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In my July 3 and July 5 blogs, I wrote about how the new GRE writing assessment looks to be a political litmus test. In my July 5 blog, I showed how the pool of essay topics consistently seeks to assess where test takers stand on a number of issues that are central to left-wing academic culture, among them a preference for collectivism over individualism(喜欢集体主义而不是个人主义); a hatred for capitalism, consumerism, and patriotism(憎恶资本主义,消费主义和爱国心,是这样吗?不解,爱国心是爱那个国啊?米国还是伊拉克?); a commitment to hard-line social constructivism(水来解释一下?什么叫强硬的社会构成主义,比较深奥的说); and an unfailing adherence to a morally bankrupt but snobbishly appealing ethical and historical relativism(理解不了,期待高人解释吧,好像全理解反了的说).
Today I want to spell out some further observations about the new GRE test format. I'll conclude with some thoughts on what you can do to make your opinion of the test known, and to make your opinion count.
My observations today center on credibility. Despite the stated goal of the GRE writing assessment--to test writing ability--the GRE site does not inspire confidence in the ETS's ability to evaluate writing. Most basically, GRE.org's description of the new writing test is riddled with typos, spelling errors, and grammatical gaffes.
On the Test Preparation page, for example, we are advised to prepare for the Issue task by reading "the screen directions and the entire pool of Issue topics from which your test topics will be selecte" (sic) and by "reading the eassay-writing (sic) strategies for 'Present Your Pepsective (sic) on an Issue' task." Likewise, we are advised to prepare for the Argument task by reading "the screen directions and the entire pool of Argument topics from which your test topics will be selecte" (sic).
The topics themselves do not reliably observe the conventions of proper English either. Here's an illiterate keeper: "The true strength of a country is best demonstrated by the willingness of its government to tolerate challenges from it's own citizens." As the possessive "its" becomes the contraction "it's," we witness the wonders of syntactical drift. Here's another gem: "The bombardment of visual images in contemporary society has the effect of making people less able to focus clearly and extensively on a single issue over a long period of time." The sentence wants to suggest that visual images are bombarding people, but through a failure of prepositional phrasing it instead suggests that visual images are themselves the object of society's bombardment.(在给题目挑语法错误,研究的还蛮仔细的阿)
Scoring procedures look to be on a par with the test directions and topics: scoring the writing assessment "requires identical or adjacent scores from 2 readers; any other score combination is ajudicated (sic) by a third GRE reader." Google spells better than the GRE people. When you type in "ajudicate," it says, "Did you mean adjudicate."
"In creating this assessment for the GRE Board," the site announces, "Educational Testing Service (ETS) followed a rigorous test development process that was guided by faculty committees representing different academic institutions, disciplines, and cultural perspectives." Too bad none of them can write.
In all fairness, GRE.org does note that the writing assessment is not geared toward assessing test takers' ability to write correct English so much as it is toward evaluating how well they can express themselves in writing. Sure, it's a non sequitur, and an irresponsible one at that (How can you express yourself well in writing if you do not know the rules of grammar and syntax? Who can be held responsible for knowing the language if intellectuals can't?). But let's go with it and see where it leads.
All concerns about political content and poor grammar aside, the writing assessment topics are hardly designed to produce thoughtful, considered explorations of complex issues. They are, instead, poorly designed attempts to provoke. Structured as declarative statements, they are at once contentious and closed off. They encourage the respondent to take issue, to dispute, to agree or disagree, but they do not encourage the respondent to think, or question, or explore. In their simplistic formulations and pat pronouncements, the topics send a strong message that boiling complex issues down into insipid generalities is possible, desirable, and inherently intellectual (this is, after all, a test to determine who is cut out for the life of the mind). More to the point, the topics imply that failure to engage in analogously boilerplate thought will be construed as failure to perform the required task: to "present your perspective on an issue." That many of the topics are so poorly framed that it is not possible to have an intelligent perspective on them seems not to have occurred to the people at GRE; nor does it seem to have occurred to them that in many cases the best response to a "topic" might be to reject it as a callow and superficial platitude that cannot sustain the serious consideration test takers are expected to give it.
Where does this lead the intrepid aspiring graduate student? One of two places, depending on how canny that student is.
Place Number One--Ethical Double Bind: The test taker who can see the writing assessment's intellectual shallowness and political intrusiveness for what they are is put in the awkward position of either throwing the exam (by refusing to respond, or by responding with a frankness that could be costly come scoring time) or abandoning principle (by coughing up the formulaic cliches that the exam telegraphically demands).
Place Number Two--Unthinking Assent to Indoctrination: The test taker who does not see the writing assessment's shallowness and intrusiveness for what they are is even worse off. This is the test taker who trusts the educational system and the testing service implicitly, and who never imagines that there could be anything untoward about the methods or aims of either. This is the test taker who is a perfect student; who does all work on time, who studies hard, and who earnestly and unquestioningly does her best on every assignment and every exam. This is not an unusual test taker; while I can't speak for the sciences, I can say from experience that this is the profile of the vast majority of students who go on to grad school in the humanities. This test taker willingly conforms her opinions and beliefs to the requirements of the writing assessment; she takes the topic seriously, and responds to it in kind. She thus freely offers up her private thoughts on controversial, politically fraught subjects as a professional credential, and she freely consents, in turn, to the proposition that her professional fitness may be measured in terms of what, and how, she believes.
Tests do not simply examine; they also teach: this one teaches that one's private opinions are the same as one's professional qualifications; that one ought, in academe, to be ready to parade those opinions upon request; and that one ought, in turn, to expect one's opinions to be a central factor in the moments of performative evaluation that define academic life--the seminar paper, the qualifying exam, the dissertation, the job interview, the tenure review. In an academe where this is very much how things go, the GRE is doing useful work indeed. But it is neither credible nor conscionable work, and the GRE should not be permitted to pretend that it is.
If you want to write to the ETS about the new GRE writing assessment, address your correspondence to:
Tom Rochon
Executive Director, GRE Program
GRE-ETS
P.O. Box 6000
Princeton, NJ 08541-6000
They are not, alas, terribly email friendly at ETS.
If you are an academic, an academic-in-the-making, or if you hold a Ph.D., you might also consider writing to selected deans and departmental administrators at your home institution. Alert them to the changes in the GRE (assume nothing! there are many daft administrators out there!). Explain why you find the writing assessment degrading / invasive / stupid / other (because of the rampant administrative daftness in our halls of higher ed, you must always explain in detail: do not imagine your correspondent can or will think for herself!). And then make some suggestions. You could suggest that deans and academic departments have a responsibility to take the matter of the writing assessment up with the ETS. You could also suggest that they might refuse, as a matter of principle, to consider the writing assessment score when evaluating applicants to their graduate programs, and that they might even go so far as to announce this fact in their application materials.
All kinds of possibilities come to mind. Protest in good health and impeccable grammar!
自己看吧,没什么用的说,好像是强调GRE考试考得不是语法,句型,而是政治,并说考试侵犯了人的隐私,有些偏激,不过也有借鉴之处,至少写的时候不要写太另老米反感的话题。 |
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