The Conclusion and Explanation of the Composition for College Entrance Examination

  "China News Weekly" reporter / Du Wei

  Published in the 963th issue of China News Weekly on September 7, 2020

  In the nearly 70 years since the college entrance examination system was established, the composition questions have undergone changes in the form of propositional composition, topic composition, semi-proposition composition, material composition, task-driven composition, etc. The topics have changed between open and restricted.

But what remains unchanged is that every year in the examination room, a large number of pretentious, clumsy words are produced, without a sense of true feelings, and "fake and empty" routines.

  As early as 2012, Peking University professor Qi Yongxiang, who was the deputy director of the Chinese Department of Peking University and the deputy leader of the Beijing College Entrance Examination Chinese Marking Leading Group at the time, referred to such examination room essays as "college entrance examination style", and repeatedly complained about such composition. The shortcomings of the university and call for reform, but to this day, the "college entrance examination system" is still widespread.

Offensive and defensive warfare

  In the first 14 years after the establishment of the college entrance examination system in 1952, college entrance examination essays mainly consisted of examination narratives, and the themes were closely related to the political situation, such as "An Exciting Scene in the Great Leap Forward", "Say Not Afraid of Ghosts", and "May 1st Labor" Festival Notes" etc.

After the reform and opening up, the college entrance examination composition has turned to the discussion of social realities. It is basically a proposition composition and material composition. Most of the composition is composed of argumentative essays. There are also two essay questions including one large and one small. ", on the issue of environmental pollution, write to the editorial department of Guangming Daily.

After the 1990s, under the tide of the market economy, college entrance examination essays paid more attention to personal ideological qualities, such as discussions on topics such as helping others and perseverance.

  Beginning at the end of 1997, a large-scale discussion on Chinese education issues that lasted for more than a year was launched nationwide, involving issues such as the rigidity of teaching, examinations, and serious examinations.

In this context, in 1999, college entrance examination composition ushered in a major change, a new type of composition-topic composition turned out to be, that is, given a topic, candidates can choose their own ideas and topics. Compared with proposition composition, More space for writing.

The essay question for the college entrance examination that year was to write an essay with the content "If the memory can be transplanted", except for poetry, the style is not limited.

Since then, topic composition began to dominate the world. In 2004, when many provinces across the country could independently proposition, 14 of the 15 composition questions were topic compositions, and the number of topic compositions reached the peak.

  The original intention of topic composition is to allow candidates to think creatively, and the style is not limited to make it easier for them to show themselves, but the excessively broad proposition requirements make it possible for candidates to write.

  Ni Jiang is a Chinese teacher at Hangzhou Foreign Language School, a special-grade Chinese teacher and a senior teacher in Zhejiang Province.

Since the 1990s, he has participated in many college entrance examination composition review.

He told China News Weekly that after the topic composition appeared, candidates would choose to recite paragraphs or the entire composition to deal with the exam, and then developed into the use of three or five ancient celebrity examples to assemble the composition.

Zhejiang, as a province with a deep cultural heritage and has always attached great importance to examinations, has made the humanities characteristics of college entrance examination essays more distinctive after self-proposed questions.

From 2004 to 2007, Zhejiang college entrance examination essays followed the topics of "Humanity and Development", "One Branch, One Leaf, One World", "Life for Life/Life without Life" and "Walking in the Passing".

In the context of "human cultural writing", candidates wrote prose similar to Yu Qiuyu's "Cultural Journey" in style and stylistic "four differences" in response to a large number of ancient celebrities' deeds.

  Hu Qin, a provincial super teacher who once served as a high school language teacher in Zhejiang Province Teaching and Research Section and is now a professor at Zhejiang Normal University School of Humanities, summed up this style of writing: Pursue the humanity and cultural flavor of the article, elegant and ethereal words, empty and elegant content, and more The flow of emotional images.

Sun Shaozhen, a well-known literary critic who has studied the college entrance examination for more than 20 years, a professor and a doctoral tutor at the Faculty of Letters of Fujian Normal University, believes that this is due to the poetic sentiment of the proposition and the lack of rational thinking among the candidates.

