专八阅读训练：Examinations Exert a Pernicious Influence on Education

Examinations Exert a Pernicious Influence on Education

We might marvel at the progress made in every field ofstudy, but the methods of testing a person’s knowledge andability remain as primitive as ever they were. It really isextraordinary that after all these years, educationists have stillfailed to device anything more efficient and reliable thanexaminations. For all the pious claim that examinations text whatyou know, it is common knowledge that they more often do theexact opposite. They may be a good means of testing memory, or the knack of working rapidlyunder extreme pressure, but they can tell you nothing about a person’s 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 of failure in our society. Your whole future may be decided in onefateful day. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t feeling very well, or that your mother died. Littlethings like that don’t count: the exam goes on. No one can give of his best when he is in mortalterror, or after a sleepless night, yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him todo. The moment a child begins school, he enters a world of vicious competition where success andfailure 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 examinationsystem does anything but that. What has to be learnt is rigidly laid down by a syllabus, so thestudent is encouraged to memorize. Examinations do not motivate a student to read widely, butto restrict his reading; they do not enable him to seek more and more knowledge, but inducecramming. 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 theirsubjects, they are reduced to training their students in exam techniques which they despise. Themost successful candidates are not always the best educated; they are the best trained in thetechnique of working under duress.

The results on which so much depends are often nothing more than a subjective assessment bysome anonymous examiner. Examiners are only human. They get tired and hungry; they makemistakes. Yet they have to mark stacks of hastily scrawled scripts in a limited amount of time. Theywork under the same sort of pressure as the candidates. And their word carries weight. After ajudge’s decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner’s. There must surely bemany simpler and more effective ways of assessing a person’s true abilities. Is it cynical to suggestthat examinations are merely a profitable business for the institutions that run them? This is what itboils down to in the last analysis. The best comment on the system is this illiterate messagerecently scrawled on a wall: ‘I were a teenage drop-out and now I are a teenage millionaire.’

1. The main idea of this passage is
[A] examinations exert a pernicious influence on education.
[B] examinations are ineffective.
[C] examinations are profitable for institutions.
[D] examinations are a burden on students.

2. The author’s attitude toward examinations is
[A]detest.
[B] approval.
[C] critical.
[D] indifferent.

3. The fate of students is decided by
[A] education.
[B] institutions.
[C] examinations.
[D] students themselves.

4. According to the author, the most important of a good education is
[A] to encourage students to read widely.
[B] to train students to think on their own.
[C] to teach students how to tackle exams.
[D] to master his fate.

5. Why does the author mention court?
[A] Give an example.
[B] For comparison.
[C] It shows that teachers’ evolutions depend on the results of examinations.
[D] It shows the results of court is more effectise.