Although our educational system and our society generally place a high value on competition, some problems can be better solved through cooperation and some forms of learning are strengthened through cooperation. Both competition and cooperation have a place in society and can serve a useful purpose. Consequently, it is necessary to be able to engage in both processes depending on the circumstances and one’s goals.In the academic environment grades are often conceived as the major criterion (标准) for the assessment of learning. We tend to assume that the higher one’s grade average, the more one has learned, thus creating greater competition for grades. This competition can be particularly intense in fields where the financial rewards are great and opportunity is limited: law, engineering, medicine, and business.However, the measure of one’s learning is not limited to grades. It is possible to learn a great deal about a subject and receive a low grade or even no grade in the evaluation. No grade can be used to define what we learn about ourselves from sharing what we know with others. And no one can give us a grade for how we feel about ourselves and about our relationships with others. The word "conceived" (Sentence 1, Paragraph 2) can be best replaced by（）

A. called
B. described
C. known
D. viewed