[原始] 2014/10.28 昨天下午场的G, 作文考古了-学校开课

  >>>本月原始原题！！！

"The SaludaConsolidated High School offers more than 200 different courses from which itsstudents can choose. A much smaller private school down the street offers abasic curriculum of only 80 different courses, but it consistently sends ahigher proportion of its graduating seniors on to college than Consolidateddoes. By eliminating at least half of the courses offered there and focusing ona basic curriculum, we could improve student performance at Consolidated andalso save many tax dollars."

>>>题目大意

>>>参考思路

>>>参考范文

In this editorial the authorrecommends that Saluda’s Consolidated High School eliminate half of its 200courses and focus primarily on basic curriculum in order to improve studentperformance and save tax revenues. The author’s recommendation is problematicfor several reasons.

To begin with, the author assumesthat the only relevant difference between Consolidated and the private schoolis the number of courses offered by each. However, other relevant differencesbetween the schools might account for the difference in the proportion of theirgraduates who go on to college. For example, the private school’s studentsmight be selected from a pool of gifted or exceptional students, or might haveto meet rigorous admission standards whereas Consolidated’s students might bedrawn from the community at large with little or no qualification for admission.

Next, the author assumes that theproportion of students who go on to college is an overall measure of studentperformance. While this is a tempting assumption, its truth is by no meansobvious. If student excellence is narrowly defined in terms of the student’sability to gain access to college, this assumption is somewhat reasonable.However, given a broader conception of student excellence that takes intoaccount student’s ability to learn and apply their knowledge to new situations,it is not obvious that college admission is reliable indicator of performance.For example, students in non-academic disciplines could conceivably perform athigh levels within these disciplines but nevertheless be unable to meet collegeadmission standards.

Finally, the author assumes thatsavings in tax revenues will result from the reduced costs of funding thepaired-down curriculum. This is not necessarily true. For example, it couldturn out that both programs serve the same number of students and require thesame number of classrooms and teacher.

In conclusion, the author has notmade a convincing case for the recommendation to eliminate courses atConsolidated and focus on a basic curriculum. To strengthen the conclusion theauthor would have to provide evidence that Consolidated and the private schoolwere sufficiently similar to warrant the analogy between them. Moreover, therelationship between student performance and college admission and themechanism whereby savings in tax revenues would be accomplished would have tobe clarified.