Almost everyone who knows Sun thinks it is a miracle that he can be admitted to Peking University.
In February 2007, he won the first prize in the New Concept Composition Competition. When he was interviewed in peking university independent recruitment, the interviewer didn't even know which province Huizhou No.1 Middle School he was studying in was located in.
No one had ever been admitted to Peking University before. He was originally a science student, but he had to change to liberal arts because his physics score was hovering between 20 and 30. Since then, his grades have improved, but until the end of last semester in senior three, he was still ranked 100 in the whole grade.
When he was a freshman, he wrote "An Argument" in Germination magazine, trying to prove to people that "high school can make up for any regret in one year, as long as you make up your mind". He left his mailing address at the end of the article and invited middle school students to prove the problem with him. Two years after the article was published, he received nearly 10000 letters.
Now, he is about to finish his four-year undergraduate studies with the first place in the history department of Peking University.
Immersed in the literary world, I am in the bottom ten in my class.
Throughout middle school, Sun was never a "good student" in the eyes of teachers and classmates. When he was in junior high school, he went to a boarding school. Most of his memories of junior high school life are related to online games. In order to play online games, he often pretends to be sick and goes home to rest. In the evening, he sneaked into the Internet cafe while his father was asleep, and then hurried home before his father woke up in the morning.
Before the entrance examination, he suddenly "woke up", studied hard for half a year and stumbled into Huizhou No.1 Middle School.
After entering high school, his enthusiasm for online games plummeted, because he found new interesting novels. Influenced by his father, who taught in the Chinese department of the university, he came into contact with Wang Xiaobo's works and began to read all kinds of novels crazily. He said: "Everyone who is addicted to novels inevitably has a seducer, and my seducer is Wang Xiaobo."
Under the "temptation" of Wang Xiaobo's "Time Trilogy", he immersed himself in the world of literature all day. He described his freshman life:
"Change all Chinese and English mathematics, politics, history and geography in the course into novels or literature; Stay in the library all day; When I took the Chinese exam, I spent half an hour on the topic of the composition, and then spent two hours writing a 3000-word composition and handing it in, and then got a score of 10; Spend a week squatting in the library to write experimental novels, write them for everyone to judge, burn them as long as one person says he doesn't like them, submit them if everyone likes them, and then sink to the bottom of the sea; Reading in the morning is all changed to poetry recitation, and in the noisy environment of reciting ancient Chinese in the class, raise the banner of vernacular poetry ... "
Accompanied by this free and easy, it is the red light hanging high in the exam results. In fact, it is inevitable that the head teacher will spend most of his time reading novels in the library except English class. There are 48 people in the class, and his grades are in the bottom ten. Teachers expect him to be "Bao Hui University (Huizhou University) and Chongshan University (Shantou University)".
At that time, Sun thought that exam-oriented education and literary ideal were opposite, because they were fundamentally different, one was based on mechanical speed training and the other was based on talent. In his view, it is almost a "great shame" to accept a "comprehensive and mediocre" exam-oriented education. "Limited time and energy cannot cover many subjects that are not good at. Mathematics is really a painful tragedy for a person who specializes in literature and history. " Because of this, he didn't care about the exam results, even if he hung a red light all the time, but he didn't dare to let his parents know, "Because they are already embarrassed to hit me, after all, I have grown taller than them."
You must jump into the river of exam-oriented education, although you may wash away the edges and corners.
In the second year of high school, Sun had to choose to be a liberal arts student. At this time, he found that he was no longer "reading for the sake of reading" as he was in his freshman year of high school, but had begun to yearn for recognition from others. He firmly believes that he has extraordinary talent, but many students around him "don't know what else there is in this world except doing problems."
But the reality constantly frustrated him. "I can't even find a reason to comfort myself for more than 400 points."
He feels that there are always some level ceremonies and details in exam-oriented education that make him feel ashamed: according to school regulations, the seating order during the exam should be arranged in turn according to the ranking of the last exam, and the classroom in his class is the first examination room, and he has to carry his schoolbag to the third or even fourth examination room every time. During an exam, he saw that the girl who had been ranked in the top five in her class also went to the third examination room. He looked at her with a little schadenfreude, but the girl just said faintly, "I was sick in the last exam and didn't take the English exam."
