时间:2019-02-01 作者:英语课 分类:VOA常速英语2013年(九月)


英语课

 


C’ Isn’t Average in All Schools Any More 字母不再用来表示成绩了



There’s an old, but often-played, song by the late Sam Cooke whose lyrics 1 go, in part:



已故的山姆库克有首老歌经常有人表演,它的部分歌词是这样的:



Now I don’t claim to be an “A” student



如今,我不再自称是A等生了


But I’m trying to be.


但是,我还为了努力



And so are millions of other American children each school term. Being an “A” student signifies being the best, the smartest, the highest achiever. “B” means good but not best, “C” stands for average, “D” for below average, and either “E” or “F” for unsatisfactory, or to put it more harshly, failure.



成千上万的其他美国孩子每个学期也是如此的。成为一个A等生被认作是非常出色的,最聪明的,最高等的荣誉获得者。B意味着优秀但不出众,C表示中等,D就低于平均水平了。不论得E还是F都是令人失望的,或者对之进行更严厉的评判,失败。


But in hundreds, maybe thousands, of American schools, nobody’s an A student any more. And the idea of getting “straight A’s” – and thus being the best of the best – is gone as well. There aren’t B or C or F students, either. Thanks to something called “standards-based” report cards, these students are receiving a numerical rating – a number instead of a letter – for their performance in each class.


但是在几百所,可能是几千所的美国学校中,没有人能再成为A等生了,成为全优生的想法——成为顶尖——也不存在了。也没有B或是F等级的学生了,多亏了名为“基础标准”的报告卡片,这些学生在接受数字评级,用一个数字而不是字母来评价他们在每堂课的表现。



Those numbers – usually 4 for best, down to 1 – reflect a lot more than just mastery of the subject matter. In a math class in New York State schools, for instance, a 4 means the student can not only add and subtract but has, in the new terminology 2, displayed high skill in “number sense and operations.”



那些数字中,4经常代表最好,下降至1能够反映很多信息而不仅仅是科目掌握程度问题。在纽约州立学校的一堂数学课上,打个比方,一个4意味都会学生不仅仅会加减运算,借用新的术语来讲就是在“数感和运算”方面有很高的天赋。



The switch from letter grades to numbers has something to do with national education standards, which are tied to student performance on standardized 3 tests. That performance is measured in numbers. And now, so is their work in the classroom.



字母厅成绩数字化的转变与国家教育标准有关,该标准是和学生在标准测试的表现挂钩的。表现的好坏则用数字来衡量,现在,他们在课堂上的表现也用数字来评判了。



This means a lot more work for teachers, because they’re being asked to factor as many 50 detailed 4 skill areas into their ratings of student success in each class.



这意味着老师会有更多的工作要做,因为他们被要求要将50项细节技术领域考虑到他们对学生每堂课表现的评价当中去,



A lot of parents are unhappy with the new numerical report cards. One woman told the Washington Post that they “don’t provide any recognition for a student who is consistently doing excellent work.” Another parent told the New York Times that “what has happened is that the high-performing students are saying, ‘I don’t have to work that hard,’ and they all stopped trying.”



许多家长对新的数字成绩报告单并不满意,一位女士对华盛顿邮报说,他们 没有提供对一个一直成绩都很出众的学生的认可,另外一位家长对纽约时报说,“发生的改变是那些高效绩的学生说,“我不是再那么努力了,”于是,他们都停止用功了”


And parents seem to be saying – without using these exact words – “It’s a lot cooler to have a bumper 5 sticker that reads, ‘I’m riding with an A student from McKinley School’” than it is to say they’re carting around a “Number 4.”


家长们似乎会说——没有使用多余的话语——在贴纸上面写着,“我是麦金利的A等生”比他们评给了“第四名”要酷的多。


 

 


 



n.歌词
  • music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
  • The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。
n.术语;专有名词
  • He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
  • The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。
adj.标准化的
  • We use standardized tests to measure scholastic achievement. 我们用标准化考试来衡量学生的学业成绩。
  • The parts of an automobile are standardized. 汽车零件是标准化了的。
adj.详细的,详尽的,极注意细节的,完全的
  • He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
  • A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。
n.(汽车上的)保险杠;adj.特大的,丰盛的
  • The painting represents the scene of a bumper harvest.这幅画描绘了丰收的景象。
  • This year we have a bumper harvest in grain.今年我们谷物丰收。
学英语单词
?-subunit
Acanthephippium sinense
amilorides
analytical geometry of space
Association of Oil Pipe Lines
at the furthest
automobilists
balanced incomplete type
Bartica
beautiness
bocion
bockwurst sausage
brownell
build up to
calorimotor
carrottop
caveator
continuity coefficient
core cavitation
correction and compensation device
counterextortion
cultural diffusions
Dactyloctenium aegyptium
Dazoxibin
DBMS drivers
dead water zone
dialling tones
dietary antigen
diguanidinobutanase
eclipsing star
Elliont type knuckle
equilibrium, temperature
erythrocythaemic
fdp management science
fruitshop
gear in train
grey-back
high quartz solid solution
hooking pass
Hungarian grass
incendiary leaf
incumbent upon
India lawn
iridium sulfite
j-invariant of elliptic curve
kulm
laid siege
lift distribution
low-order
major first face
meadow ferns
mid-latitudes
midget
multicolor emission
multident
multiviscosity oil
Ngoc My
non-independent accounting unit
nonweekly
objective force level
Okawville
P-T region
Pedicularis dolichoglossa
photoactive reaction
pipe valve tray
pointwise ergodic theorem
prolific writer
quinonyl
quotation board
rapid scanning spectrometer
rational form
reinforcement bending shed
remines
repressibility
riveros
Sena, R.
send back system
send sb into bankrupt
side toppling
startscummers
stiede
Stiegel, Henry William
stove drying
stress in beam
suirs
swab man
sweat over sth
swept
tabards
Take someone to the woodshed
Terezinha
theory of matrices
thiofuradene
tropical automatic weather station
tropicalist
tulie
ultrasonic cell disintegration
unirrigated soil
unlight
vieulence alteration
wage drift
wave length-ship length ratio