什么样的学生可以进入顶尖大学_BEC初级作文

什么样的学生可以进入顶尖大学

Whatever happens, age-old questions about fairness in admissions will surely endure. For one thing, the nation can’t come to terms with a tricky five-letter word: merit. Michael Young, a British sociologist, coined the pejorative term “meritocracy” over a half-century ago to describe a future in which standardized intelligence tests would crown a new elite. Yet as Rebecca Zwick explains in her new book “Who Gets In?” the meaning has shifted. The word “merit,” she writes, has come to mean “academic excellence, narrowly defined” as grades and test scores.

不管怎样，关于招生公平的古老问题一定会持续下去。别的不说，国家首先无法就“merit”（大意为优点、才能、价值——译注）这个棘手的词达成一致。半个世纪之前，英国社会学家迈克尔·扬(Michael Young)创造了贬义词“唯才是用”(meritocracy)，用来形容未来社会通过标准化智力测验筛选来新的精英。然而，正如芮贝卡·兹维克(Rebecca Zwick)在她的新著《谁进去了？》(Who Gets In?)中解释的那样，这个词的意义已经发生了变化。她写道，“merit”这个词已经成了“学习成绩优秀”的意思，“被狭隘地定义为”评级和考分。

But that’s just one way to think of an applicant’s worthiness. Dr. Zwick, professor emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has long been a researcher at the Educational Testing Service, which develops and administers the SAT. She disputes the notion that testing prowess — or any other attribute, for that matter — entitles a student to a spot at his chosen college. “There is, in fact, no absolute definition of merit,” she writes.