【H117】必须摒弃的一些旧观念：停止破解糟糕的测试【中英版本】

中文版本：

The Lesson to Unlearn

必须摒弃的一些旧观念：停止破解糟糕的测试

December 2019

2019年12月

The most damaging thing you learned in school wasn’t something you learned in any specific class. It was learning to get good grades.

你在学校学到的最有害的东西，并不是你在任何一门课上学到的知识，而是通过「学习如何取得好成绩」学到的。

When I was in college, a particularly earnest philosophy grad student once told me that he never cared what grade he got in a class, only what he learned in it. This stuck in my mind because it was the only time I ever heard anyone say such a thing.

在我上大学时，有一位学习特别认真的哲学研究生曾对我说，他从不关心自己在一门课上得了多少分，他只关心自己在这门课上学到了什么。这句话深深地印在我的脑海里，这是我第一次听到有人这么说。

For me, as for most students, the measurement of what I was learning completely dominated actual learning in college. I was fairly earnest; I was genuinely interested in most of the classes I took, and I worked hard. And yet I worked by far the hardest when I was studying for a test.

对我和大多数学生来说，对所学知识的衡量完全主宰了我在大学里的实际学习。我相当认真；我对大多数课程都真心感兴趣，并且努力学习。然而，当我为考试而学习时，我付出的努力远远超过平时。

In theory, tests are merely what their name implies: tests of what you’ve learned in the class. In theory you shouldn’t have to prepare for a test in a class any more than you have to prepare for a blood test. In theory you learn from taking the class, from going to the lectures and doing the reading and/or assignments, and the test that comes afterward merely measures how well you learned.

从理论上讲，考试只是顾名思义：测试你在课程中学到了什么。理论上，你不应该为课程中的考试做特别准备，就像你不需要为血液检查做特别准备一样。理论上，你可以通过上课、听课、阅读和/或做作业来学习，而之后的考试只是衡量你的学习效果。

In practice, as almost everyone reading this will know, things are so different that hearing this explanation of how classes and tests are meant to work is like hearing the etymology of a word whose meaning has changed completely. In practice, the phrase “studying for a test” was almost redundant, because that was when one really studied. The difference between diligent and slack students was that the former studied hard for tests and the latter didn’t. No one was pulling all-nighters two weeks into the semester.

然而实际情况是，几乎每个读到这篇文章的人都会知道，理论和实际情况是如此不同，以至于听到这种关于上课和考试是如何进行的解释，就像听到一个词的词源，而这个词的含义已经完全改变。实际上，说”为了考试而学习 “几乎是多余的，因为那才是真正的学习。勤奋和懒散学生的区别在于，前者为考试努力学习，后者则不然。没有人会在学期开始后的两周就熬夜通宵。

Even though I was a diligent student, almost all the work I did in school was aimed at getting a good grade on something.

虽然我是一个勤奋的学生，但我在学校所做的几乎所有努力都是为了在某门课上取得好成绩。

To many people, it would seem strange that the preceding sentence has a “though” in it. Aren’t I merely stating a tautology? Isn’t that what a diligent student is, a straight-A student? That’s how deeply the conflation of learning with grades has infused our culture.

对许多人来说，前一句话中有一个 “虽然 “似乎很奇怪。我不就是在陈述一个同义反复吗？勤奋的学生难道不就是取得优异成绩的学生吗？这就是将「学习与成绩」混为一谈对我们文化的深刻影响。

Is it so bad if learning is conflated with grades? Yes, it is bad. And it wasn’t till decades after college, when I was running Y Combinator, that I realized how bad it is.

将学习与成绩混为一谈有那么糟糕吗？是的，这很糟糕。直到大学毕业几十年后，当我经营 Y Combinator 时，我才意识到这有多糟糕。

I knew of course when I was a student that studying for a test is far from identical with actual learning. At the very least, you don’t retain knowledge you cram into your head the night before an exam. But the problem is worse than that. The real problem is that most tests don’t come close to measuring what they’re supposed to.

当然，我在学生时代就知道，为考试而学习与真正的学习相去甚远。最起码，考试前一晚塞进脑子里的知识是留不住的。但问题比这更严重。真正的问题是，大多数考试并没有检验他们真正想要检验的东西。

If tests truly were tests of learning, things wouldn’t be so bad. Getting good grades and learning would converge, just a little late. The problem is that nearly all tests given to students are terribly hackable. Most people who’ve gotten good grades know this, and know it so well they’ve ceased even to question it.

如果考试真的是对学习的检验，事情就不会那么糟糕。取得好成绩和学习会趋于一致，只是晚了一点。但问题是，几乎所有给学生的考试都是非常容易被破解的。大多数取得好成绩的人都知道这一点，而且知道得很清楚，甚至不再质疑。

Suppose you’re taking a class on medieval history and the final exam is coming up. The final exam is supposed to be a test of your knowledge of medieval history, right? So if you have a couple days between now and the exam, surely the best way to spend the time, if you want to do well on the exam, is to read the best books you can find about medieval history. Then you’ll know a lot about it, and do well on the exam. You’ll see when you realize how naive it sounds to act otherwise.

当你意识到不这样做听起来是多么幼稚时，你就会明白了。假设你正在上一门关于中世纪历史的课，期末考试马上就要到了。期末考试应该是对你中世纪历史知识的一次检验，对吗？所以，如果从现在到考试只剩几天时间，并且你想在考试中取得好成绩，那么最好的办法肯定是阅读你能找到的关于中世纪历史的最好的书籍。这样你就会对中世纪历史有更多的了解，考试成绩也会更好。

No, no, no, experienced students are saying to themselves. If you merely read good books on medieval history, most of the stuff you learned wouldn’t be on the test. It’s not good books you want to read, but the lecture notes and assigned reading in this class. And even most of that you can ignore, because you only have to worry about the sort of thing that could turn up as a test question. You’re looking for sharply-defined chunks of information. If one of the assigned readings has an interesting digression on some subtle point, you can safely ignore that, because it’s not the sort of thing that could be turned into a test question. But if the professor tells you that there were three underlying causes of the Schism of 1378, or three main consequences of the Black Death, you’d better know them. And whether they were in fact the causes or consequences is beside the point. For the purposes of this class they are.

【点击查看社群介绍】加入曹哲万人成长社群，装备专属你的成长智库：这个世界一切都有了，您只需要把它找到，用就行了！

隐藏内容为会员内容，想改变先学会付费。先看免费内容，有收获再付费。前1000名200元终身，满额后改为年费。会员务必加微信，拉入群内分享更多精彩内容。