We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study, but the methods of testing a persons knowledge and ability remain as primitive as ever they 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 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 nothing about a persons true ability and aptitude.
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 doesnt matter that you werent feeling very well, or that your mother dies. Little things like that dont count: the exam goes on. No one can give of his best when he is in mortal terror, or after 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?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 memories. 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 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.
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 judges decision on you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiners. There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways of assessing a persons true abilities. It is 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.
薄冰英语语法:虚拟语气
浅谈将来进行时(二)
基础英语轻松学【6】你办年货了吗?
从句与先行词一致原则
基础英语轻松学【5】杀价绝技大公开!
基础英语轻松学【12】丘比特之恋(1)
浅谈倒装句
浅谈将来进行时
透彻讲解倒装
感叹句结构
基础英语轻松学【11】情人节的由来
基础英语轻松学【14】用嫉妒测试你的爱情
连词的用法(2)
worth 的用法
浅谈倒装句(三)
基础英语轻松学【13】丘比特之恋(2)
基础英语轻松学【2】童话英语(2)
基础英语轻松学【8】天人和一的境界——瑜珈
基础英语轻松学【19】站在剪刀的边缘
基础英语轻松学【9】美丽因为优酸乳
并列连词和并列结构
基础英语轻松学【32】霓虹灯,城市环境的隐形杀手
词语辨析精讲 三十五
基础英语轻松学【10】迷信的美国人
基础英语轻松学【16】一切尽在掌握?
基础英语轻松学【3】童话英语(3)
基础英语轻松学【21】阵阵花香,帮你疗伤
基础英语轻松学【31】愚人节特别提示:见到钞票也不能捡
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