The Test and What It Tests

The students here spend (or are supposed to spend) the time that they are not in class studying for TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language). I asked a student and one of the Chinese English teachers whether they wouldn't learn more English if they used that time to study it in a different way. They could read a novel or watch movies and TV shows in depth (record every line, look up all the words they don't know, watch them until they memorized them). The student didn't have anything much to say. The teacher simply said, flatly (but he always speaks flatly) that it is more useful for them to study TOEFL, because they will go abroad in half a year. Someone could make a satire out of it: students are more concerned to improve their English score than to improve their English.

"There's a correlation -- a rising tide lifts all boats." If only the instrument were perfectly precise! And couldn't it just as well go the other way? You could spend more time in the rigorous study of English, and despite the fact that you had not prepared for it formally, your TOEFL score would improve of its own accord. That's why I never put a lot of time into studying standardized scores myself -- I thought appearance and reality would accord perfectly, so that as long as I was earnest in the relevant studies, the test would reflect my earnestness. There's some cynicism in preparing for exams: you assume that the appearance is somewhat independent of the reality, and you are concerned just as much to appear skilled as actually to be so.

Comments

Autumn Rain Is When the Wutong Sheds Its Leaves

Wutong trees in a Chinese garden 春風桃李花開日，秋雨梧桐葉落時。西宮南內多秋草，落葉滿階紅不掃。梨園子弟白髮新，椒房阿監青娥老夕殿螢飛思悄然，孤燈挑盡未成眠。遲遲鐘鼓初長夜，耿耿星河欲曙天。鴛鴦瓦冷霜華重，翡翠衾寒誰與共？ In a spring breeze it's true that peach and pear both flower in the sun -- but autumn rain is when the Wutong sheds its leaves. In the Southern Sanctum of the Palace of the West, the autumn grass abounds; shed leaves brim over steps from which red cannot be swept. The disciples of Pear Garden have newly grown white hair; the ladies of the Pepper Room -- their youth all is now old. In the Western Hall the buzzing flies stir sorry thoughts; the lonely lamp has used its wick and still he has not slept. The hesitation of the bell begins the lengthy night; the stars of the Milky Way, twinkling, herald now the dawn. The dove-tailed bricks are chilled with heavy frost -- with whom to share the quilt which, though of eiderdown, is cold?

Interpretation: "Leda" by H.D.

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down of his soft breast uncurls his coral feet. Creature of the sea, made from the deep, Not its darkness where the hundred monsters Sleep but from a deeper still, where pearls And other jewels their corazón await, A depth so clear, so still, Deeper than the deep, about its treasures Clinging like a sheet, edge upon the edge Of what is seen, a flicker and a sweep. This way to emerge! Royally too evident become And darker darkness radiate, to sweep and fly, Ever in the way things underneath Have shown themselves And wear the world as a wreath, Oblivious to any demand, "Why?" Through the deep purple of the dying heat of sun and mist, the level ray of sun-beam has caressed the lily with dark breast, and flecked with richer gold its golden crest. Gold on gold more gilded, on the other hand, recedes Into a darkness and stillness, leads The mi...

Once Mysterious...

From the subjective side, consciousness presents no mystery. Consciousness is found to exist not just among its other objects but even as the a priori possibility of finding such objects. Consciousness is a given whose structure and elements present themselves to consciousness. Consciousness knows itself and, for itself, is objective. The mystery of consciousness is only discovered from the objective side. Through an eternity (which means through the progress of a world order) there was only motion and mobile, a universe of pure and unreflective impulse. Then, one day, as if a spark were struck, awareness flamed into existence. Was this extra existence, which is admittedly so different from matter (as different as we believe life to be from death) a possibility of that same matter all along? This mystery is felt in the question, "Where did it come from?" The thought that it could arise through some coincidence, a brute coordination in the na...

The Musings of Alencia Lysander

Search This Blog