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1995年考研翻譯題及參考答案
Part Ⅲ English-Chinese Translation
The standardized educational or psychological test that are widely used to aid in selecting, classifying, assigning, or promoting students, employees, and military personnel have been the target of recent attacks in books, magazines, the daily press, and even in congress. (31) The target is wrong, for in attacking the tests, critics divert attention form the fault that lies with ill-informed or incompetent users. The tests themselves are merely tools, with characteristics that can be measured with reasonable precision under specified conditions. Whether the results will be valuable, meaningless, or even misleading depends partly upon the tool itself but largely upon the user.
All informed predictions of future performance are based upon some knowledge of relevant past performance: school grades, research productivity, sales records, or whatever is appropriate. (32) How well the predictions will be validated by later performance depends upon the amount , reliability , and appropriateness of the information used and on the skill and wisdom with which it is interpreted. Anyone who keeps careful score knows that the information available is always incomplete and that the predictions are always subject to error.
Standardized tests should be considered in this context. They provide a quick, objective method of getting some kinds of information about what a person learned, the skills he has developed, or the kind of person he is. The information so obtained has, qualitatively, the same advantages and shortcomings as other kinds of information. (33) Whether to use tests. other kinds of information, or both in a particular situation depends, therefore, upon the evidence from experience concerning comparative validity and upon such factors as cost and availability.
(34) In general, the tests work most effectively when the qualities to be measured can be most precisely defined and least effectively when what is to be measured or predicted cannot be well defined. Properly used, they provide a rapid means of getting comparable information about many people. Sometimes they identify students whose high potential has not been previously recognized, but there are many things they do not do. (35) For example, they do not compensate for gross social inequality, and thus do not tell how able an underprivileged youngster might have been had he grown up under more favorable circumstances.
31. 把標準化測試作為抨擊目標是錯誤的，因為在抨擊這類測試時，批評者未考慮其弊病是來自人們對測試不甚了解或使用不當。
32. 這些預測在多大程度上被后來的表現證實，這取決于被采用信息的數量、可靠性和適宜性以及解釋這些信息的技能和才智。
33. 因此，究竟是采用測試還是其他種類的信息，或是在某一特定情況下兩者同時使用，須憑有關相對效度的經驗依據而定，也取決于諸如費用和現有條件等因素。
34. 一般地說，當被測定的特征能夠被很準確的界定時，測試最為有效；而當被測定或被預測的東西不能夠被明確地界定時，測試的效果則最差。
35. 例如，測試并不彌補明顯的社會不公；因此，它們不能說明一個物質條件差的年輕人，如果在較好的環境下成長，會有多大才干。
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