问： 我老是听人提到GPA, 还有某些学生拿到3分或者4分的GPA等等。你能解释一下这些数据具体意味着什么吗?GPA又是怎么计算的呢?

　　Question: I keep hearing about GPA and how some students have a GPAof 3 or 4, etc. What do these numbers mean and how should I calculate my GPA?

　　答：GPA指的是学生全部学科成绩的平均数。在美国，这是一种衡量学术成绩的标准方法。基本上来说，它是这样计算的：每个课程，根据内容难度不同，都配以不同的系数。在中学阶段，大多数课程的课程系数都是一样的，但大学阶段则不同。大多数大学课程的系数可达到3(一个学期里大约每星期会占用3小时的课堂时间和6小时的课后作业时间)，不过这个系数不一定，小到不足1分，多到超过5分，都有可能。GPA给每门课程的分数划定了不同的等级，用字母A、B、C、D、E、F表示。每个字母分别对应一个绩点分，例如：A=4、B=3、C=2、D=1、F=0。这个计算步骤在中学和大学均适用。

　　Answer: GPA stands for Grade Point Average. It is a standard way ofmeasuring academic achievement in the U.S. Basically, it goes as follows: Eachcourse is given a certain number of "units" or "credits",depending on the content of the course. In secondary school, most courses carrythe same number of units, but this is not true at the college level. Mostcollege courses have a load of three units (approximately three hours oflecture and six hours of homework per week for each semester), but the numbercan vary from fractions of 1 to more than 5. GPA assumes a grading scale of A,B, C, D, F. Each grade is assigned a number of grade points. An A gradereceives 4 points, a B=3, a C=2, a D=1, and an F=0. The process is the samewhether you are working on secondary or college grades.

　　如果你修了一门系数为3的课程，接着拿到了A的成绩，那么你这门课的绩点分就是3*4=12分。再假设你还修了一门系数为4的课程(比方说数学)，然后拿到了C的成绩。那么这门课的绩点分就是4*2=8分。所以两门课加起来，你总共有20个绩点分，分摊给7个系数 (20/7=2.86)，那么你的平均绩点分则为 2.86，这个分数意味着离B还差一点。

　　If you take a three unit class and receive an A grade, you receive 3units times 4 points (for the A), which gives a total of 12 grade points forthe course. Let's say you also take a 4 unit class (common in Mathematics, forexample) and receive a C grade. That's 4 units times 2 points for 8 points. Sofor your two classes you have accumulated 20 grade points for the 7 units. Youthen divide the accumulated grade points by the number of units and you haveyour GPA. (20/7=2.86), so your GPA is 2.86, which is slightly less than a Baverage.

　　如果你的课程成绩是用A-F来划分等级的，并且对应了4个不同的绩点，那么你就可以自己计算GPA了。但是大多数非美国地区并不采用这种方式划分等级。就算有些系统的确采用了类似的方法，其中每个字母所指的分数往往不尽相同(例如，在美国，“A”并不少见，但是有些系统里，学生几乎拿不到“A”)，这种情况下的GPA就不能与美国的等同起来了。也正是因为如此，这里的学院经常会设有专门评估国际学生GPA的人员。

　　If your grading system is A-F, with a 4 point scale, you may be ableto calculate your grade point average. However, most systems outside the U.S.do not use that scale. Even some systems that do use a similar scale havedifferent meanings for grades (for example, in the U.S., "A" gradesare not rare, but in some systems they are almost never given), so the GPA isnot representative of the same thing that it is in this country. It is for thatreason that colleges here usually have people specially trained in theevaluation of credentials from other countries.

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