首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Throughout the U.S. students are getting out their No. 2 pencils, ready endure a stress-packed four hours of bubbling in answers
Throughout the U.S. students are getting out their No. 2 pencils, ready endure a stress-packed four hours of bubbling in answers
admin
2011-06-24
78
问题
Throughout the U.S. students are getting out their No. 2 pencils, ready endure a stress-packed four hours of bubbling in answers for the Dec. 12 administration of the ACT, part of some 1.5 million expected to take the test this school year. Standardized tests have been a scourge of student life in America for more than 50 years, but it’s fair to say they’re more pressure-packed and ubiquitous than ever before. The ACT and its counterpart, the SAT, have become one of the largest determining factors in the college-admissions process, particularly for elite schools. At least this year’s applicants should be familiar with the format by now: students in the U.S. are taking more standardized tests than ever before, and at ages long before college beckons.
The earliest record of standardized testing comes from China, where hopefuls for government jobs had to fill out examinations testing their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry. In the Western world, examiners usually favored giving essays, a tradition stemming from the ancient Greeks’ affinity for the Socratic method. But as the Industrial Revolution (and the progressive movement of the early 1800s that followed) took school-age kids out of the farms and factories and put them behind desks, standardized testing emerged as an easy way to test large numbers of students quickly.
In 1905, French psychologist Alfred Binet began developing a standardized test of intelligence, work that would eventually be incorporated into a version of the modern IQ test, dubbed the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. By World War I, standardized testing was standard practice: aptitude quizzes called Army Mental Tests were conducted to assign U.S. servicemen jobs during the war effort. But grading was done manually at first, an arduous task that undermined standardized testing’s goal of speedy mass assessment. It would take until 1936 for the first automatic test scanner was developed, a rudimentary computer called the IBM 805. It used electrical current to detect marks made by special pencils on tests, giving rise to the now-ubiquitous bubbling-in of answers. (Modern optical scanners opt to use simple No. 2 pencils, as their darker lead is most scanner-friendly.)
The SAT and the ACT are by far the most famed standardized tests today. The SAT came first, founded in 1926 as the Scholastic Aptitude Test by the College Board, a non-profit group of universities and other educational organizations. The original test lasted 90 minutes, with 315 questions testing knowledge of definitions, basic math and even an early iteration of its famed fill-in-the-blank analogies (e.g. blue:sky::____:grass). By 1930, the test grew and assumed its now-familiar form, with separate verbal and math tests. By the end of World War II, the test was accepted by enough universities that it became a standard right-of-passage for college-bound high school seniors. It remained largely unchanged (save the occasional tweak) until 2005, when the analogies were done away with and a writing section was added. (That extra section is graded separately from the verbal test, boosting the elusive perfect SAT score from 1600 to 2400.)
In 1959, an education professor at the University of Iowa named Everett Franklin Lindquist (who later pioneered the first generation of optical scanners and the development of the GED test) developed the ACT test as a competitor to the SAT. Originally an acronym for American College Testing, the exam also included a section to guide students toward a course of study by asking questions about their interests. In addition to math, reading and English skills, the ACT assesses students on their knowledge of scientific facts and principles; the test scored on a scale of 36. Both the ACT and SAT have found their niche. The ACT is more commonly accepted in the Midwest and South, while schools on the coast show a preference for the SAT. Students also show a propensity for one test or the other: the SAT is geared toward testing logic, while the ACT is considered more a test of accumulated knowledge. One thing both tests have in common? Their names no longer have any official meaning. Any pretense of the letters standing for acronyms was dropped decades ago. They’re now simply the ACT and SAT.
In the 21st century, however, the SAT and ACT are just part of a gauntlet of tests students may face before reaching college. The College Board also offers SAT II tests, designed for individual subjects ranging from Biology to Geography. The marathon, four-hour Advanced Placement examinations—which some universities accept for students who want to opt out of introductory college-level classes—remain popular: nearly 350,000 took the AP U.S. History test last year, the most popular subject test offered. There’s also the PSAT, taken in the junior year as preparation for the full-blown SAT and as an assessment for the coveted National Merit Scholarships. And we’ve still only covered high school—one of the main criticisms of President Bush’s 2001 "No Child Left Behind" education reform was its expansion of state-mandated standardized testing as means of assessing school performance. Now most students are tested each year of grade school as well. That means that by the time they graduate to college—where the essay, the experiment and the case study still rule—the reprieve from bubble-filling and time limits is a welcome one, indeed.
It can be inferred from the last paragraph that__________.
选项
A、Standardized testing is very popular in the States.
B、Standardized testing is used to assess school performance.
C、Standardized testing is efficient in choosing elite students.
D、People dislike the practice of assessing schools by means of standardized testing.
答案
D
解析
此题是推断题。人们批评美国前总统布什2001年教育改革中将标准化测试作为衡量学校的一种方式。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/98YO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
EducationalValuesLifeisratherhecticforstudentsduringthefirstweekatNorthAmericanuniversities.However,students
EducationalValuesLifeisratherhecticforstudentsduringthefirstweekatNorthAmericanuniversities.However,students
Theworld’spopulationcontinuestogrow.Therenowareabout4billionofusonearth.Thatcouldreach6billionbytheendof
MoviesarethemostpopularformofentertainmentformillionsofAmericans.Theygotothemovietoescapetheirnormaleveryda
MoviesarethemostpopularformofentertainmentformillionsofAmericans.Theygotothemovietoescapetheirnormaleveryda
Mr.Bascombwasupset.Attimeslikethishewishedhehadneverbecomeacandidateformayor.Everythinghadgonewronglythat
A、wasresponsibleforthekillingoftheSaudiPrinceB、PlannedviolenceagainsttheSaudiroyalfamilyC、helpedSauditerrorist
DreiserisgenerallyregardedasthemostsignificantAmericanwriteroftheschoolknownas______.
ErnestHemingwaywasoneofthe20thcentury’smostimportantwriters.Hissimple,directstylegreatlyinfluencedotherwriters
______isregardedas"thecornerstone"ofEnglishhistorybecauseitlaiddownthebasicrulesfortheEnglishlegalsystem.
随机试题
(2013年第170题)青壮年社区获得性肺炎常见病原体包括
小青龙汤与麻黄汤共有的药物为()
下述丸剂中能用塑制法制备的是
患者前列腺增生慢性尿潴留,尿液自行溢出,考虑为:
患者,女性,30岁。因心悸、气短、浮肿、尿少等症状入院。诊断为心瓣膜病伴充血性心功能不全,住院后口服氢氯噻嗪50mg,一日2次;地高辛0.25mg,每8小时1次,当总量达到2.25mg时,心悸、气短好转,脉搏减慢至70次/分,尿量增多,浮肿开始消退,食欲增
少腹拘急,其人如狂,小便自利,治疗选用()。
某多层砌体结构第二层外墙局部墙段立面,如图4-13所示。当进行地震剪力分配时,试问,计算该砌体墙段层间等效侧向刚度所采用的洞口影响系数,应为下列何项数值?
下列做法中,符合会计信息实质重于形式要求的有()。
国际市场疲软给中国经济带来了不确定性。面对外汇资产缩水风险、出口贸易受到影响和输入性通胀压力上升等________,中国需要________考量应对,谋定而后动。制定短期和中长期的、货币和财政的、战略和战术的、经济和政治的“中国政策”________。填入
Plantsaresubjecttoattachandinfectionbyaremarkablevarietyofsymbioticallyspeciesandhaveevolvedadiversearrayof
最新回复
(
0
)