  In 2006, the Zhejiang Provincial College Entrance Examination Composition Marking Group called for a crackdown on routine essays. In 2007, a special "marking instructions" was also formed. The content was also mentioned in many lectures given by the Zhejiang Provincial College Entrance Examination Composition Marking Group Leader Chen Jianxin.

"Explanation for Reading Papers" stated that the characteristic of routine essays is that they love to use ready-made historical and cultural names in life and deeds. The structure of the article is "syllogism of wearing boots and hats", that is, using three historical celebrities allusions, plus the beginning and end of the writing, the theme is always discussed Stay on a superficial level.

According to incomplete statistics, Qu Yuan, Tao Yuanming, and Su Shi, commonly known as the "Big Three", are the celebrities who appear most frequently in the cliché composition. Common celebrities include Li Bai, Du Fu, Li Qingzhao, and Zhuangzi... Whether patriotism or environmental protection, they care for the bottom The public is still a spiritual civilization, and candidates can use the above-mentioned materials to perfuse.

Chen Jianxin also mentioned in the title "The Secret Training Course of Exam Composition for Candidates by the Famous Teachers of College Entrance Examination" that the scoring team has been controlling the scores of routine essays, which dropped from the highest score of 49 in 2004 to no more than 30 in 2010.

  Formal essays not only appear in the college entrance examination Chinese examination room in Zhejiang, but also in Jiangsu Province, which is also characterized by detached topics and strong humanities.

He Yongkang, a professor at Nanjing Normal University who has served as the group leader of the college entrance examination language group in the province for many years, also said when commenting on the composition of the college entrance examination that candidates like to cite classics and write flashy articles.

In 2005, the Jiangsu college entrance examination composition used "Crested Head, Pork Belly, Leopard Tail" as the topic. Thousands of examinees wrote about the same ancient celebrity-Xiang Yu.

Xiang Yu's Wujiang can be regarded as the "leopard tail" of life, but it also makes the readers feel "hairy" when they see Xiang Yu.

Against this background, in 2007, an essay in Jiangsu College Entrance Examination that reflected his father's cutting of wheat, "Thinking of the Sky", stood out with simple and authentic words and won full marks, which is eye-catching.

  When the drawbacks of topical composition are fully revealed, a new type of composition proposition-new material composition is available nationwide, which is equivalent to an integrated and upgraded version of topical composition and past material composition.

Ni Jiang explained that by giving certain context and limitations to the materials, the composition can only be understood by reading the materials, while retaining the open nature of topic composition.

In the examination questions of some provinces, the form of "materials + propositions" even appeared, in order to further increase restrictions, prevent copying, and appeal to candidates to portray realistic text.

  But the effect of this is not obvious.

In Zhejiang, exaggerated and gorgeous cultural prose is still rampant. The Ministry of Education has hired the chief editor of Chinese textbooks for elementary and middle schools and the director of Peking University's Institute of Chinese Education, Wen Rumin, once called it "literary and artistic style."

Ni Jiang said that after advocating the realism of the photo, although the gorgeous style is gone, the article is still artificial.

For example, he said that students tend to choose family-related topics when writing, so in the exam papers of 40 or 50 students in a class, there are 20 or 30 essays about the death of grandparents.

  "When we emphasize a certain aspect, the situation will develop in another direction. Press the gourd and start again." Hu Qin mentioned in the "Zhejiang College Entrance Examination Composition: Analysis of Propositions and Examples" edited by him. When students write, they often ask students to find their feelings in the essays of elementary and junior high school students, because their essays are honest.

In 2012, the Zhejiang College Entrance Examination essay question was about "being a roadside applause person or a hero".

After the college entrance examination, Zhejiang local language teaching and research staff recruited elementary and junior high school students with good grades. According to the requirements of the college entrance examination, they were asked to complete a total of 17 assignments. After the college entrance examination marking group, there were 6 papers with an average score of 47.3. The average score is 6 points higher than the college entrance examination composition.

  In 2012, the Beijing college entrance examination did not have a perfect score.

