Just saw this news on CNN, basically it is a interview of a girl who failed on Gaokao before, just like me, I also failed on Gaokao by many reasons, one of the biggest reason was “I just didn’t like to study and I was too busy to hang out with my GF etc.” , here is the link of the news if anyone interested.
Gaokao is an exam to test all Chinese student after 6 years study on whatever knowledges they feel useful or not (For me, I thought they all useless back to that time), if you failed, you either try again next year, find a job, pay a lot of money to get into a university or like me, go study oversea.
I am not saying go study oversea is easier than pass the Gaokao, but obviously that was an option for me. and I did choose to study in NL for 4 years after I failed on Gaokao.
Ok, Back to this Gaokao news, I think it’s stupid, one reason is they just post such news for something they didn’t really understand, and found a girl who failed on it and just really want to complain about it, Gaokao is not a positive thing for sure, it creates too much pressure for too many young people for too long, but If anyone ask me about how I feel about Gaokao, I have to say, I really wish I studied harder and pass it, not because I want to, but it was one time life experience you will never have, imagine 6 years hard study, day by day, compete with another X million students just like you and just for one exam, if you can make that work out, I believe mentally it will improve you a lot.
After I come back from NL, worked with a lot people who actually passed Gaokao, I did realize it is not totally useless for learned those “useless” knowledge from high school, there was always a moment you need them, not because you really remembered it, but when you need it, those knowledge just like some really old chips in your head and suddenly start refreshing your mind.
For me, Math is something I use a lot in my work, and there is huge different between the people who paid a lot attention in highschool and who didn’t, I prefer to work with the people who at least have some foundation on Math instead of those who alway believe “learn+validate from your work” (I am typically the person who support “learn+validate”, because I didn’t pay attention to the knowledge from high school which I though useless but useful now.)
So, I used to hated Gaokao, But now I don’t, I have a son, he is little now, ideally I want him to try Gaokao, I don’t expect any result from it, but just want him to feel it, to have a really basic concept of everything/knowledge in mind.
In a country with 1.4B people, some small issues from western eyes are bigger here(maybe that is why they can not understand), with limited edu resources(Even it’s a lot more than any other countries) and a lot more people, competition is a way out, stay high competitive is the key, and Knowledge precipitation is important.
