Coming to America: The theory of testing

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"Test” is the most dreaded word for the students to hear from the teachers. According to traditional school education, although various subjects of upcoming tests could make the student anxious and nervous, tests are inseparable for society to measure student learning.

When I returned to China from Port Townsend this summer to visit my family and friends, many of my friends suggested that I write a newspaper column about how students take tests in China. After reading this column, you may no longer complain how many tests you have to take.

“The school starts at 7:30 a.m.,” Rose Liao, one of my best friends, told me about her school life as a ninth-grader in Beijing. "Besides the daily nine periods of classes, we have to take a two-hour test every day as well. Different days have a different subject test: Chinese, math, English, chemistry and physics. After finishing the test, we get out of the school at nearly 6 p.m.”

The Chinese education system is divided into three phases: six years of elementary school, three years of middle school and three years of high school. During the process of linking up two stages, all students are required to take an examination, and everyone can only take it once a year. The test result determines which school a student attends at the next stage, except for a few students who may be recruited by a specific school in advance. Whether in public or private schools in China, it’s difficult for a student to switch schools once they have been admitted based on their grades. In this model of an examination-oriented educational system, most students don’t have choices. The only thing they can do is to take the daily tests again and again to prepare for their final examination, like my friend Rose, who knew the school she wanted to attend and the grades it would take to be considered.

For an understanding of the word “test,” almost all my Chinese friends gave me the same description: "numb."

The current Chinese education system is developed from the rise of the imperial examination system, which is 1,300 years old from the Sui dynasty. In ancient China, people were awarded to high social status through their test grades. As long as they studied hard, they could get a better life, no matter who they were. With the era of innovation and reform, the fairness of ancient social order continues today. Chinese people believe that it’s stable for the current system to distribute educational resources and select the honors through student academic grades. Indeed, it gives a fair chance for everybody in the country to get into a college. However, students face a lot of pressure. You may be shocked that teachers would publish all students’ tests results to the whole school, but this is the cruel fact that every Chinese student faces every day.

Compared with Chinese educational culture, in America there are more after-school responsibilities in addition to academic pressure. Although it’s my second year of studying abroad, I am still surprised by how American students work hard on community service and volunteer programs as part of their college application process. It’s just like I couldn’t have imagined that I would earn academic credit for writing a column for an American community newspaper.

American students prepare their college applications with the same principle as Chinese students preparing for their final examinations. It's like the "chicken or the egg" theory – do educated, talented people come first in a country's educational system, or is the system itself most important?

However, it’s all good when there are fewer nightmares of testing failure.

(Jocelyn Yang, 15, is an international student from Beijing, China, who is in her second school year attending Jefferson Community School in Port Townsend. She writes a weekly blog aimed at students in China who may be planning to study in the U.S.)