The essay question that year was a material composition about railway inspectors, and the essays submitted by the candidates were full of materials that were popular in those years that "moved China", and ancient people such as Sima Qian and Su Shi came to "conferences" as usual. The phenomenon of uniformity is particularly serious.

Qi Yongxiang, deputy leader of the Beijing College Entrance Examination Chinese Marking Leading Group, was very angry.

"A thousand people can have a thousand Hamlet in their hearts, but you clearly drew Jia Baoyu, not even Hamlet, that's not good!" Qi Yongxiang said.

  Qi Yongxiang also listed 15 kinds of bad writing styles in the college entrance examination composition, including the swearing style of the college entrance examination, the empty language style, the peaceful style, the overwhelming style, the uncommon and difficult style, and the mixed style of writing. They are collectively referred to as the "college entrance examination style". "College Entrance Examination" declared war.

  In order to solve the problem of overly lyrical writing and composing, after 2010, the direction of college entrance examination writing was adjusted again.

In the context of the new round of basic education curriculum reform, the "General College Admissions National Examination Syllabus" promulgated in 2009 stipulates that students must be able to write "discourse articles" in the language examination, that is, to explain things and viewpoints. The essays written by essays are not limited to traditional argumentative essays, but political essays, current reviews, etc. can be included in the category of essays, which test students’ logical thinking ability.

In the past ten years, although the composition of college entrance examinations in various places is basically not limited to style, most of them also have "clear style", and the examination of students' rational thinking has become their common direction.

  But the students' composition shows a new routine.

Zhong Fenghua, a Chinese teacher and senior teacher in Hangzhou Senior Middle School, has participated in the examination of composition for the college entrance examination for nearly 10 years. He told China News Weekly that based on his personal experience and observations, the "routines" in the college entrance examination have increased in recent years. , Almost 4 of every 10 essays use routines, and the celebrity material cited has completed the "iteration" from ancient China to modern and contemporary to foreign characters.

Li Hao is a senior Chinese teacher in a certain place in Zhejiang. He has participated in the examination of essays for the college entrance examination for many years. He is also the scorer of this year. According to his observation, more than 80% of the essays of the college entrance examination this year are quoted by famous celebrities. China has disappeared from the articles in the past two years. Ancient celebrities, but the French existentialist writer Beauvoir, the famous French philosopher Sartre, Shakespeare and other names, as well as the relatively unfamiliar Western figures to the public, or quote a relatively rare famous western celebrity.

  Out of a further blow to the collusion, task-driven writing has appeared in the National College Entrance Examination Paper in the past 5 years, that is, more specific task scenarios are given to allow candidates to be involved in their writing, such as this year’s National College Entrance Examination Paper II. Candidates, as representatives of the Chinese youth participating in the "World Youth and Social Development Forum", completed a keynote speech.

Where does the routine come from?

  "College entrance examination composition proposition is a weather vane, and the composition questions of the previous year have a certain guiding role for the next year." Zhejiang Anji Senior Middle School, Zhejiang Province Anji Senior Middle School, who has participated in the composition review of Zhejiang College Entrance Examination for more than 20 years and served as the group leader of composition review for 18 years Said Guo Jicheng, a teacher and provincial special-grade teacher.

However, due to the similarities between this year and last year's Zhejiang college entrance examination essay questions, many candidates took out materials prepared according to last year's composition questions. This is one reason why the average score of this year's college entrance examination composition is lower than last year.

  Before the college entrance examination this year, in conjunction with the new crown epidemic, Li Hao told the students in his class that the college entrance examination composition is likely to examine the relationship between individual, collective and social development.

The reason for his prediction is to refer to the 2019 Zhejiang College Entrance Examination Composition Question, which is a proposition about the relationship between individuals and others.

  “Actually, college entrance examination composition composing is not just for students to follow suit, but fundamentally there is a problem with teaching,” Guo Jicheng believes, “whatever took the exam last year, teaching this year will basically move in this direction.” Zhejiang college entrance examination composition written in 2018 "Zhejiang Spirit", in the review of the college entrance examination in 2019, almost all mock exams are written along this direction.

