【11.06.10 外交政策】中国之大考
【中文标题】中国之大考【原文标题】The Big Test
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】CHRISTINA LARSON
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/10/the_big_test?page=0,2
中国令人伤透脑筋的高校入学测试——高考真的能选拔出这个国家最优秀、最有才智的人才吗？或者它是一项比SAT（译者注：美国升学能力测验）更加愚蠢和不公平的考试？
每年6月里的三天，喧嚣的中国会彻底安静下来。在上海，无所不在的建筑工地里的工人被放假，数千名身着制服的交通督导员走上街头，提醒司机不要鸣笛。这个国家其它城市中也会采取类似的降低噪音行动，目的是为中国大约900万高中毕业生提供一个尽可能安静的环境。这些学生携带着黄色铅笔，在一项他们认为将决定自己命运的考试中虔诚地写下答案——这就是高考。
高考是中国的大学入学考试，世界上最大规模的高风险测试。所有人都在同一时间参加考试——今年是6月7日到9日——而且只有一次机会。考试总共持续9个小时，科目包括数学、中文、英文，还有两个可选科目，比如地理、化学或者物理。在中国大陆，高考成绩是大学发放录取通知书的唯一标准。高分可以让远在甘肃的农民儿子进入著名的北京大学，低分只能让他进入经费不足、偏居一隅、校舍残破、低质教师的学校，甚至被大学拒之门外。
考试被理所当然地视为年轻人生命中一条鲜明的分界线。干得好，你就有机会进入精英群体；干得不好，你的前途几乎一片黑暗。这听起来似乎过于残酷，但在高考制度首次实行的时候，其背后隐藏了乌托邦式的梦想。毛泽东在文化大革命期间关闭了所有的学校，把知识分子发送到农村去劳动，文革结束之后，中国的大学重新开放，1977年正式开始入学考试。美国的SAT是由普林斯顿大学心理学家Carl Campbell Brigham设计，并在1926年首次举办的。与此相同，高考的目的也是选拔这个国家最优秀、最有才智的人才，让考试成绩——不是政治影响力和关系——成为接受大学教育的门票。简而言之，这个梦想是为了推崇贤者领导论。
但是，把这样一个伟大的希望寄托在如此单一的标准上，毫无疑问招致了诸多不满。在80年代，美国记者、《大考》一书的作者Nicholas Lemann和亚特兰大的James Fallows开始质疑SAT，考试“真的发掘出最优秀、最有才智的人了吗？”美国的教育工作者也在思考，对于考试的过分重视是否让转移了人们对其它学习方式的关注？中国也发生了类似的现象。尽管SAT与高考在内容方面有显著的区别，但中国的教育者、作家、父母和学生现在都站在同一战线上抨击高考制度：考试公平吗？考试的内容有用吗？有钱人有没有占便宜？对准备考试的过分重视排挤了其它学习内容吗？然而，由于缺少明确的替代方案，似乎不大可能出现大规模的改革。
李惠卿现在是南方城市广州著名的孙逸仙大学（译者注：应为中山大学）的高年级学生。她生在一个中学教师的家庭，在喧嚣的工业城市东莞长大。这个女孩性格外向、爱交际，戴着时髦的厚镜片眼镜，时时展现出笑容，喜欢美国流行音乐。她出色的高考成绩让她得以进入一所顶级大学。她将在一个月后毕业，之后进入深圳证券交易所实习，这是一个令人羡慕的好工作。换句话说，她是中国高风险考试体系的获胜者。但是当她回想在东莞实验高中的日子时，她开始质疑不惜一切代价准备高考的意义。
高中时，我所做的一切事情都是为了高考，我甚至想象不到自己离开学校之后还能做什么，或者变成什么样子。我唯一关心的事情就是进入一所顶级大学……我的同学和我几乎在校园中度过了所有的时间。我们在周末也不可以外出，或许只有星期天下午，在得到批准后可以出去买些东西。星期六晚上，父母会来看看我。大部分情况下，学生离开校园都需要教师的批准，还要有一个很好的理由。我们几乎是被关在学校里。他们认为，我们必须被关起来，这样才能保证学习走上正轨。他们的思想是，制度越严格成绩就越好。我们的父母一般不会提出异议，他们接受了这样的体制。
李现在觉得奇怪的是，她为准备考试所学到的知识在后来并非十分有用。进入大学之后，她很快就忘记了自己曾经花费四年时间记住的那些东西。她说，这些知识对“真实的生活并不重要。”她因此得出结论：“所有的学生都那么努力，只为了一个目标。我当时只是那样去做了，没有问过‘为什么？’可是现在我不这样想了，我做任何事情都需要知道原因。”
李对考试的感受——压力巨大，而对智力和发展潜力的判断并不精确——并非鲜见。在中国的研究人士和教育工作者中，对高考的批评已经存在了多年。去年，国有的《中国日报》甚至发表了一篇文章，追踪30年来的1000名高考状元，发现没有一个人在步入社会后有杰出的职业发展。
其它人在担心考试是否真正公平：进入最好高中的学生和父母花钱请最昂贵的私人教师的学生是否必然会取得好成绩？一位对此深深失望的大学官员对我说：“高考本应是一个最平等的机会，能向甘肃农民的儿子和上海官员的儿子打开同样的一道门。但这只是一个大大的谎言。考试并非一个有效的衡量标准，不要相信社会是建立在机会平等的基础上。”
有一些学生在试图完全规避高考。在上海工作的教育咨询师Lucia Pierce告诉我，越来越多的中国富裕家庭学生在想办法申请美国和其它国家的大学（他们因此要准备SAT）。中国一些顶级大学现在提供有限的提前录取名额，这些名额不需要高考，一般招收对象是获得过国家级别奖项的学生，他们要接受学校安排的额外测试。但这些方案仅适用于极少数高中毕业生。
至于高考的改革，前景似乎不甚明朗。北京大学附属高中的副校长蒋雪芹最近在外交杂志上发表了一篇长文，尝试探索替代方案，但文章最后承认这是一个失败的设想：
那么，如果我们从零开始建立一套替代高考的制度，我们最后还是会回到唯一的选择——高考。很多人似乎忘记了：人与人之间、组织与组织之前严重缺乏信任；大部分中国人依然极为贫困；中国腐败和不平等现象猖獗。无论好与坏，高考依然是最公平、最人性的分配中国（稀缺）教育资源的方式。
这种观点相当普遍。在一个遍地腐败和充满不信任的国家，很多人都认为所有的东西，包括教师的推荐信和毕业平均分，都贴有价格标签。考试尽管有其残酷性，但的确可以产生一个干净的数字成绩，而且这个成绩可以排序。就像一个北京语言文化大学（中等学校）的毕业生对我所说的：“如果没有高考，那只剩下‘关系’了。”
原文：
Does China's nerve-racking gaokao college-entrance exam really identify the country's best and brightest, or is it even sillier and more unfair than the SAT?
SHANGHAI — For three days each June, all of China quiets to a whisper. In Shanghai, the ever-present construction crews are furloughed, and thousands of uniformed signal guards are deployed to stop drivers from sounding their horns. Similar noise-reduction campaigns are put in place in other cities across the country. The aim is to provide the most peaceful atmosphere possible for China's roughly 9 million high school seniors, who, armed with yellow pencils, dutifully scribble answers on an exam they believe will shape their destiny: the gaokao, or "big test."
