Every year, an increasing number of students take an English-language test so they will be eligible to study abroad. It comes as little surprise that they find these tests more difficult than those in Chinese.
每一年，越来越多的学生都在为了能够去国外读书而参加某些英语考试。毫无疑问他们都觉得这些考试比中文考试难多了。
But exhibiting mastery of a foreign language is not the only problem. In fact, it's not even the most important one.
然而问题并不只在于仅仅展示对于一门外语的把握度，实际上这都不是最重要的。
"Students always worry about their limited vocabulary, grammar, the sentence structure and whatever. But the bigger issue is that they don't know how to have their own opinions, let alone defend them, " said Zhang Di, a teacher for the Test of English as a Foreign Language, the most widely respected English-language test in the world, recognized by more than 8, 500 colleges, universities and agencies in 130 countries.
“学生们担心的总是词汇量不足、语法、句子结构…诸如此类。但更重要的问题是他们不知道如何拥有自己的观点，更不要说为自己的观点做辩护了。”一位交托福考试的老师张迪如是说，托福是世界上最大范围受到重视的英语考试，被超过130个国家的8500多所大学和政府机构所承认。
The problem is that students simply maintain the habits they were taught when writing in Chinese. "In China, the 'correct' answer always seems obvious. You don't really have to argue or challenge. You just need to show off how many set phrases and rhetorical skills you have mastered, " said Zhang.
而问题是学生们保持着他们在用中文写作时所养成的习惯。“在中国，‘正确答案’总是非常明显的。你根本不用做辩驳或质疑。你只需展示你掌握了多少的短语和修辞手法而已。”张说。
"Chinese students are extremely good at repeating one idea in three apparently different sentences, " he said. "Their Chinese-language teachers may not have a problem with it, but that's not the case when writing in English. What counts is the message you convey. If you don't provide any information, the sentence is just nonsense."
“中国学生非常擅长用三句截然不同的句子来重复同一句句子。”他说，“他们的中文老师也许对此没有异议，但在英文写作来说就不是那么回事。重要的是你所传达的信息。如果你不能提供什么信息，那么句子是毫无意义的。”
As in the Chinese writing tests, students frequently refer to the same few famous people when writing in English. "Bill Gates was the most popular figure a couple of years ago. Now the main one is Steve Jobs. The problem is not that they (the students) use the same examples, but they always fail to make them relevant to the point they want to make, " said Zhang.
和在中文考试中学生总是引用同一个著名人物一样，英文写作也是如此。“几年前比尔盖茨是最热门的人物，现在则主要是乔布斯。问题不在于他们用同样的例子，关键是他们没能使例子和自己想要建立的观点有所关联。”张说。
The problem really becomes serious when it comes to the Graduate Records Examination, successful students of which are allowed to conduct post-graduate studies in the US, which emphasizes more critical thinking.
当谈到GRE考试时，问题就变得更加严重了，他们中间成功的学生将被批准去美国进行更加强调批判性思考的研究生深造。
"But I'd never heard of the phrase (critical thinking) until I prepared for the test a few years ago, " said Liu Shihan, a teacher of GRE writing in Beijing.
“但直到我几年前开始准备这一考试，我才听说了这个词（批判性思维）。”刘诗涵、一位在北京教授GRE写作的老师如是说。
"The teachers only focus on techniques to deal with the test, they don't really care about your ideas, " she said.
“老师们只注重应对这一考试的技巧，确实不关心你的观点。”她说。
Liu admitted she could only "think critically" about certain GRE writing topics when teaching them to the students. "In daily life, I still can't. We're never trained for that at school."
刘承认只有在GRE授课过程中涉及写作话题时，她才能“批评性地思考”。“日常生活中我还是没法做到，我们在学校里根本没有这样训练过。”
A lot of teachers help their students to prepare a template that "frees them from independent thinking as much as possible", said Zhang.
“很多老师帮助学生准备模版，尽可能使他们不必独自思考。”张说。
"What's the point if they just write like machines? They still can't write a good paper in English or debate with local people in the United States, " he said.
“如果他们只是像机器一样写作还有什么意义？他们还是不能用英文写一篇好的论文或者在美国和当地人进行辩论。”他说。
|
