Part of growing up, and being a successful student is learning from your successes and failures. Unfortunately Chinese students don't get this opportunity. In China about nine million students take a test called the gaokao. This test has a lot at stake. These students go through years of studying for this single test. This test alone determines their future.This is too much pressure for students to be under. The gaokao has a lot at risk. All students do is study, and it affects the student's and their family's lives. The gaokao has too much control over students lives.
The gaokao is an extremely long test that many Chinese students take that determines, basically their future. The article "China's Cram Schools" by Brooke Larmer helps readers understand what exactly the gaokao means and what is at stake. For example, "20,000 students train around the clock for China's national college-entrance examination, known as the gaokao. In some ways, the gaokao is like the SAT or ACT, but it's more than twice as long and the stakes are much higher: Given every June over several days, the test is the only thing that matters for admission to Chinese universities." Another important thing to know is if you fail the gaokao, you must do hard labor working in a factory or construction site as your job. There are no second chances for these students. For example, "manual labor would be their fate too, if they failed to do well on the gaokao." Overall the gaokao is a very tough test that risks too much in a student's life.
One reason that shows that the gaokao has too much control over students lives is that students are studying too much that it has taken over their lives. For example "Yang Wei, then a senior at Maotanchang, had spent the previous three years, weekends included, stumbling to his first class at 6:20 in the morning and returning to his room only after the end of his last class at 10:50 at night." This shows that students have a school day that is 14 and a half hours of non-stop studying which is crazy. Another example of Chinese students studying too much is a quote from Yang Wei that says, "If you connected all of the practice tests I've taken over the past three years... they would wrap all the way around the world" This shows the amount of of work that they have to do in just three years. This is over 300 million pieces of paper, practice tests. A final example of this is that they study too much that they don't even have have enough time to eat, the article states "students [are]... hooked up to intravenous drips to give them strength to keep studying". This is inhuman and certainly unhealthy for these students. In the end we see that these students are simply studying way too hard.
Another reason that shows that the gaokao has too much control over Chinese students' lives is how badly it affects their lives. For example students get so stressed out that it even comes to suicide sometimes, in the article it states "Teenage suicide rates tends to rise as the gaokao nears.". This shows that these students are under major amounts of stress and having to do so much work that it sadly comes down to this. Another example is that there are many poor families who are counting on their children to get a good job and help pay for necessities. But, some students are strugglers and might fail the gaokao and get a low paying job. For example "The rent on their tiny room was high, rivaling rate in downtown Beijing, and it represented only part of the sacrifice Yang's parents made to help him become the first in his family to attend college. Yang's father is a peach farmer in a village 45 minutes away; his mother quit her garment-factory job to support Yang in his final year of cramming.". This shows the struggles families go through and how much they depend on the results of this test. A final example of this is that they study too much that they don't even have have enough time to eat, the article states "students [are]... hooked up to intravenous drips to give them strength to keep studying". This is affecting their lives and it also affects the lives of their parents who try desperately to support this awful way of life. All in all this shows that the gaokao test affects students lives and families in many ways.
In conclusion, we see here that the gaokao test in China has many bad affects on the students taking the test, from suicide to poor families trying to make some money. You can't push kids so hard that they can't even make a single mistake or else it could affect the rest of their life. Testing is absolutely necessary to determine student learning but it should not be the sole measurement of a student's learning.
The gaokao is an extremely long test that many Chinese students take that determines, basically their future. The article "China's Cram Schools" by Brooke Larmer helps readers understand what exactly the gaokao means and what is at stake. For example, "20,000 students train around the clock for China's national college-entrance examination, known as the gaokao. In some ways, the gaokao is like the SAT or ACT, but it's more than twice as long and the stakes are much higher: Given every June over several days, the test is the only thing that matters for admission to Chinese universities." Another important thing to know is if you fail the gaokao, you must do hard labor working in a factory or construction site as your job. There are no second chances for these students. For example, "manual labor would be their fate too, if they failed to do well on the gaokao." Overall the gaokao is a very tough test that risks too much in a student's life.
One reason that shows that the gaokao has too much control over students lives is that students are studying too much that it has taken over their lives. For example "Yang Wei, then a senior at Maotanchang, had spent the previous three years, weekends included, stumbling to his first class at 6:20 in the morning and returning to his room only after the end of his last class at 10:50 at night." This shows that students have a school day that is 14 and a half hours of non-stop studying which is crazy. Another example of Chinese students studying too much is a quote from Yang Wei that says, "If you connected all of the practice tests I've taken over the past three years... they would wrap all the way around the world" This shows the amount of of work that they have to do in just three years. This is over 300 million pieces of paper, practice tests. A final example of this is that they study too much that they don't even have have enough time to eat, the article states "students [are]... hooked up to intravenous drips to give them strength to keep studying". This is inhuman and certainly unhealthy for these students. In the end we see that these students are simply studying way too hard.
Another reason that shows that the gaokao has too much control over Chinese students' lives is how badly it affects their lives. For example students get so stressed out that it even comes to suicide sometimes, in the article it states "Teenage suicide rates tends to rise as the gaokao nears.". This shows that these students are under major amounts of stress and having to do so much work that it sadly comes down to this. Another example is that there are many poor families who are counting on their children to get a good job and help pay for necessities. But, some students are strugglers and might fail the gaokao and get a low paying job. For example "The rent on their tiny room was high, rivaling rate in downtown Beijing, and it represented only part of the sacrifice Yang's parents made to help him become the first in his family to attend college. Yang's father is a peach farmer in a village 45 minutes away; his mother quit her garment-factory job to support Yang in his final year of cramming.". This shows the struggles families go through and how much they depend on the results of this test. A final example of this is that they study too much that they don't even have have enough time to eat, the article states "students [are]... hooked up to intravenous drips to give them strength to keep studying". This is affecting their lives and it also affects the lives of their parents who try desperately to support this awful way of life. All in all this shows that the gaokao test affects students lives and families in many ways.
In conclusion, we see here that the gaokao test in China has many bad affects on the students taking the test, from suicide to poor families trying to make some money. You can't push kids so hard that they can't even make a single mistake or else it could affect the rest of their life. Testing is absolutely necessary to determine student learning but it should not be the sole measurement of a student's learning.
