It’s tempting to conclude that the exam system is wrong to inflict such pain for so little gain. It is not as if we remember the facts that we stuffed into our heads at the very last minute. On the evening of my finals, I could probably have told you about Wittgenstein’s view on the indeterminacy of translation but now all I can recall is the picture that was a duck one minute and a rabbit the next. 我们很容易得出这样一个结论：考试制度造成如此大的痛苦，但换来的收获如此之少，证明这种制度存在问题。我们根本记不住在最后一分钟硬塞进脑子里的那些事实。在期末考试前一天晚上，我或许还能够告诉你维特根斯坦(Wittgenstein)有关翻译不准确性的看法，但现在，我只记得起那幅上一分钟还是鸭子，下一分钟却变成兔子的图片。 我要收藏 Yet that isn’t why it’s all a waste. Even though I’ve forgotten what I learnt, I am still proud to have once known it. This seems a less shameful state of ignorance than never having known it at all. 不过，这并不是考试制度一无是处的原因所在。尽管我曾学过的东西都忘记了，但我还是以曾经知道为傲。与从来不知道相比，这种无知状态似乎不那么可耻。 The real problem with the exam system is that it teaches lessons about work itself that you need to unlearn pretty smartly if you want to get ahead in business. 考试制度的真正问题在于，它教授了一些关于工作本身的错误知识，如果你想在商界中获得成功，你就必须很快忘却这些东西。 First, it teaches you that there is a fairly straightforward relationship between effort and result. In exams, if you work very, very hard in the evenings you are going to do an awful lot better than if you spend your evenings in the pub. In most office life, this is not true. The relationship between effort and reward is much more complicated. 首先，它灌输给你一个概念，即付出与成绩是完全对等的。就考试而言，如果你每天晚上都非常、非常认真地复习，而不是泡在酒吧里，那么你的成绩就会好很多。但在大多数办公室生活中，情况并非如此。付出与回报之间的关系要复杂得多。 Second, in an exam there is nowhere to hide. If you fail you may try to pin the blame on your teachers or the examiner, but in your heart you know there is no one else to blame but yourself. You either weren’t bright enough, or you didn’t work hard enough. 其次，在考试中，你无处可躲。如果你没通过，你可能会试图怪罪于你的老师或考官，但内心深处，你知道这件事不怪任何人，只能怪你自己。你不是不够聪明，就是不够努力。 One of the beauties of office work is that there is no shortage of candidates to blame for one’s failures. Management, the market, the culture, one’s colleagues, the competitors, an IT failure. the options are endless. You can screw something up royally and get away with it indefinitely. Indeed, so long as you are quite senior you can bring the entire banking system down and still get a big bonus. 工作的一个好处在于，你永远可以将你的失败归咎于其它因素：管理、市场、文化、你的同事、竞争对手、一个IT故障；选项无穷无尽。即使你把事情弄得一团糟，也能永远避开惩罚。实际上，只要你职位够高，就算你把整个银行系统都搞垮，还是可以收到巨额奖金。