1、高考还是人生最大的坎儿吗? A students life used to hinge on passing the higher education entrance exam, but increasing numbers of graduates are finding the test is no longer the guarantor of success it once was高考：还是改变一个人命运的转折点吗？ “In a flash, eight years have passed since I took the gaokao.”Thus read the update I
2、 posted to my Sina Weibo microblog on June 7, 2012, the first day of this years national higher education entrance examination. Not quite a decade after I endured the ordeal, I have become emotionally detached from the exam that was once the deciding factor in whether my life would be a success or f
3、ailure. Still, the anniversary prompted me to try and piece together my memories of the gaokao. The first scene that came to mind was not of the exam itself, but of how I persuaded my dad not to wait for me outside the gate after he escorted me to the test site on exam day. He finally agreed to go h
4、ome when I warned him that I wouldnt be able to concentrate on the exam if I knew he was standing in the sweltering sun for over two hours. Luckily, I passed the exam and was admitted to one of Chinas most prestigious universities. My life has come a long way since the gaokao, but every year the sce
5、ne outside the test sites remains the same; a swarm of anxious parents captured on the cameras of local TV stations. Thats just one example of the annual bout of collective anxiety the gaokao induces. During the two days of the test, a hypersensitive atmosphere pervades, requiring an almost reverent
6、ial intensity of concentration on the exam above all else. For example, the test rules prohibit female exam proctors from wearing high-heeled shoes out of concern that the sound of them clicking against the tiles will disturb the examinees. Road traffic controls around examination areas ensure a qui
7、et test-taking environment, and construction work near test sites is suspended, especially for the English listening section of the test. Even police cars are at the ready to give a free ride to examinees who are running late. Yet now that I am removed from the situation, I cannot help but wonder if
8、 this massive public concern for the gaokao will last, and if the exam is as important as it was 30 years ago. “In this highly competitive society, I think the gaokao is more important than before,” says Xiao Chun, a high school student from Fujian Province. “In the past, a couple had several kids a
9、nd didnt pay as much attention to each child. Besides, going to college was not the only means to make a living, for as long as you graduated from middle school and attended a vocational school, you could still live a decent life. “But now its different. Studying has become our top priority, given t
10、he pressure of the competition.” In a lecture at Zhengzhou University in July 2011, famous CCTV host Bai Yansong (白岩松) coined a phrase that is now often recited as a slogan to boost students morale: “If there is no gaokao, how can you compete with the rich second generation?” (没有高考，你拼得过富二代吗？M9iy6u g
11、ok2o, n pn de gu7 f&-rd3i ma? ) The saying reveals a crucial truth about the gaokao: to date, the exam remains the fairest way to give qualified candidates their best shot at higher education. Its ancient predecessor, the imperial examination system (科举制度 k8j zh#d&), was established in 605 A.D. duri
12、ng the Sui Dynasty (581-618) and abolished in 1905 during the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911), when it became regarded as pedantic and unsuited to the pragmatic demands of the time. This early model for selecting talented people was based on their performance on the exam, regardless of their social backgro
13、unds. Before that, most appointments of officials in the imperial bureaucracy were based on recommendations from prominent aristocrats and local officials. The gaokao offers a channel for those with modest family backgrounds to win slots in Chinas top-tier universities, but for 11 years, it ceased t
14、o exist, suspended to accommodate the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaopings proposal to resume the test in 1977 was a turning point in the fate of many young people of the era. Chen Sihe, who took the 1977 gaokao and was admitted to Fudan University, is now an accomplished Chinese contemporary literat
15、ure critic and the director of the universitys department of Chinese language and literature. The 58-year-old mans voice fills with emotion when he speaks of the exam: “For me, the gaokao completely changed my fate.” At the time, Chen was a temporary librarian without a regular salary at a neighborh
16、ood library; he saw no hope of winning a place among the quota of permanent staff. When he heard the exciting news in the autumn of 1977 that the gaokao would resume, Chen immediately registered. In the following months, he studied intensely to fill in the gaps in his education. “I bought a self-lea
17、rning series for high school math, physics and chemistry, and I taught myself algebra, plane geometry, solid geometry and trigonometry,” Chen recalls. That winter, over 5.7 million people walked into the exam rooms, their ages ranging from 15 to about 35. However, the devastating damage wrought by t
18、he Cultural Revolution on the national economy had left the country with a shortage of blank paper on which to print the test. At the last moment, the Central Committee of the Communist Party decided to borrow the paper that had been reserved to print Volume V of the “Selected Works of Mao Zedong.”
