2018年翻译资格考试三级笔译模拟题：标准化教育
汉译英
标准化教育测试或心理同在广泛应用于协助选拔、委派或提拔学生、雇员和军事人员;这些测试一直是某些人近年来在书本、杂志、日报，甚至国会中进行抨击的目标。把标准化测试作为抨击目标是错误的，因为在抨击这类测试时，批评者没有注意到其弊病来自测试使用者对测试不解或使用不当。这些测试本身只是一种工具。它的各种特性可以在规定条件下用适当的精度来测定。测试的结果是在有价值的、无意义的、还是误导的，部分取决于这种工具本身，但主要取决于测试使用者。
所有对未来表现的有见识地的预测都是以在某种程度上了解有关过去的表现为基础的:学校学习成绩、研究效益、销售记录或任何符合需要的信息。这些预测在多大程度上为的后来的表现所证实，这取决于所采用信息的数量、可靠性和适宜性，以及解释这些信息的技能和才智。任何仔细记分的人都知道，所得到的信息总是不完全的，而且这些预测也总是会有错误的。
应该根据这种观点去考察标准化测试。标准化测试提供了快速、客观地得到某些信息的方法，这些信息是有关一个人所学到的知识、他所获得的技能，或者他是属于哪一类型的人。这样得到的信息，从性质上讲，与其它种类的信息一样具有优点或缺点。因此，在某一特定情况下，究竟是采用测试还是其他种类的信息，或是两者兼用，须凭有关相对效度的经验依据而定，也取决于诸如费用和有无来源等因素。
一般来说，当所要测定的特征能很精确界定时，测试最为有效;而当所要测定或预测的东西不能明确地界定时，测试的效果则最差。这些测试如能恰当使用，就能提供一种快速的方法来获得有关许多人的可比性信息。有时这些测试能鉴别出一些学生，他们很高的潜在能力过去一直没有被承认。但是也有入场多事情这些测试是不能胜任的。例如，测试并不弥补明显的社会不公;因此，它们不能说明一个物质条件差的年轻人，如果在较好的环境下成长的话，会有多大才干。
参考译文
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. 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. 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. 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.
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.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.