The gaokao is China's college-entrance exam, the world's largest high-stakes test. Everyone takes it at the same time -- June 7 to 9 this year -- and has only one shot. It lasts nine hours total and includes segments on math, Chinese, and English, plus two optional subjects, such as geography, chemistry, or physics. The results are the sole criteria determining college placement in mainland China. While a high score can win entry for a poor farmer's son in remote Gansu province to elite Peking University, a lackluster score can relegate him to an underfunded backwater school with peeling paint and unqualified professors, or shut fast the doors to college entirely.
The test is seen, rightly, as a bright dividing line in a young person's life. Do well, and you've earned a chance to join the elite; do poorly, and your prospects dim dramatically. That might sound harsh, but when the test was first launched, the vision behind it was utopian. Following the end of the Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong shut universities and sent intellectuals to labor in fields, China's universities were reopened and the entrance exam was launched in 1977. Like the United States' SAT, which was designed by Princeton University psychologist Carl Campbell Brigham and first administered in 1926, the aim of the gaokao was to identify the country's best and brightest -- to make high test scores, not political patronage or guanxi (relationships), the ticket to a university education. In short, the dream was to enshrine a meritocracy.
But pinning such grand hopes on a single yardstick invariably leads to discontent. In the 1980s, U.S. journalists such as Nicholas Lemann, author of The Big Test, and the Atlantic's James Fallows began to question whether the SATs, as the latter put it, "really discover the best and the brightest?" Educators in the United States have also wondered whether a focus on testing distracts from other forms of learning. So too in China, it turns out. Although the SAT and gaokao are quite different in their actual content, Chinese educators, writers, parents, and students now assail the gaokao along similar lines: Is the test fair? Is the information useful? Do the wealthy have a head start? Does an emphasis on test preparation crowd out other learning? Yet absent clear alternatives, no large-scale reform seems imminent.
Charisette Li is now a senior at prestigious Sun Yat-sen University in the southern city of Guangzhou. The daughter of a middle-school teacher, she grew up in the blackened industrial city of Dongguan. Gregarious and cheerful, with hip chunky glasses, a quick smile, and a penchant for American pop music, she achieved a high score that earned her admission to a top university. When she graduates in a month, she will begin an internship at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, an enviable perch. She is, in other words, someone who emerged a winner from China's high-stakes testing system. But looking back to her time boarding at Dongguan Experimental High School, she now questions the all-consuming imperative of studying for gaokao:
In high school, everything I did was about the gaokao. I can't even imagine what I was going to do or be after school. The only thing I have to care about was to get into a top university.... My classmates and I spent almost all our time on campus. We were not allowed to go out on weekdays, only maybe Sunday afternoon to buy some things, with permission. Or on Saturday night, our parents could visit. Mostly, to go out you needed a ticket from the teacher that you had an important reason. Otherwise we were mostly locked in. They thought we had to be locked in, in order to guarantee that we would all be on track. They thought: The stricter the rules, the better our grades will be. Usually our parents don't ask questions; they just accept the system.
