为美国高校提供中国事务咨询的公司Zinch China在2010年发布了一份报告,根据对250名准备赴美留学的北京高中生、他们的家长以及12位留学中介和升学顾问的采访写成。该公司得出结论认为,90%的中国申请人提交了假推荐信,70%让别人代写个人陈述,50%伪造了高中成绩单,还有10%列举了他们没有获得过的学业奖项和其他成就。报告预计,随着更多学生前往美国,“申请造假的浪潮”可能只会恶化。

Tom Melcher, Zinch China’s chairman and the report’s author, says it’s simplistic to vilify agents who provide these services. They’re responding, he says, to the demands of students and parents.

Zinch China公司主席、该报告的作者汤姆·麦彻(TomMelcher)说,诋毁那些提供这类服务的中介又显得把事情简单化了。他表示,中介是在满足学生和家长的需求。

Students in China’s test-centric culture spend most of their high school years studying for the gao kao, the college entrance exam that is the sole determining factor in whether students win a coveted spot at one of China’s oversubscribed universities. So it’s not unusual for those who want to study in the United States to spend months cramming for the SAT and the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or Toefl, which most campuses require for admission.

在中国以考试为中心的文化里,学生把高中的大部分时间都用来备战高考。他们能否入读已经人满为患的大学,高考成绩是唯一决定因素。因此,对于那些想要去美国留学的人来说,花费几个月时间临时抱佛脚准备SAT大学入学考试和托福(TOEFL)并不罕见,因为大多数学校都要求这两项成绩。

Patricia J. Parker, assistant director of admissions at Iowa State, which enrolls more than 1,200 Chinese undergraduates, says students have proudly told her about memorizing thousands of vocabulary words, studying scripted responses to verbal questions and learning shortcuts that help them guess correct answers.

爱荷华州立大学有超过1200名中国本科生就读。该校的录取主任助理帕特丽夏·帕克(PatriciaJ. Parker)说,学生们会得意地告诉她自己记住了成千上万个单词、正在研究词汇问题的答题套路、学习猜测正确答案的捷径。

She has seen conditionally admitted students increase their Toefl scores by 30 or 40 points, out of a possible 120, after a summer break, despite no significant improvement in their ability to speak English. Her students, she says, don’t see this intense test-prepping as problematic: “They think the goal is to pass the test. They’re studying for the test, not studying English.”

她曾看到一些有条件录取的学生会在暑假之后,在满分为120分的托福考试中把成绩提高了30到40分,而他们的英语口语能力却并没有明显提高。她说,学生们并不觉得这种强化备考有什么问题。“他们觉得目标就是通过考试。他们不是为了学习英语,而是为了考试在学习。”

Ms. Parker estimates she contacts the Educational Testing Services, the nonprofit group that is in charge of the Toefl, every other day during the admissions season to investigate suspicious scores. Like many educators, she would like to see changes to make it harder to beat the exam.

帕克估计,在录取季节,她每隔一天就要和主办托福考试的非营利机构——美国教育考试服务中心(ETS)联系,对可疑的分数进行调查。她和很多教育者一样,希望看到事情有所改变,让学生更难用投机取巧的方式通过考试。

At Kansas State this fall, several Chinese students showed up for classes but did not match the security photos that were snapped when they supposedly took the Toefl months earlier. E.T.S. says it takes additional precautions, such as collecting handwriting samples to reduce the chance that students will hire someone to slip in, in their stead, after breaks. If cheating is found, E.T.S. policy is to cancel a score, but the organization won’t say how often that happens, and where. Kansas State, too, won’t comment on disciplinary measures, but it has named a committee to draft a policy on dealing with fraud on the Toefl. Says Mr. Lewis, the international admissions director, “It’s very hard, sitting here at a desk in the U.S., to judge what’s fraudulent.”

2011年秋季,几名中国学生来到堪萨斯州立大学念书,但他们的长相却和几个月前参加托福考试时采集的照片不符。美国教育考试服务中心称其采取了额外的预防措施,比如采集笔迹样本,来减少学生在考试休息过程中让“枪手”溜进来代考的几率。如果欺骗行为被发现的话,该中心的政策是取消成绩,但ETS不愿意透露这种情况发生的频率和地点。堪萨斯州立大学也不愿对处分措施发表评论,不过该校已经任命了一个委员会来起草一份针对托福作弊情况的政策。该校国际招生主任刘易斯说:“(我们)身在美国,很难去判断(那里)什么是假的。”

节选自纽约时报中文网

由《纽约时报》授权之《时报信息》翻译 

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