19、In the exam rooms of Shanghai, there was so little space that sometimes two examinees had to share a desk. Only one in every 30 test-takers passed that year, and a vivid analogy was used to illustrate the intensity of the competition: “Tens of thousands of soldiers and horses squeeze across a single
20、-plank bridge.” (千军万马挤独木桥。Qin j$ w3n m2 j d%m&qi1o.) Chen Sihe was among the lucky few.“By means of the gaokao, I successfully moved from the underclass to the intellectual circle,”says Chen. “The gaokao also has a spiritual significance for me. I was feeling my way in the darkness and eventually wa
21、s introduced to the center of the ideological liberation movement (思想解放运动 sxi2ng ji0f3ng y&nd7ng).” Xiao Jie (pseudonym), the 2004 Shanghai Gaokao Champion, sees her success in the exam in a different light. “Its more like a proving yourself exam. In preparing for the gaokao, I learned to work hard
22、and be self-disciplined, which later benefitted my college study,” she says. After graduating from the Peking University School of Management, Xiao Jie now works as an analyst at an investment bank in Beijing. “My life is still a process of adjusting to various parameters and making necessary compro
23、mises,” she says. “Its like acrobatics or juggling. You add a ball to see if you can balance more at the same time.” The Ministry of Education has started to make plans to break the current practice of “one exam determining your whole life” (一考定终身 y# k2o d#ng zh4ngsh8n) by giving some top universiti
24、es more autonomy in selecting students (自主招生 z#zh zhosh8ng). Simultaneously, failing the gaokao is no longer perceived as inevitably resulting in a gloomy life of servitude. Graduates of a Nanning school line up to form a 77 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the reinstated college entrance exam
25、ination in 1997. Two students make a game of pushing their boxes of study materials after taking the gaokao in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, on June 8, 2011. THE EVOLUTION OF THE ESSAY Not only does the significance of the gaokao vary among different generations, the exam has evolved to accommodate the
26、 characteristics of the different eras in which it has been set. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the gaokao essay topics over the past 30 years. In the late 1970s, owing to the residual thinking of the Cultural Revolution, the topics were tinged with heavy political messages. For example,
27、the topic of the 1977 Beijing gaokao was “My Life in the Past Year of Battle.” In Shanghai, the topic was “In the Days of Adhering to Guiding Principles and Managing State Affairs.” The following years Beijing gaokao asked the examinees to abridge “Speed is a Political Issue,”notes of a speech made
28、by then-General Secretary Hua Guofeng () at a meeting that called for society to learn from the city of Daqings experience developing its industry. While politics defined the essays of the 1970s, the 80s could also be summed up in a single word: pragmatic. Essay topics emphasized the development of
29、a sense of social responsibility, with the Beijing gaokao calling for essays on topics like “It is Hard to Plant Trees, but Easy to Destroy Them,” (毁树容易种树难 Hi sh& r5ngy# zh7ng sh& n1n) and “Be the First to Concern Yourself with the Affairs of State and the Last to Rejoice in Personal Happiness” (先天下
30、之忧而忧，后天下之乐而乐。 Xin tinxi3 zh y4u 9r y4u, h7u tinxi3 zh l- 9r l-.). The essay topics in the 1990s yet again shifted focus from the nation to the individual level, closely examining students everyday lives. Typical topics included “My Wealth” (the 1996 Shanghai gaokao),“My Opinion on Extracurricular Re
31、ading” (the 1997 Shanghai gaokao) and “Perseverancethe Quality that I Should Pursue” (the 1998 Beijing gaokao). The trend of highlighting individuality continued into the new century, with gradual reforms to the gaokao made to inspire more creative thinking. Zhao Guojun, a law scholar dedicated to j
32、udicial reform and human rights protection in China, is one of the so-called gaokao “losers.” “Twenty-two years ago, I failed the gaokao and had to go to a vocational school, and later became a taxation official. But without fulfilling my gaokao dream, I never felt satisfied,” Zhao recounts in respo
33、nse to a discussion topic on microblogging platform Sina Weibo that asked about the fate of those who failed to pass the gaokao or gain acceptance to university. He continues, “I read heavily after work and kept up the learning habit that I formed in high school. Eleven years later, I finally got a
34、chance to resign and join the Beijing vagabond group (北漂 b0ipio, a term for those who migrate to the capital). “My life in Beijing followed my previous lifestyle of studying on my own and reading for fun. Now I have become a free intellectual who writes books and makes friends. How delightful it is!
35、” Other more famous gaokao “losers”include Jack Ma, CEO of the popular trading site Alibaba, and Yu Minhong, CEO of the New Oriental School, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and trains students for overseas English tests such as the TOEFL, IEITS, GMAT and GRE. Ma failed the gaokao twic
36、e, whereas Yu only scored 33 out of 100 on the English test the first time he took the exam. Zheng Qi, who graduated from Shanghai Tongji University in 2009 and now works as an application engineer in Beijing, doesnt think the gaokao is the only avenue to success either. “If one fails the gaokao, he
37、 can still pursue undergraduate studies abroad,”he says. “Nowadays, some parents even send their teenage kids abroad to attend middle and high school.” Qu Bowen, a 25-year-old book editor from Hunan Province, echoes Zhengs views, but with a more critical eye.“For urban kids, the gaokao may not be as
38、 decisive as before, given the diverse choices available. But for those from rural areas, success in the exam is still the only means for them to effect a change their in lives.” However, Qu adds that going to college no longer secures success in ones life, given that higher education in China has e
39、xpanded from elite education (精英教育jngyng ji3oy&) to popular education(大众教育 d3zh7ng ji3oy&). Since a change of policy in 1999, the number of students enrolled at universities in China has skyrocketed, jumping to 2.75 million in 2002 from just 1.08 million in 1998, and has steadily increased since the
40、n to culminate in a college admission rate for those who took the 2011 gaokao of 72.3 percent. This shift has driven ever increasing numbers of new graduates to enter an already congested job market, and ensured that for todays high school students, the imperative is to look beyond the gaokao, either to the examples set by those who have failed it in the past but made something of themselves, or to the pressure that awaits them in the graduate job market.第 11 页 共 11 页
