第2个回答 2018-05-14
Those College Finals
1 I was sitting around downtown the other night. The wind was blowing; the temperature was frigid; the atmosphere was depressing. I knew that the combination of these things reminded me of something, and soon enough I realized what that something was. Final exams.
2 The most miserable moments of a college student's life come during final exam week during the winter. It is a horror that stays with a person for the rest of his life: the desperation, the frustration, the realization that one has to cough up mounds of knowledge that one does not even possess. And that one's future career may depend on how well one does the coughing.
3 I checked the calendar. Sure enough, it was just about time for the end of the term at Northwestern University, just up the road from me. I knew that thousands of students were up there at that very moment, bending over textbooks and notes and trying against all odds to memorize arcane facts and figures that they really cared nothing about. I couldn't help myself. I headed for the campus. In the first building where I stopped, a light was burning brightly in a classroom. I walked in; two young men had papers spread all over the room. Class was not in session; the two were alone. "Hi, fellows," I said. They looked up. Their eyes were filled with pain. They appeared to have gone without sleep for three or four days.
4 "What's up, guys?" I said.
5 "Please leave us alone," one of them said softly.
6 "Leave you alone?" I said.
7 "Finals," the other one gasped.
8 I walked out of the room and began a leisurely stroll around campus. Men and women looked as if they were about to sob as they staggered toward the library. They muttered to themselves. They lifted their eyes in silent prayer. They walked into trees, steadied their bodies, and kept walking. I felt great. I had been one of them, and now I wasn't. There probably is no feeling in this world more exhilarating than being on a college campus during final exams, and knowing that you don't have to take them.
9 I spent most of the evening wandering from building to building, watching the students get ready for the next day's finals. It was all so familiar. They gathered around long tables, spiral-bound notebooks open, and they shot questions at one another. There were lengthy periods of silence, and then a series of tentative answers. Cursing was common. Moans broke out. They stomped on the floor, and gazed out the window, and seemed to be ready to weep. Once in a while they glanced over at me. Under normal circumstances they probably would have been curious about my presence, but on this night their eyes were so glazed over that they couldn't even think straight. I just read the sports section and winked at them.
10 If I would have been in a charitable mood, I would have told them one of the great secrets of the real world. It is a secret that all of us who have been to college learned only after we got out; a secret that, if college students knew it, would ease their minds and make them calm. The secret is this: There are no final exams in real life.
11 It's true. In the real world, you don't have to know anything. There are no cases in which you have to sit down in a crowded room, scrunch your eyes up in concentration and regurgitate obscure and ridiculous facts from memory. In real life, you get to bring the book along. Believe it, college students: Real life is an open-book test. If you've forgotten something, you get to go look it up, or ask someone who's smarter than you. It's easy; much easier than college.
12 The only place you'll ever encounter something as bizarre and frightening as a final exam is at college. The college administrators fool the students by making them believe that final exams are only a mild precursor of what is going to happen every day in the big, mean' world. But it's not true. If the real world were as bizarre and rotten as final exams, you'd see everyone on the street walking around in the same demented, pathetic state as college students during exam week. No, it's all downhill after college finals. Real life is a coast, a glide. No one is ever going to ask you to compare and contrast the works of the Elizabethan authors no one is ever going to demand that you trace the battles of the Boer War. If someone did come up to you at work and ask you something like that, he'd soon be locked up in an institution somewhere.
13 I could have told the students that. I could have soothed their minds and made things simple for them. I could have asked them to join me for a beer and forget about finals week. Look at the top executives of the Fortune 500 companies, I could have told them. Do you think anyone would ever dare ask them how they did on their college final exams? I could have filled the students' mind with comforting thoughts like that.
14 But I didn't. And why should I have? I went through finals many times; finals made me crazy, and now it was time for these students to be made crazy. I watched them in their despair, and I smiled the smile of the truly contented. I stayed on campus until nearly midnight, and then I wandered off. On a path between some classroom buildings, something tumbled across the sidewalk, blowing in the wind. I knelt to pick it up. It was a blue book, the dreadful, chilling symbol of finals week. A blue book that some poor student had carried out of his exam and then discarded on the ground. I stuck it in my pocket and laughed a mechanical laugh. The lights still glowed in the campus building, as they would all night, but I got to go home.
