STUDYING ENGLISH IN AN EXAM-ORIENTED WAY
BY RACHEL WANG
I started learning English in the primary school. I still remember the first time I held my English book with a cover on which a group of kids on an airship were watching the world outside. The cover looked somewhat ridiculous, but at that time it was more like a sign for me to explore a new language. When I entered the fourth grade of primary school, my teacher told me that test grades were used to differentiate students into strong and weak at academic performance. Before I recognized and understood how the exam results connected with one’s academic ability and self-worth, I was forced to sink into the education filled with exams: quizzes in elementary school, tests in the middle school and American college entry standard test in high school. Most of the time I thought more about how to work to get good results in English exams rather than how exams benefited my English study.
In middle school, exams occurred almost every day: dictation during each class, Friday quizzes, monthly checks, and unavoidable mid-term and final-term exams. One of the most important English exams for me was the high school English entry test. In addition to the common entry exam that every student was required to take, my high school had a difficult entry test. My high school was prestigious, so every year a large number of top students aimed to get in by taking that exam. As those students did, I targeted my high school even when I was in the primary school. Never being a top student in English myself, I felt enormous pressure to compete with my classmates and top students from other schools. Sometimes I found the English entry exam was like a time bomb hung upon me ready to explode anytime. On the summer holiday of my junior year in middle school, I started to prepare for the English entry exam crazily. Surrounded by my classmates pulling all their strength on the exam, I thought about nothing but how to work harder. To help us prepare for the exam, our English teacher taught us a large amount of grammar knowledge and exam techniques, and let us practice papers every single class. The exam was mainly relevant to reading and grammar rather than writing or other skills. Therefore, I practiced with different articles and grammar exercises from varied textbooks, online resources and past papers. The reading part was not easy but I pretty enjoyed it because each piece of reading was a completely fresh journey for me to explore. What bothers me the most at that time and what I still feel sick about was the grammar section. The first time encountering grammar exercises made me feel like a kid who was pushed to the pound but unable to swim. I was required to fill in blanks from the sentence by using the correct tense, voice or anything relevant to tricky grammar knowledge. Most of the time, I could not tell the difference from those subtle grammar issues and messed up with the result. After constantly practicing for a month, I worked better on the grammar section. During the repetitive practice, I felt that English grammar was no difference from Mathematics and Science and all I needed to study was the clue and formula. Following this idea, I took as much note as I can from the class and tried to analyze them back home. When the red marks for revision and special notification decreased over the papers I did, I felt like “I get it”. For afraid of being left behind, I even took class outside where I did extra amount of exercises to strengthen my English knowledge and test skill. The day ahead of the formal English exam I did a mock exam to warm up. When I found I barely made mistakes to the grammar session, I felt the sense of achievement I had never had before.
Exam-oriented is more likely to be a negative way to describe certain language study. Fortunately, I still survive in the American college. So I guess I did learn something. Via tons of exercises, I improve my reading skill and learn how to write properly. Also, my teacher’s picky character did help correct the mistakes I made when I wrote or spoke. Also, the feeling of achieving progress in English study always refreshes me from the dried and bored study process. I still remember the moment that I read through an English page and understand it without checking dictionary. Sometimes it takes a long time to reach another progress, which leaves me frustrated. However the motivation of achieving a better exam result always makes me study harder on English.
However, the exam-oriented way of study does emphasize more on techniques rather than the subject itself. Sometimes I find it difficult to put English into daily dialogue or to understand the idioms in conversations. I recognized that I could not study English by answering questions, but by creating new thoughts and putting them into writing or dialogue.
The exam-oriented way of study made my English study experience so far. The exam-oriented method helps push me to improve but exposes problems when applying. Thus exam-oriented method is important but is not everything. It's also important to practice oral skill and creative writing and learn idioms from novels and newpaper.
In middle school, exams occurred almost every day: dictation during each class, Friday quizzes, monthly checks, and unavoidable mid-term and final-term exams. One of the most important English exams for me was the high school English entry test. In addition to the common entry exam that every student was required to take, my high school had a difficult entry test. My high school was prestigious, so every year a large number of top students aimed to get in by taking that exam. As those students did, I targeted my high school even when I was in the primary school. Never being a top student in English myself, I felt enormous pressure to compete with my classmates and top students from other schools. Sometimes I found the English entry exam was like a time bomb hung upon me ready to explode anytime. On the summer holiday of my junior year in middle school, I started to prepare for the English entry exam crazily. Surrounded by my classmates pulling all their strength on the exam, I thought about nothing but how to work harder. To help us prepare for the exam, our English teacher taught us a large amount of grammar knowledge and exam techniques, and let us practice papers every single class. The exam was mainly relevant to reading and grammar rather than writing or other skills. Therefore, I practiced with different articles and grammar exercises from varied textbooks, online resources and past papers. The reading part was not easy but I pretty enjoyed it because each piece of reading was a completely fresh journey for me to explore. What bothers me the most at that time and what I still feel sick about was the grammar section. The first time encountering grammar exercises made me feel like a kid who was pushed to the pound but unable to swim. I was required to fill in blanks from the sentence by using the correct tense, voice or anything relevant to tricky grammar knowledge. Most of the time, I could not tell the difference from those subtle grammar issues and messed up with the result. After constantly practicing for a month, I worked better on the grammar section. During the repetitive practice, I felt that English grammar was no difference from Mathematics and Science and all I needed to study was the clue and formula. Following this idea, I took as much note as I can from the class and tried to analyze them back home. When the red marks for revision and special notification decreased over the papers I did, I felt like “I get it”. For afraid of being left behind, I even took class outside where I did extra amount of exercises to strengthen my English knowledge and test skill. The day ahead of the formal English exam I did a mock exam to warm up. When I found I barely made mistakes to the grammar session, I felt the sense of achievement I had never had before.
Exam-oriented is more likely to be a negative way to describe certain language study. Fortunately, I still survive in the American college. So I guess I did learn something. Via tons of exercises, I improve my reading skill and learn how to write properly. Also, my teacher’s picky character did help correct the mistakes I made when I wrote or spoke. Also, the feeling of achieving progress in English study always refreshes me from the dried and bored study process. I still remember the moment that I read through an English page and understand it without checking dictionary. Sometimes it takes a long time to reach another progress, which leaves me frustrated. However the motivation of achieving a better exam result always makes me study harder on English.
However, the exam-oriented way of study does emphasize more on techniques rather than the subject itself. Sometimes I find it difficult to put English into daily dialogue or to understand the idioms in conversations. I recognized that I could not study English by answering questions, but by creating new thoughts and putting them into writing or dialogue.
The exam-oriented way of study made my English study experience so far. The exam-oriented method helps push me to improve but exposes problems when applying. Thus exam-oriented method is important but is not everything. It's also important to practice oral skill and creative writing and learn idioms from novels and newpaper.