Scholarship boy.
有个墨西哥裔的美国作家,叫Richard Rodriguez。他写过一本自传,Hunger of Memory,讲自己作为做题家的故事。大概故事是说,他成长在一个墨西哥移民家庭,从小经历了西班牙语家庭和英语学校两个环境的文化冲突,在迷茫与孤独中选择了放弃家庭投身学校,成了一个用力过猛的学术少年。过度焦虑于成绩,过度崇拜老师的权威,以匆匆划去书单上的条目为傲。然后一路考上伯克利,又到剑桥去做博士,发现自己到头来不过是进入了一个寂寞如雪的小圈子。他想到自己付出的代价—远离家庭的温暖,没有精彩的青春—为此后悔不已。于是在写毕业论文的时候疯狂拖延症,博览群书搜罗像自己一样的奇葩学生的痕迹,最后发现只有个叫Richard Hoggart的教育家提及过他这类人,并称之为Scholarship boy。
对于Scholarship boy的描述如下,完全契合做题家的概念:
"[The scholarship boy] tends to over-stress the importance of examinations, of the piling-up of the knowledge and of received opinions. He discovers a technique of apparent learning, of the acquiring of facts rather than of handling and use of facts. He learns how to receive a purely literate education, one using only a small part of the personality and challenging only a limited area of his being. He begins to see life as a ladder, as a permanent examination with some praise and some further exhortation at each stage. He becomes an expert imbiber and doler-out; his competence will vary, but will rarely be accompanied by genuine enthusiasms. He rarely feels the reality of knowledge, of other men's thoughts and imaginings, on his own pulses ... He has something of the blinkered pony about him ...."