Topic 72 Does grades encourage students to learn?

Almost in every modern society, grades play an importаnt role in assessing (оценке) students' academic ability. There are all kinds of tests to winnow out (чтобы отсеять) weak students. Knowledge itself is so complicate and vast, each one of the test usually cannot cover every aspect of it. So I wonder whether grades can really encourage students to learn.

The basic reason why I disapprove of the title statement lies in the belief that grades usually do not have positive impact on student who is strong or weak alike. Take the example of a student who has high grades: if Tom gets good grades in the class, normally he will feel conceited (самодовольный). This situation certainly will not lead him into finding some blind spots or weak points in his study. And he will not realize that may be just his photographic memory helps him a lot or this kind of test suits him well. Let us look at another example: suppose Johnny is so not good at memorization, but he works very hard. Unfortunately, he got poor grades in tests that facilitate (способствовать) memorization. One can foresee (Можно предвидеть) what harm will bring to him due to the poor grades. In these cases, grades play a negative role in encouraging students to learn.

I am frequently asked to facilitate meetings. - Меня часто просят помочь на совещаниях.

Most important of all, the grades are usually a convenient way of assessing a student's academic ability. But it is by no means a scientific one (Но это отнюдь не научно). Teachers cannot determine from the grades whether the student is hardworking (diligent) or out of cram (зубрёжка). Given tests to all students regardless (независимо) of their individual characters and traits, is just like forcing everyone to wear shoes of the same size. The Famous educationist Confucius said two thousands years ago: "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude (в соответствии с их способностями)." Our world is a colorful world, so should our educational system be.

Grades, especially poor grades will frustrate potentially successful students to learn. It will give them a false impression that their intelligence may be inferior (уступить) to other students. The worst thing about poor grades is that it may have repercussions (последствия) in an underachiever's heart (сердце отстающего) when all his fellow students and teacher have long forgotten. In fact, the potential talent of a student will be strangled (задушен) by those poor grades - a real pity to the student and the society.

Last but not the least, there is some advantages in taking grades as a tool to evaluate students' academic performance. As in my humble opinion (Как по-моему скромному мнению), they should be combining with other scientific methods to encourage students to gain knowledge, but not solely (alone; только, самостоятельно) focus their energy on how to achieve high scores. After all, it is the knowledge that it is power, not the grades.

Topic 73 Has computer made life easier?

Computers are involved in our world form sorted trash to satellite control,

making our life easy, convenient and efficient. Obviously, it's a great revolution

of human being. It's odd that some consider that computers make life more

complex and stressful. I suppose computers will become a necessity, like food

and water to the mankind.

Computers have changed people's life style, in a way that we can concentrate

on scientific research rather than wasting time on data analyzing and

calculating, for computers are much more efficient in dealing with these

strenuous jobs. Many activities could not be run in their present form without

computers. Examples are the banking systems, and the weather forecasting

systems. How is it possible to deal with data-switching between banks and

clients simultaneously and accurately without computers? As we known,

weather forecasting requires multiprocessing data from the meteorological

satellites and simulating the weather change, which are easy jobs for computers.

Although the knowledge of computer is not easy to acquired, especially at early

stage, the IT industry has been making the computer operation system more

friendly and at the same time more powerful. Therefore, using computers to

handle problems is not the specialties of computer majors only. Even children

can use computers to do their homework. We can now benefit a lot from

computers in our day-to-day life.

One of the concerns is that computers may cause some troubles when we rely

too much on them, such as various computer viruses and the Y2K problem.

Nevertheless, computer experts will surely solve these problems and improve

the computer technology. In this sense, the computer technology has much

potential to develop.

After all, the computer is one of the most important inventions in the twentieth

century. It has formed a new era in our life, and it affects culture, industry,

science, education and other areas. Computerization is a trend nowadays, and

computers are being used in many areas. Computers like any other technology

hold the key to increased productivity, which will benefit all of us.