  The style of betting and guessing has always prevailed in middle school education.

Participated in the composition review of Beijing Chinese college entrance examination for nearly 20 years. Wang Daji, a nationally well-known Chinese teacher, told China News Weekly that after the southern ice and snow disaster in early 2008, almost all teachers and students believed that this would be a composition question for the college entrance examination of the year. After the 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake occurred, the information had to be updated again.

When the earthquake essay questions appeared, the test takers ended up writing similarly, the average score was lower than in previous years.

In 2015, the National I Volume of the New Curriculum Standard unexpectedly produced a material composition for a daughter to report that his dad was driving and calling on the highway, and asked to write a letter. Many students were very angry because of the three-year training for thesis template. Some netizens even asked the "prototype" in the human flesh test question and scolded them on their Weibo, but eventually found that the wrong person was scolded.

  Routines have existed since ancient times, from the memorials of ministers in the Han Dynasty to the "eight-part essays" of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Ni Jiang pointed out that the reason why the composition of the college entrance examination today is routine is that after some high-scoring samples appeared, the examinees figured out the preferences of the readers, and the teacher lacked independent judgment, which contributed to the teaching and test preparation process, which led to group imitation.

  A typical example is in 2001, the college entrance examination essay "The Death of the Chitu", which was mixed with literary and white texts, got full marks and was made public. As a result, there was a wave of writing in classical Chinese across the country.

In 2009, an examinee from Sichuan wrote an essay entitled "Familiarity" in Oracle bone inscriptions in 2009, which attracted the attention of the national media. In the end, he scored only 8 points due to partial questions.

In 2010, there was another parallel-style ancient essay composition for college entrance examination entitled "Green Life" in Jiangsu in 2010. The scoring teacher and ancient essay expert did not know the 40 or 50 ancient characters in the article. The author Wang Yunfei said that he had read 2009 In the year of the college entrance examination, a student wrote a report on Oracle and decided to take the risk of writing a classical Chinese essay, but fortunately, the essay got full marks.

In 2009, another examinee in Hubei used the form of archaic poems to write the full score composition of "Standing at the Door of Huanghuagang Cemetery".

In 2012, the Ministry of Education issued new regulations for the college entrance examination, prohibiting the use of non-current standardized Chinese characters such as traditional oracle bone inscriptions to answer questions.

  Regarding the demonstration effect of full score essays, Yu Shucai, a Chinese teacher at Chengdu Chengfei Middle School, wrote an article and pointed out that after the full score essays exposed in some places have used the form of "inscription", there have been many consecutive years of "try to ask how much fashion is." Humanity is the grand occasion of "inscriptions", and other full-point essays reflect the tacit understanding of the "three-axes", regardless of whether the content is needed or not.

The so-called inscription is a paragraph of text written below the title of the article and before the main text, with the purpose of highlighting the main point of the article and inspiring readers' interest in reading.

Yu Shucai said that, coupled with the summary of the composition guidance materials that it was regarded as a secret, the "full score routine" made the candidates rush.

  In the era of topic composition, Li Hao's mission is to teach students not to digress, and at the same time to teach students some good words and sentences, "quick success and quick benefits", to help students get a high score.

After examining essays in recent years, his duty has changed to ask students from high school to do current affairs review together. After the first and second high school students complete paragraph writing training, they will do a lot of whole writing in the third year. This is what the senior students are preparing for the test. The general method.

  In addition to distributing writing materials to students, Guo Jicheng will also carry out targeted training for students on several key points that affect the writing scores of the essay examination room, such as examination of questions, ideas, and material selection.

For example, how to extract keywords when reviewing questions, how to summarize and review materials, how to make a good title, and start a good head.

In his courseware for reviewing lectures on college entrance examinations, he specifically gave out the skills of beginning with quotations, analogies, and materials.

Guo Jicheng said that in a lecture he went to other middle schools, because he taught the students four kinds of beginnings, the average score of the students' composition increased by at least three or four points in the subsequent examinations.

