EST最新GRE考试声明之批判性分析

baoerUID: 162464

Plans for the Revised GRE® General Test Cancelled

Princeton, N.J. (April 2, 2007) —ETS has cancelled plans to launch the revised Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE®) General Test. The decision was made in consultation with the Executive Committee of the GRE Board.
(This sentence indicates that ETS and the GRE Board are two entities; though their interrelationships are unclear, presumably ETS should be administratively higher than the other.)

While ETS and the Board remain committed to improving the test, on balance, GRE officials said they believe problems guaranteeing complete access to the new Internet-based test outweighed the benefits of immediately moving to the new format.
(So ETS confesses that its decision is based on GRE officials’ “belief” about the relative benefits between secure access and hasty switch—an either-or choice here; or perhaps a familiar, case of false dichotomy—why can’t the two benefits be merged? Curiously no explanation here.)

ETS originally planned to launch the revised GRE General Test worldwide in September. Instead, the company will continue to offer the test worldwide in its current computer-based, continuous testing format. Registrations in India, China and Japan, which had been closed, will be reopened in the near future to accommodate application deadlines. Likewise, registrations for the current GRE General Test will continue elsewhere.
(Ok, back to the same old way, but it is strange and chilling that it can state the whole backtracking in such a routine, procedural tone, without any reference to its potential impacts on so many stakeholders, especially numerous test-takers worldwide who have already adjusted their expectations and preparations over the past months.)

"The decision to cancel the revised GRE General Test best serves the interests of test takers and the graduate institutions that use those scores to make admissions decisions," says David Payne, Executive Director of the GRE Program at ETS. "After much debate and evaluation, it became clear that the current format offers students more convenient and flexible opportunities to test when and where they choose, while still providing score users with valid predictors of test takers' preparedness for graduate school study."
(This sounds quite funny, for test access is only part of test-takers’ “interests,” which can be equally compromised by such abrupt change in test policy.)

The primary reason for cancelling the launch of the revised GRE General Test was test taker access. Plans called for the revised test to be delivered over the new worldwide network of 3,200 Internet-based testing centers. Despite the network's size, ETS officials did not believe that full access to the General Test for all students could be confidently assured.
(This part of explanation is most baffling: first, 3,200 Internet-based centers is an impressive number, and does entail extensive coordination, but note also that GRE administrators should have had sufficient experience and time to assess and determine the feasibility, not least the timing, of executing the revised test from the beginning. Second, when the test schedule is announced, it should stand as a firm contract and must deliver on time; otherwise, excuses like “the doggie ate my work” would likely affect an institution’s credibility over the long term. Third, here appears a confusion in the identities of the claimants: how the announcement starts with ETS’s decision, complemented by GRE officials’ “belief,” but now ETS simply takes over the whole show, not only totally identifying with GRE, but also seeming to hide the latter behind.)

"As the launch approached, ETS determined that, despite the aggressive development of our Internet-based testing network, we could not guarantee complete access to all students needing to take the exam" Payne explains. "While the graduate community supports, and in fact helped develop and pilot the revised GRE General Test, they have also stated that they are satisfied with the current GRE General Test, until such time as improvements can be gradually implemented. ETS is being responsive to their best interests."
(This part are just repeating or paraphrasing what’s already covered before, but curious are two points that, first, how this GRE executive can speak on behalf of ETS, without due credentials or authorization; be forewarned that it’s risky to do so—if every move of GRE goes well, then all is well; but when it turns foul some day or some way, a chain reaction will occur. Second, the references, sounding a bit flattering, to the graduate community, are sweet but not convincing—nobody knows for sure how ETS (or perhaps GRE) comes to its conclusion that the whole, diverse graduate community “unanimously” endorses the current test format; if so, why initially bother with such a big hurrah of reform but now ends with so muted a turnaround? Last but not least, either outcome, ETS might as well dignify its decision as “being responsive to their best interests,” doesn’t it?)  

ETS officials will work with the GRE Board to implement many of the planned test content improvements in the future without the access issues associated with changing to an entirely new test delivered over a brand new testing network.
(Again, see that ETS wants to keep some distance (or independence) from the GRE Board—they are different after all. But the point is not this nominal difference, but a core problem buried under such an elaborate single sentence that, with this statement, the whole cancellation issue due to access concerns is supposed to be passed behind and forgotten—nobody should be accountable for such a huge reversal in this globally influential test—what a happy ending!)  

Administering the GRE General Test in two testing sessions in The People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong), The Republic of Korea and Taiwan will also continue for the immediate future.
(Got it? This is the fact of life, you test-takers in these areas must take whatever has been decided, without even the faintest idea of how long such uncertainty will hang in future. Feel insultingly resentful or obediently thankful? Nobody above there cares a bit.)

clairehzUID: 159594

...无语了

sky118UID: 2323169

:funk: :funk: :funk:

wingerweskerUID: 2154168

LZ写得很有意思啊~

baoerUID: 162464

Thanks for the warm support from the above friends.

This critical analysis, together with the other one posted at TAISHA titled "rhetorical analysis," actually stemmed from my impulsive response to ETS's capricious test policy, which presumptuously subjects all test-takers' "best interests" to its own interpretation. I once even thought of drafting a protest letter to ETS, exhausting all types of "argumentative fallacies" inherent in its statement, though later I had to give it up due to personal schedule.

I still feel that Chinese test-takers seem too timid in face of this monopolistic, arrogant, bureaucratic agency, which can always have its own way, without adequate accountability and external supersivion--just look at all recent disruption it've caused to Chinese test-takers!

If Winston Churchill rightly eulogized those heroic British jet pilots for their feats with "Never in history have so many owed so much to so few," then today why can't we say "Hardly in history have so few confused so much to so many"?

After all, what's the point of preparing for AWA if we don't become critically sensitive and rationally self-defensive to everything around us, not least when we're treated in such a perfunctory way at the hand of ETS?