是现在学生考试得个A是件唾手可得的事。因此，这些教育家们正在呼吁恢复以前的考试等级评判标准。

A major assault is being mounted by the nation's colleges and universities against laxity in grading that is showering A's and B's on hundreds of thousands of undeserving students.

现在，一项比较大的反对松弛的评分制度的运动在全国高等院校中发起。这个评分制度把A和B等级很容易的评给几十万个达不到AB等级的人。

Target of this thrust is a situation, prent in U.S. higher education, that is becoming the despair of employers and graduate school trying to judge the merit of applicants loaded down by high but often inflated grades.

当前如此松弛的评分在整个美国高等教育中普遍存在，这也经常让企事业单位在招聘人才时感到绝望。而研究生院也得竭力心思来判断这些申请人高等级的分数是否为浮夸的等级。

At Princeton University during the fall term of 1974-75, nearly 70 percent of total grades were A's and B's. Seventy-six percent of Duke University 's undergraduates earned A's and B's lat fall. Sidney Simon, professor of education at the University of Massachusetts , called college grading systems “archaic prescientific, bureaucratic inventions,” and “about as accurate as police estimates of crowds of peace marches.”

在1974-75年秋季学期，普林斯顿大学占总数近70%的人都得到了A或者B等级，而公爵大学76%的本科生得到了A或者B。马萨诸塞大学教学教授西德尼·西蒙把大学评分制度时说成是“近代科学之前的腐朽官僚化的发明”和“和警察评估和平示威游行群众人数一样准确。”

It was in the late 1960s, during the student revolt, that hard grading went out of style. To many students then, grades symbolized “elitism”, a way of making demeaning distinctions between human beings. Hundreds of colleges and universities proceed to establish pass fail systems, which made no distinction between brilliant students and the run-of-the-mill variety.

20世纪60年代后期，那时候学生反抗，那种严格的评分制度也就退出了历史舞台。从那以后，对很多学生而言，高分成为“精英族”的象征。获得高分就可以缩小人与人之间的差距。几百所学院和大学都趋向于建立一种无挂科系统，使得优秀学生和平庸学生之间没有明显的差距。

But tough grading is now wanted. There is a widespread demand for “hard” grading as found in November 1975, from campus to campus. Students said they want to know where they stand in school—and so do their parents. The same response turned up at graduate schools, which need screen large numbers of applicants knocking at their doors , and the business world, which relies on grades in hiring college graduates.

但是目前形势需要的是严格的评分标准。1975年11月，从各大校园中就可以看到这种“严格”评分标准的广泛迫切性了。学生们要知道他们在学校里的整体排名，孩子父母也想看到孩子的表现。研究生院校也有同样的需要，这样他们就可以屏蔽大批量的申请者扰人。商业界更是根据分数来雇用大学生。

A number of universities are thinking about requiring seniors to pass a special comprehensive examination before graduating. In such ways U.S. universities are trying now to restore the integrity of grades and grading.

有部分大学甚至正在考虑让大四学生在毕业前再进行一次特殊的综合性考试。通过这些方法，美国高等学校正在逐渐恢复成绩和评分制度的一致性。