The oddest thing, as Li sees it now, is that what she learned for the test wasn't terribly useful afterward. Once she started at university, she quickly forgot the battery of facts she had devoted the previous four years to memorizing. It wasn't "important to real life," she says, concluding, "All the students were working so hard toward one goal; I just did it without thinking, 'What for?' But now, I'm different -- now I want to know the reason for what I do."
Li's concerns about the test -- that the pressure is overwhelming, but its assessment of intelligence or future potential is imprecise -- are hardly unique. Among Chinese researchers and educators, criticism has been bubbling for years. Last year, even the state-run China Daily newspaper wrote about the results of a study tracking 1,000 top gaokao scorers over 30 years. Not one, the paper reported, had an outstanding career afterward.
Others worry about whether the test is truly fair: Do students who attend the best secondary schools and whose parents fork out for expensive test-prep tutors inevitably earn the highest scores? The gaokao is "expected to be the great equalizer, to ensure that a peasant's son from Gansu has the same doors open as a Shanghai official. But it is a noble lie," one disillusioned university official told me. "The test is not a useful measure, and the notion that society is built on equal access to opportunity is false."
A few students are now seeking to get around the test entirely. As Shanghai-based education consultant Lucia Pierce told me, an increasing number of wealthy Chinese students seek to be admitted to colleges in the United States and elsewhere (and thus study for the SATs instead). A handful of elite colleges in China now offer limited early-admissions slots that don't require the gaokao, typically for students who've won national awards in high school or taken additional tests offered by the schools. Yet both options are practical only for a sliver of graduates.
As for reforming the gaokao, the prospects seem dim. Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal at Peking University High School, recently penned a lengthy essay in the Diplomat exploring possible alternatives, but in the end admitted a failure of imagination:
So, if we were to start from scratch and try to build an alternative to the gaokao, we would end up with as the only viable alternative...the gaokao. That's what a lot of people tend to forget: that given the complete lack of trust in each other and in institutions, given the stifling poverty that most Chinese find themselves in, and given China's endemic corruption and inequality, the gaokao, for better or worse, is the fairest and most humane way to distribute China's education resources.
That sentiment is fairly widespread. In a country where corruption and suspicion are endemic, many believe that everything has a price, even favorable teacher recommendations and grade-point averages. The test, for all its brutality, does produce a clean numerical score -- and those scores can be ranked. As a recent graduate of Beijing Language and Culture University, a midtier school, told me: "If there was no gaokao, there would only be guanxi." LZ辛苦了 一个喜欢美国音乐的某人开始质疑高考 出口不信任闭口腐败，看看人家的宣传，在看看TG的宣传 如果没有高考，那只剩下‘关系’了。”
反对加分，北京市的考卷明显比全国的简单！
应该统一试卷！ 小布什能上得起著名大学靠的也是他爹的关系，没有SAT，美国也只剩关系了。 没有出现比高考更好的制度之前，不要提废除高考，
都是两个肩膀扛着一张嘴，谁比谁聪明啊；
这些人反对高考，是因为这些人都是高考的失败者，比如韩寒 考试尽管有其残酷性，但的确可以产生一个干净的数字成绩，而且这个成绩可以排序。就像一个北京语言文化大学（中等学校）的毕业生对我所说的：“如果没有高考，那只剩下‘关系’了。”
这是很实在很实在的话了！真实是这样 高考其实也是多元化的，艺术生与体育生都能有自己的一席发挥之地。
可以考虑更多的细分，而不仅仅粗略的分为理科生和文科生 考试尽管有其残酷性，但的确可以产生一个干净的数字成绩，而且这个成绩可以排序。就像一个北京语言文化大学 ...
guangshine 发表于 2011-6-12 18:53 http://bbs.m4.cn/images/common/back.gif
的确是这样 进大学的门槛还应该提高一点
太多人进大学出来也没有什么用
浪费国家资源 在一个遍地腐败和充满不信任的国家，很多人都认为所有的东西，包括教师的推荐信和毕业平均分，都贴有价格标签。
没有最后一段的私货，显然是不可能通得过“政治正确”的门槛，得以发表在美国的媒体上的。 应该是去进行高等教育的改革，而不是高考，目前还真没有比高考更公平的方案，啸叫废除高考的人，能否提出个方案吗？ Q56)Q56) 高等教育的入学资格可以降低
但是要实行严苛的大学毕业条件 在我们不能提出更好的方案时，高考就是一个最公平的选拨。
适者生存不舍者淘汰。这是西方的理论。
为什么西方人现在反而要质疑他呢？ 观点和本文相同 虽然高考很叉蛋，但是现阶段看起来确实是不二的选择。 考试是必须的，关键是学什么内容，考什么内容，最大限度地找出人才
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