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推荐阅读：雅思阅读材料大集合汇总

　　A 12th-grader wrote a college admissions essay about wanting to pursue a career in oceanography. Let’s call her Isabella. A few months ago, we edited it in my classroom during lunch. The writing was good, but plenty of 17-year-olds fantasize about swimming with whales. Her essay was distinctive for another reason: Her career goals were not the highlight of the essay. They were just a means of framing her statement of purpose, something surprisingly few personal statements actually get around to making.

　　一名12年级的高中学生写了一篇申请大学的文章，描述她想要从事与海洋学相关的职业。我们就叫她伊莎贝拉好了。几个月前，我们利用午餐时间在我的教室对文章进行了润色。文章写的不错，但充满了17岁少女的幻想，比如与鲸鱼结伴遨游。她的文章与众不同的另一个原因是：她的职业目标不是这篇文章的重点，只是完成她目的陈述的表达手法，这点很令人惊讶，因为事实上很少用这种方式写个人陈述。

　　The essay’s core concerned the rhetoric that educators had used to motivate her and her peers—other minority students from low-income communities. She’d been encouraged to think of college foremost as a path to socioeconomic mobility. Since elementary school, teachers had rhapsodized about the opportunities that four years of higher education could unlock. Administrators had rattled off statistics about the gulf in earnings between college graduates and those with only high-school diplomas. She’d been told to think about her family, their hopes for her, what they hadn’t had and what she could have if she remained diligent. She’d been promised that good grades and a ticket to a good college would lead to a good job, one that would guarantee her financial independence and enable her to give back to those hard-working people who had placed their faith in her.

　　文章的核心是围绕教育工作者的一些言论，他们一直用这些言论激励她和她的同龄人——来自低收入社区的少数民族学生。不断有人给她洗脑，上大学是位的，是改善社会经济地位的坦途。从上小学开始，老师就极力宣扬四年的大学生活能打开机遇的大门。学校领导能飞快地列举出各种统计数据，说明大学毕业生和只有高中文凭的那些人在收入方面的巨大差距。总是有人对她说，想想你的家人，想想他们寄予的厚望，如果能一直努力读书就会得到父辈无法拥有的东西。只要成绩好，拿到顶尖大学的录取通知书，保证就会有个好工作，有了好工作，不仅自己经济上能够独立而且还有能力回报亲友，这些人一直努力工作并且对她充满信心。

　　Thankfully, Isabella decried this characterization as shortsighted and simplistic. My guess is that only students like her ever have to hear it.

　　值得庆幸的是，伊莎贝拉批评这类说辞是目光短浅和头脑简单。我猜大概只有像她这样的学生才会听到这些。

　　The black and Latino kids I teach live in Inglewood and West Adams in Los Angeles. Their parents are house-cleaners, truck drivers, and non-union carpenters. When administrators, counselors, and teachers repeat again and again that a college degree will alleviate economic hardship, they don’t mean to suggest that there is no other point to higher education. Yet by focusing on this one potential benefit, educators risk distracting them from the others, emphasizing the value of the fruits of their academic labor and skipping past the importance of the labor itself. The message is that intellectual curiosity plays second fiddle to financial security.

　　我教的那些非洲裔和拉美裔学生都住在洛杉矶的英格尔伍德和西亚当斯。他们父母从事的工作是清洁工、卡车司机和非工会的木匠。当校长、辅导员和老师一次又一次地重复着，有了大学文凭会改善经济窘迫的情况，他们并不是指高等教育除了这点就没别的用处了。但是当只专注在获取这种潜在利益时，教育工作者们让学生注意不到别的事物，他们强调知识累积后成果的价值却忽略了知识累积本身的重要性。这种做法传递的消息是，求知欲排在经济保障之后。

　　While Isabella’s essay acknowledged her lack of economic advantages and portrayed with sensitivity her parents’ struggles, she was eager to focus first on nurturing her intellectual passion. She detailed how her curiosity about sea urchins and other marine life had led to a passion she wants to sustain through college and a subsequent career. College will ferry her to her intellectual destiny, not a financial windfall. She’ll make her life’s work what she wants to do, not just what she is able do.

　　虽然伊莎贝拉的文章承认她没有经济优势也敏感地描绘了她父母生活的困顿，但她盼望能将重心首先放在培养自己的求知欲上。她详细讲述了对海胆等海洋生物的好奇，这种好奇激发了她对海洋生物学的热情，她希望能在未来的大学生活和随后的职业生涯中一直保持这份热情。大学会把她送到知识海洋的彼岸，而不是送来意外的横财。她要让自己毕生的职业是她想要去做的，而不是她能去做的。

　　My students are understandably preoccupied with money. They don’t have the privilege to not worry about it. They fantasize about what their future wealth will permit them to enjoy. They dream about specific models of cars in certain colors and gargantuan houses in particular neighborhoods and opulent meals at their favorite restaurants any time they wish. Many swoon over the East Coast liberal arts colleges they visit on the special trips that my school is thoughtful enough to arrange. Colleges like Swarthmore and Haverford fly students like Isabella out during college applications season. A few are accepted but most attend state schools, which, especially in California, can provide excellent educational opportunities. The irony, though, is that many of these students aspire to go to a liberal-arts school but don’t necessarily understand its significance. They’re drawn to sleepy quads, weathered brick, and cascading ivy, but they are resolutely pre-professional in spirit.

　　可以理解我的学生们为什么十分在意金钱。他们没有资本不去担心。他们幻想着将来有钱可以让他们好好享受生活。他们梦想拥有某种颜色的限定款汽车、位于特殊社区的大豪宅以及随时可以在喜欢的餐厅享用丰盛的美食。许多学生参观东岸文科学院时几乎为之疯狂，我所在的学校用心良苦地安排了很多这种参观活动。大学申请季节时，斯沃斯莫尔和哈弗福德等大学会让伊莎贝拉这样的学生飞过去面试。少数几名学生会被东岸大学录取，但绝大多数学生会进入公立大学，尤其是加利福尼亚的大学，这些学校可以提供良好的受教育机会。但具有讽刺意味的是，很多向往文科学院的学生不一定了解这类大学强在哪里。吸引他们的是安静的校园、饱经风雨的墙砖和层层叠叠的常春藤，但在内心他们已经毅然踏入职前教育阶段。