In the "Examination Room Composition Secret Training Course for Candidates by Famous Teachers of College Entrance Examination", led by Chen Jianxin, in order to give students precise points and point out the direction, the team teacher explained that the opening sentences, antithetical sentences, parallel sentences, etc. will be different. Effect.

  Wang Xuming, former spokesperson of the Ministry of Education and former president of the Chinese Publishing House, pointed out that whether the scoring teacher is publishing books or giving lectures, what he teaches students is only shortcuts and opportunistic test-taking skills, rather than improving student writing according to the laws of Chinese education. Level.

  Ni Jiang analyzed that an important consideration for students writing routines in the examination room is to seek stability.

The reason behind this is that the scorers have a high "centering rate" and the score difference cannot be widened. The teacher asks the candidates not to take risks.

Wen Rumin said in an interview with the media in 2011 that according to surveys in Beijing, Fujian and other provinces and cities, the proportion of second-class essays (below 40 points) in the college entrance examination composition accounted for 75% to 80%. This is to ensure the progress of the marking. , To avoid the two people's scoring difference is too large, and then need to find a third person to review, due to convergence.

  Most of the candidates' performance in seeking stability and writing argumentative essays.

A number of teachers who participated in the examination of the college entrance examination told China News Weekly that, in the context of the majority of material composition and emphasis on essay writing, the proportion of argumentation essays written in the examination room can account for more than 80%, because the format of argumentation writing is relatively fixed. It is easy to teach and learn, but there are not many people who really write argumentative essays, which also caused a large number of argumentative essays "crash" in the examination room.

What is a good composition and how to write a good composition?

  In Sun Shaozhen's view, the college entrance examination composition has always been "fake, big, empty", routine, without real feelings, and another important reason is that the proposition is too morally restrictive, the intention is obvious, and the "false openness". The topics are low-intellectual and there is not much room for discussion.

For example, in 2000, the essay titled "Answers Are Rich and Colorful" uttered the truth as soon as it came up. In 2002, the essay on the topic "The Choice of the Mind", which used the rescue of frozen people in a snowstorm as the material, has a clear intentional tendency. "The word is overhead.

In 2011, the national I-volume comic material composition "Cats Eat Fish and Catches the Mouse" obviously emphasized not forgetting one's job and the intention of hard work, giving candidates little room for discussion.

The 2012 Jiangsu volume composition title "Worry and Love" originally intended to create a dualistic and contradictory discussion, but "worry" and "love" are not logically contradictory, nor are they juxtaposed in a complete sense.

  Wang Daji has an interesting metaphor for the changeable test questions but the perpetual routines. If a person has insomnia, the solution we think of is to change the bed, but can the problem of insomnia be solved fundamentally?

He believes that over the years, many materials and essays have given vague expressions, and test composition has become test reading.

He appreciates the straightforward question-style exam questions like the American SAT test and the French high school philosophy test.

  French high school examination results are the stepping stone for students to enter the university, and the examination itself is equivalent to China's college entrance examination.

For example, the liberal arts topics "Can you escape time" and "what is the use of art works" in the 2019 exam, the economic and social topics "Is morality the best policy" "Does labor divide people", and the science topics "Cultural diversity Hinder the unity of mankind" "Does the recognition of duty mean giving up freedom".

In Sun Shaozhen's view, no matter from the depth of the proposition or the test taker's answerability, these examination questions can be more effective and in-depth examination of students' thinking ability.

  In contrast, whether it was this year’s controversial full-point essay "Living on the Tree" or the highly praised "Death of the Red Rabbit" in 2001, Ni Jiang believed that his speculativeness was weak and he did not express his own thinking, but just In a statement.

Wang Daji believes that the excellence of "Death of the Red Rabbit" is not that it uses a mixture of literary and white to complete the writing, but when a group of examinees talked about the integrity of people, the author thought of the integrity of animals.

In fact, the theme of "Death of the Chitu" was not "honesty" but "loyalty" to a large extent.

He Yongkang, in order to learn from each other through examinations and provide more accurate materials for daily teaching, revised the expression of "loyalty" in the article before publishing it in the Yangtze Evening News.

