More Student Life: Midterms

I mentioned before that Chinese students have an incredibly hard test that they have to take to get into college. That test is one of the many differences between the Chinese and American education systems. This week, I experienced yet another one of those differences, but this time it was first hand.

Midterms at American universities (or at least at BYU) can be a big hassle. They generally occur more than the one time that the term implies, and they make things even more busy than they already are. They also tend to conglomerate together into little one or two week periods, making time management seem impossible for a while. However, most teachers usually give at least a three-day window to take their test, cramming happens, and everything eventually blows over. Such is not the case for Chinese universities.

First of all, midterms at Chinese universities truly are midterms -- they occur at week 9 out of the 18 total. They also happen only once per semester. Unfortunately, these tests do all happen at the same time no matter what you do, and the weight they pull a lot of weight on the grade side of things. Because of this, all the students and teachers kind of freak out about midterms. Starting about a month ago, all of my professors suddenly brought up midterms and told us to start preparing. My American classmates seemed pretty calm about the ordeal (because they didn't know what was coming), and my Chinese classmates started reviewing almost immediately. Both groups of people were right to do as they did in their own respects. Of course, the Chinese students were right to study, first of all because it's a good idea, and second of all because the tests are very hard. The American students were only partially right. On the one hand, the tests that the Flagship Center administered weren't very hard, and on the other hand, there wasn't much that we Americans could do to be in any way prepared for what the Nanjing University professors were going to throw at us.

My testing experience was like this: Last week, I had two tests for my Flagship Center classes. I had to prepare a fair amount for them, but they were pretty simple, so I wasn't to worried. This week, I had four more Flagship Center tests, and on top of that, I had my Signals and Systems midterm. The four Flagship tests, once again, were a little time consuming, but in no way hard. The Signals and Systems test, however, was another story. I prepared for that test for about two weeks, logging probably more than ten hours of pure practice problems and formula memorization. I got to the test and found that I could do almost all of the problems, but there simply was not enough time. Even though there were only five questions, they were either split into parts one through seven or chock full of different little tricks and brain teasers. I finished most of the test, but not all of it, and I definitely didn't have time to go back and check my answers. I'm scared to see my final score, to say the least.

Regardless of my grades, all is well. On Saturday, I went to a park by the Yangtze River with my roommate. It was pretty cool.

-小强

My roommate, Shengju, and me at the Yangtze River with a sweet pagoda in the background