To those US-bound students
(and their concerned families) who just took the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
last weekend: congratulations, but think that was tough? If so, just be glad
that you don’t have to sit the Gaokao – China’s equivalent of the college
entrance exam. Reports are that the SAT is a cakewalk in comparison. First of
all, the pressure to do well is far more intense – the two days of the Gaokao
can make or break a young person’s entire future, and Chinese teens don't have the
do-over opportunities that are available to SAT-takers should they happened to have been
feeling ill that day or simply caved into nerves. Secondly, the Gaokao math
section is reputedly much more intense; it makes the US test seem like a
color-by-numbers exercise by comparison.
Another Gaokao feature
that routinely furrows brows is the essay questions. The SAT essay prompts tend
to be relatively straightforward and often deal with personal growth and
morality. Examples:
·
There
is no success like failure. Comment.
·
Should
you tell a friend the truth or avoid hurting their feelings?
·
Is it
better to live for the present or prepare for the future?
·
Does
character determine success in one’s life?
·
Is reality
TV beneficial or harmful?
The Gaokao essay
prompts are hardly so straightforward. Some of them read like they were written
by a Zen Buddhist monk crossed with an aging hippie on dope. If you think that
Asian tests are only about rote learning and rigid guidelines, think again. The
Chinese essays require sharp interpretive skills and the ability to think
laterally. Courtesy of the shanghaiist.com website at the link below, a sample
of the mind-bending essay prompts that were included in this past weekend’s
Gaokao follows (Note: these are real questions posed to students in different
regions of China):
Beijing: The “old rules”
prescribed by parents demand respect for elders, speaking in a quiet and gentle
voice, and sitting or standing straight up. Recently, netizens have gone online
to discuss these traditions. What is your understanding of this issue?
Shanghai: “The world
belongs to you only after you stand up.” Discuss.
Jiangsu Province:
Some say that only youth is immortal, that young people do not believe they
will die some day. Is this naive? Are there things such as this in nature that
are eternal?
Fujian Province:
With the word “valley”, some people think “cliff”. Others think of the old
road built along the cliff. What about you?
Anhui Province: “The
authors say that the actors are allowed to change the screenplay, but the
directors say that they are not.” Discuss.
Hunan Province: There was once a
very poor place. Many left it. Others stayed, and over a few years, turned
it into a beautiful village. Discuss.
Guangdong Province:
Old black and white photos are few and far between. Because they are rare,
they are precious. These days, digital technology has seriously diluted the
value of photographic images. Thoughts?
Liaoning Province:
Grandfather and grandson are standing on a hill. Grandson loves the neon
lights of the city, how colorful everything appears. Grandfather hates the neon
because it washes out the more beautiful stars in the sky. Discuss.
Every year, China observers try to discern if there are
common themes imbedded in the Gaokao’s questions. This year’s bring two
alternatives to mind for this blogger. First, the questions seem to grapple
with the effects of a rapidly changing society on its individuals – how does
one reconcile the old with the new? How should a person relate to a constantly
evolving environment? An alternative and more ominous motivation for
the Gaokao administrators to pose these questions recalls the Hundred Flowers
Campaign in the mid 1950s, when government officials invited multiplicities of
views to bloom amongst the intellectuals, just so the leadership could subsequently
brutally stamp out the undesirable weeds. Let's hope that we don't need to be so cynical. Life is stressful enough for the millions
of teenagers who toil away in hopes of securing a better future for themselves
and their families to have to worry that they may be headed for re-education rather than college.
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