Children born in August do significantly worse in exams than classmates born 11 months earlier at the beginning of the academic year, a landmark study shows.
据英国《每日邮报》11月1日报道，一项具有里程碑意义的研究显示，八月份出生的孩子比起那些年长11个月于九月份学年开始时出生的孩子，在考试中明显表现得要糟糕一些。
August-born boys are 12 per cent less likely than September-born boys to get good GCSEs and girls are 9 per cent less likely.
八月出生的男生比九月出生的男生在获得优秀的GCSE课程成绩的概率上低了12%，而女生则低了9%。
In addition, August-born youngsters are 20 percent more likely to ditch academic study and learn a trade from the age of 16. They are 20 per cent less likely to go to an elite university.
此外，八月出生的青少年有20%以上的几率在16岁时选择抛弃学术学习，转而去学习职业技能。而他们进入名校就读的几率也低了20%。
And it is not just their education that suffers as they are more likely to be bullied at primary school and have lower confidence in their academic ability.
在教育状况方面，这些孩子不仅仅是在上小学时更容易被欺负，也降低了他们在学术能力上的信心。
As a result as teenagers, they are also more inclined to smoke, binge drink and take cannabis and fewer are in control of their lives, according to a report published today.
今日发表的一篇报道中说，对于十几岁的青少年来说，这样的情况也导致他们更容易吸烟、酗酒、吸食大麻，难以掌控自己的生活。
Claire Crawford, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), co-author of the report, said children face a penalty "simply because they are unlucky enough to have been born late in the school year".
这篇报告的合著者，来自英国财政学会（IFS）的克莱尔•克劳德福说，孩子们面临着一种惩罚，“仅仅只是因为他们不幸地出生在学年末”。
To redress the balance, August-born children could spend a year longer at school under proposals put forward by the study's authors.
该研究的作者提出建议，为了匡正这种平衡，八月出生的孩子应该在学校多待一年。
Or they could sit tests only when they are deemed ready, or have their test scores age-adjusted.
或者是只有当他们认为准备好了以后再参加考试，要么就让考试成绩根据他们的年龄加以调整。
The shake-up would involve ending the arbitrary system which expects pupils to reach academic levels by the end of a "key stage" at school.
政策的大调整应该包括终止这种任意的系统，这一系统期望学生在学校生活的“关键阶段”结束时达到要求的学术水平。
They would instead be expected to achieve those levels by a certain age, for example the crucial "level four" by eleven-and-a-half rather than by the time they leave primary school.
取而代之的应该是期望学生在特定的年龄达到相应水平，比如说，要求学生在十一岁半时达到“四级”，而不是在他们从小学毕业的时候。
Another alternative, suggested by the authors, is to change the admissions process to ensure children only start school after a certain age.
作者还提供了另一种选择，就是改变学校的录取进程，以保证只有适龄的儿童才能入学就读。