In December 2015, the 4th National Primary and Secondary School Writing High-end Forum with the theme of "Classic Reading and Writing Improvement" was held in Beijing.

Photographer/Reporter Wang Lei

  What Wang Daji admired more was another full-scored essay on the topic of "integrity" that year. The title was "Insincere or unbelief or transgression". Candidates did the opposite, writing that "soldiers are not tired of fraud" on the battlefield and "fraud in shopping malls". "Not to deceive" is also reasonable.

Wang Daji said in his blog that more than one scoring teacher said: We have no right to give this classmate 70 points.

This essay faces the truth of life directly, showing a kind of true depth, rather than the kind of false profoundness under the restraint of the establishment of a mind-fixing formula.

  In addition to the propositions that need to be improved, Wang Daji believes that what candidates currently lack is the ability to connect the topics with their familiar life through association and imagination.

He compares each test question to a window. Outside the window is an infinite and expansive life. The college entrance examination composition requires candidates to display their familiar life and familiar knowledge outside the window after reading the meaning of the questions, and express deep insights through rich details. , The original insight is a good composition.

Students' writing ability should be acquired naturally in the process of quality education.

  Sun Shaozhen believes that in the future, the proposition of writing should further strengthen the examination of students' logical thinking ability, and change the phenomenon of overly lyrical and even abusive writing of college entrance examination composition.

In recent years, the composition topic setting of the college entrance examination has begun to transition from binary opposition to multiple perspectives. The effectiveness and quality of the propositions have been improved, providing an objective basis for the examination of students.

For example, the composition of the Jiangsu exam for college entrance examination in 2019, open-ended discussion about "things have their own characteristics, symbiosis and coexistence", in the 2018 National Volume II, the survivor deviation guide candidates to explore the complexity and contradictions behind the appearance of things.

In this regard, the Shanghai College Entrance Examination essay questions have been relatively high-level since the independent proposition in 1985. For example, in the 2014 college entrance examination, according to "You can choose the road and way to cross the desert, so you are free; you must cross This desert, so you are not free" composition; 2011 college entrance examination composition, asked candidates about "everything will pass" and "everything will not pass" views.

  Regarding which styles should be examined in the college entrance examination, a view in recent years believes that the essay orientation of composition in the college entrance examination is an improvement, because the essay will train students' logic.

In Wang Daji's view, from the perspective of reducing the constraints on candidates' writing, style should not be restricted. Everyone has different specialties. Arguments directly present opinions, and narratives can also show candidates' thinking and cognitive level through the description of things. .

In recent years, Beijing papers have used either argumentation or narrative to test students.

Qi Yongxiang believes that writing good narrative essays is the basis for writing good argumentative essays. Under the current environment of false, large, and empty argumentative essays, college entrance examination composition propositions are appropriately shifted to narrative essays, or the "college entrance examination style" style of writing can be reversed.

  The reason why the college entrance examination composition is highly concerned by teachers and students is that its score is 60 points, which is more weighted in Chinese scores.

However, many middle school Chinese teachers believe that the examination of writing does not have to be limited to the large composition. You can set a certain context in the reading questions to test the students' writing skills, for example, after reading an article, use the opinions in the article to appreciate Or to evaluate a poem, the writing part of the score can also be appropriately transferred to the reading questions.

Ni Jiang pointed out that no matter how it is changed, the baton of the college entrance examination will eventually tend to examine the nature of writing ability.

  In Wang Daji's view, for an ideal college entrance examination essay question, the task of the person who prepares the question is to clearly express the requirements of the question in the test paper. Students can understand the question and write according to the requirements of the question, and the reader can follow the requirements of the question and be competent. Judgment composition, trinity.

So far, whether it is the proposition person, the scoring team, or the examinee, the teacher and the language education environment in which they are located, there are serious problems. Everyone is in a chaotic state and needs a comprehensive reform.

  (In the text, Li Hao is a pseudonym, reference materials: "Sun Shaozhen: On the Way of Chinese and Composition for College Entrance Examination", "Looking for the Golden Needle and People-Collection of Chinese Education and College Entrance Examination")

  China News Weekly, Issue 33, 2020

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