公共英語PETS三級閲讀與翻譯試題日常訓練

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 ever they were. It really is extraordinary that after all these years, educationists have still failed to device anything more efficient and reliable than examinations. 我們可能對學科的每個領域所取得的進步感到大為驚異，然而測試一個人的知識和能力的方法依然原始如初。確實是令人吃驚，這麼多年以後，教育家們還沒有找到比考試更為有效和可靠的手段。

For all the pious claim that examinations test what you know, it is common 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.考試就是測驗你知道什麼，對於所有這些虔誠的説法，普遍認為往往適得其反。考試可能是檢驗記憶力，或者在極度緊張的情況下發現快速工作竅門的好方法。但是它不能告訴你一個人的真正能力和智能究竟怎樣。

As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none. That is because so much depends on them. They are the mark of success of 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. 作為製造焦慮者，考試是最好的手段。這是因為它決定着很多事。它是一個人在社會中成功或失敗的標誌。在事關命運的`一天裏你的整個前途就被決定下來了。它不管你當時的心情很糟糕，或者你的母親已去世。像那樣的小事不足掛齒：考試依然進行。當身陷致命的恐懼中或經過一個無眠之夜後，沒人能發揮出他的最佳水平，不過這正是考試製度期望他這樣做的。

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?從孩子開始上學的那一刻起，他就走進了一個成功和失敗界限分明和可以衡量的惡毒競爭之中。我們會對數目不斷增加的“輟學者”——甚至在年輕人開始事業之前認為他已完全失敗——感到詫異嗎？面對學生的自殺率我們能感到吃驚嗎？

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 memorize. 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. 一種好的教育應當包括培養你獨立的能力。而考試製度絕對沒有這樣的作用。必須學的東西被強硬地用課程大綱給制定出來，鼓勵學生去死記。考試不能激勵學生去廣泛閲讀，而是限制他閲讀；考試不能使學生探索越來越多的知識，而是起到填鴨式的作用。

They lower the standards of teaching, for they deprive the teacher of all freedoms. Teachers themselves are often judged by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects, they are reduced to training their students in exam techniques 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. 考試促使降低教學標準，因為它剝奪了老師的一切自由。對老師本人教學水平的評判通常就是看學生的考試成績。老師們不去教授他們的課，而是簡化教學，對學生進行他們嗤之以鼻的考試技巧培訓。最成功的投考者不總是知識水平最高者；他們是高壓之下掌握考試技巧最老練者。

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. After a judge’s decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner’s. 眾多因素所依賴的考試成績只不過是某個匿名主考者的主觀評價。主考官們都是人。他們會變累，會飢餓，還會出錯。然而，他們不得不在有限的時間內為大隊的匆匆草書的試卷判分。跟投考者一樣，他們也在相同的壓力之下工作，不過他們的話很有分量。在鑑定人鑑定之後，而不是主考官判卷後，你才有權提出查卷的申請。

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.”評判一個人真實能力肯定有很多更簡單和跟有效的方法。提出考試僅僅是經營考試機構獲利的生意是否有點憤世嫉俗？這是最終分析得出的結論。對考試製度最好的評論是亂塗在牆上的這則沒受過教育的一句話：“我曾是一個十幾歲的輟學者，而現在我是一個十幾歲的百萬富翁。”