A strong sense of hitting the wall made him start to consider a complete break with the conventional road to further studies, and he began to find a way out for himself, one that was not a way out for the entrance examination. At that time, he felt that taking the college entrance examination was a compromise on exam-oriented education and "a rather shameful act." He firmly believes that his talent can enable him to enter the ideal university through a path without taking the college entrance examination.
With high expectations, he signed up for the 8th New Concept Composition Competition and Peking University's independent entrance examination, but failed. This had a great influence on him, and he began to realize that "he must jump into the river of exam-oriented education, although it may wash away the edges and corners of my stone."
He set five requirements for himself: First, he moved all the books unrelated to the exam home, leaving only conversation record in Hu Shi's later years; Second, never enter the library, all courses are indispensable; The third is to put away the love and hate for the teacher, in order to acquire the knowledge of taking the exam; The fourth is to ensure the time for self-study in the evening and actively carry out 3-hour exam-oriented training; The fifth is to make a daily plan and strictly complete it.
Sun entered senior three with a simulated test score of about 450 points and the above five requirements. He secretly set himself a sprint goal: Sun Yat-sen University, the "extreme fantasy", China Renmin University, Wang Xiaobo's alma mater.
The sprint from Sanben to Peking University was successfully completed in one year.
In the initial stage of implementing these five requirements, Sun's effect was not obvious. He feels that under the examination-oriented education system, "bad students" pay more than "good students" every step forward. "As we all know, teachers are reluctant to help underachievers now." But he felt he had no choice. "Just like when a person is dying, he just wants to live and has no other purpose." In his view, in the sprint period of senior three, the method is secondary, and the most important thing is attitude and persistence.
Gradually, his score approached 600 points, but the growth momentum slowed down. His grades hovered between 590 and 600 for a long time, and he realized that he was in a bottleneck period. In Guangdong province, a score of about 600 in the college entrance examination will mean that he may not be admitted to a key university.
At this time, he obtained the re-examination qualification of the 9th New Concept Composition Competition. It was six months before the college entrance examination.
Teachers and parents advised him not to go to Shanghai for a second interview because it would make him miss school for at least two weeks. For a senior three student whose grades are in a bottleneck period and need to break through, the significance of two weeks seems self-evident. However, Sun felt that his "idealism was budding again", so he left all his worries behind and went to Shanghai for a second interview.
Facts have proved that his choice is correct. He succeeded in winning the first prize. At the subsequent meeting of colleges and universities, Cheng Yuzhui, a professor of Chinese Department of Peking University, and Liu Mingli, director of the Admissions Office, took a fancy to his idealism and gave him the qualification to participate in Peking University's independent enrollment. He may be admitted 20 points below the college entrance examination score. This means that if he wants to be admitted to Peking University, he still needs to improve by 50 points in the remaining five months.
To his surprise, English, which was the biggest headache for him before, completely broke through the bottleneck from the first exam after taking the "new concept". His English score has never exceeded 65,438+000, and since that exam, his score has never been lower than 65,438+06,5438+00. The scores of other subjects are also improving steadily.
He later explained this "complete leap" as follows: everyone's potential is often suppressed by low self-expectation, which comes from external institutional oppression. He believes that the deep-seated problem of exam-oriented education lies in the worship of scores and the emphasis on overall mediocrity. "In the discourse system of exam-oriented education, it is not surprising that the so-called good students get good grades and the bad students get poor grades. Score evaluation has become a moral value judgment, and personality is constantly denied by the score system." In his view, the appropriate first prize affirms that "new concept" is the key factor of success.
In his progress, the college entrance examination came as scheduled. The final language 1 15, mathematics 132, English 130, comprehensive 146, history 127, with a total score of 650, successfully completed the sprint from three books to Peking University.
In the relatively more relaxed and free learning environment of Peking University, he is like a duck to water. He studied Chinese first, then history, and the history department ranked first. Former President of the Western Society of Peking University, representing Peking University to attend the World Model United Nations Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands, and won the title of Top Ten Lectures.
At the end of this article "An Argument" which attracted nearly 10,000 replies, he wrote: "I believe that my talent has never been washed away by the river of exam-oriented education, but I really successfully challenged exam-oriented education. Finally, I only have two hopes: first, I hope that people with ideals will not bow to reality; Second, I hope you can help me solve this problem. I hope it will be built for each of you. "