1那天晚上，我在市中心附近闲坐。风在呼啸，气温很低，这气氛让人感到压抑。我知道，所
有这一切让我想起了什么，很快我就明白是什么了：期末考试。
2大学生活最痛苦的时刻莫过于冬天期末考试那一周。这种恐惧刻骨铭心，一生都忘不了——是一种绝望、沮丧，是意识到自己不得不勉强应答一大堆并未掌握的知识，而且一个人的前途如何，就取决于这种勉强的应答。
3我查了一下日历。果然，西北大学现在正好是学期快结束的时候——沿着我面前这条路走过去就是西北大学。我知道，就在此刻，就在那里，成千上万的大学生正埋头于课本和笔记，使出浑身解数去背那些晦涩难解的事实和数字，其实这些东西跟他们毫无关系。我按捺不住，径直朝校园走去。在我停下来的第一栋楼里，有一问教室灯火通明。我走了进去。两个年轻人将资料摊得满屋子都是。这会儿没课，只有他们俩。“嘿，伙计，”我说。他们抬起头，满眼的痛苦。他们看上去好像三四天没睡觉似的。
4“怎么了，年轻人?”我问。
5“请别打扰我们，”其中一个轻声道。
6“别打扰你们?”我问。
7“期末考试了，”另一人喘着粗气说。
8我走出教室，开始在校园里悠闲地溜达。男生女生个个神情沮丧，摇摇晃晃地朝图书馆走去。他们有的自言自语，有的抬头默默祈祷，有的走进树林，站稳身子，然后继续往前走。我感觉好极了。我曾经是他们中的一员，但现在我不是了。也许，在这世上，期末考试时，置身大学校园而知道你不必参加考试，可能是世界上最令人兴奋的事了。
9那晚大部分时问，我从一栋教学楼逛到另一栋教学楼，看着学生们为第二天的考试做准备。这一切是那么熟悉。他们围坐在长桌周围，前面摊开用螺旋线穿起来的笔记簿，连珠炮似地互相发问。一次次良久的沉默，接着是试探性地回答。咒骂声不绝于耳，时不时夹杂着哀叹。他们跺脚，凝视窗外，仿佛随时会哭出来。他们偶尔也朝我瞥一眼。在平时，他们可能会对我的出现感到好奇，但是，那天晚上，他们的目光呆滞无神，思维也不清晰了。我翻阅着体育版的消息，朝他们眨眨眼。
10如果我当时善心大发，我就会告诉他们现实世界中一个最大的秘密。这是我们所有上过大学的人走出校园后才领悟到的秘密，如果让大学生领悟了这个秘密，他们就会轻松、平静。这就是：现实生活中没有期末考试。
11确实如此。在现实生活中，你不必了解任何事情。没有任何情况需要你坐在拥挤不堪的教室里，为集中注意力而眯起眼睛，或者一字不漏地背出晦涩、荒唐的具体事实。在现实生活中，你可以把书带上。同学们，请相信：现实生活是开卷考，如果你忘了什么，你可以去查阅，或者请教比你聪明的人。很容易，比在大学里容易多了。
12只有在大学里，你才会遇上像期末考试那样稀奇古怪、令人恐惧的事情。大学管理者们欺骗学生们，让他们相信与庞大的残酷无情的世界里每天所发生的事情相比，期末考试不过是温和的前驱。但这并不是事实。如果现实世界确如期末考试那样荒诞可笑、令人厌烦，你就会看到街上的每位行人都如同在考试那周里的学生一样焦躁不安、可怜之极。现实并非如此，熬过了大学的期末考试后，一切如履平地。现实生活如同靠惯性滑行。没有人会要求你说出伊丽莎白时期作品的异同，或者强令你描述布尔战争各大战役的来龙去脉。如果在你工作时真有人过来问你这类问题，那么他就会马上被关进某所精神病院。
13我本来可以将这些告诉学生们，我本来可以安慰他们，让事情变得简单些。我本来可以请他们和我一起喝杯啤酒，忘了这期末考试周。我本来可以告诉他们：看看(《财富》前500强企业的总经理。你想会有人胆敢问他们的期末考试成绩吗?我本来可以灌输给他们这类令人宽慰的想法。
14但是我没有。我为什么要告诉他们呢?我经历了许多次期末考试，期末考试让我几乎发疯，现在该轮到他们发疯了。我看着绝望中的他们，像一个真正心满意足的人那样笑了。我在校园里几乎呆到午夜，然后才悠闲地离开。在几栋教学楼之间的小径上，我看见有什么东西被风吹动，在人行道上翻滚，我跪下将它拾了起来。这是一本蓝皮答题册，是期末考试周恐怖的、令人心惊胆战的标志。这一定是某个可怜的学生带出考场后，丢在地上的。我把它插入口袋，机械地笑了笑。校园教学楼里的灯光依然闪烁着，而且会整夜这样，但是我得回家了。