(本文选自《经济学人》20201128期)

背景介绍：

随着新冠肺炎疫情的爆发与蔓延，自今年2月起，许多国家陆续关闭了学校，时至今日，仍有许多身处疫情严重地区的学生未能回到教室。同时，受疫情影响，许多国家甚至取消了各类考试，但由此也带来了一个问题，没了考试，该如何对学生的学业情况进行评估?

Exams are grim, but most alternatives are worse

考试纵然残酷，但仍比其他方式要好

Despite covid-19, schoolchildren should still sit exams

虽然疫情肆虐，但学生们还是应该参加考试

Around the world covid-19 has messed up children’s education. They began to be shut out of classrooms all the way back in February. Even in countries where schools have stayed open, lessons and tests have been disrupted. Some countries pressed ahead with national exams this year.

新冠肺炎疫情的袭来打乱了孩子们的学习计划。自今年2月起，世界各地的孩子们就无法回到教室了。即使在那些学校仍照常开课的国家，课程和考试也受到了影响。

A few others, including Britain, France and Ireland, cancelled them all. They came up with new ways of awarding grades instead. The fact that big exams have proved so vulnerable to disruption has led to new questions about their usefulness. Are there better ways of measuring what children have learned?

而英国、法国和爱尔兰等其他一些国家甚至已经取消了考试。于是，老师们想出了一种新的评分方式。事实证明，大型考试很容易受到影响，这引发了人们对其实用性的思考。有没有一种更好的方式能够对学生的学业情况进行评估?

Exams have plenty of problems. They are often unreliable; a study in Israel found that test-takers’ performance can be affected by smog. Many children find them stressful. Plenty of places run them badly. School-leavers in China are often set questions that require them to parrot propaganda.

考试存在着诸多弊端。考试成绩不一定可靠——以色列的一项研究发现，考生的发挥可能会受到雾霾的影响。面对考试，许多孩子感到压力很大。许多地方考试题目的设计也不合理。在中国，毕业升学考试往往会设计一些死记硬背的题目。

Poorly written test papers in developing countries lead to wild swings in pass rates. Countries, including Algeria and Ethiopia, have resorted to shutting down the internet at exam time to prevent cheating.

在一些发展中国家，欠佳的试题设计致使考试及格率大幅波动。包括阿尔及利亚和埃塞俄比亚在内的一些国家会在考试期间切断网络，以防止有人作弊。

Yet most of the world’s best-performing school systems retain some kind of high-stakes tests, and for good reason. Other kinds of assessments are rarely better and many are worse. If teachers are responsible for appraising their pupils’ work, they may reinforce their own biases. Studies have caught them giving lower grades to students from ethnic minorities or those who are fat.

然而，全球大多数顶尖学府仍保留了一些重大考试，这么做是有道理的。其他评估方式往往都不如考试。如果由老师来评价学生的学业情况，那么可能会进一步放大他们对学生的偏见。研究发现，老师们往往会给少数民族学生或肥胖学生较低的分数。

Grades in American high schools are inflating fast, in part because pushy middle-class parents insist their little darlings deserve better. A glut of top marks makes it even harder for clever pupils from poor homes to stand out.

美国高中生的考试成绩正在迅速上涨，这在一定程度上是由于固执己见的中产阶级父母们总觉得自己的小宝贝应该取得更好的成绩。过多的高分使得天资聪慧的寒门子弟更难脱颖而出。

Forgoing exams does not always alleviate pupils’ anxiety. Some would rather be tested at the end of their course than have their work constantly assessed. Coursework can waste students’ efforts by encouraging them to tweak a few projects endlessly. That leaves less time for other kinds of learning.

取消考试并不总能缓解学生的焦虑情绪。有些人宁愿在学期末参加考试，也不愿意平日里疲于应对各种学业评估。学生反复修改几项课程作业的同时也消耗了自身精力。这反而会挤占他们学习其他内容的时间。

The pandemic should not alter these judgments much. It is true that officials in England, where important exams were cancelled, would have found it easier to calculate which grades to hand out if their system had allowed pupils to acquire some marks in advance of their final tests.

疫情之下，我们不该太过改变评价学生的方式。的确，英国取消了许多重要考试，当地教育官员们会发现，只要他们改变教育体制，让学生们在期末考试前就能取得一些分数，这样也很容易给学生算出期末成绩。

But other places managed to plough ahead with exams. Countries as diverse in their success against covid-19 as China, Germany and Spain all held some kind of examination this year, even if they changed the format.

但其他地方仍在继续举办考试。一些抗击疫情较为成功的国家(例如中国、德国和西班牙等)今年也都举办了各类考试，当然考试形式可能不同于往常。

(红色标注词为重难点词汇)

重难点词汇：

vulnerable [ˈvʌlnərəbl] adj. 易受…的攻击;易受伤害的

pushy [ˈpʊʃi] adj. 有冲劲的;固执己见的

alleviate [əˈliːvieɪt] vt. 减轻，缓和

tweak [twiːk] v. 扭;调整;用力拉;焦急