中山大学自主招生 千余名深圳学生赶考

    Wang Yuanyuan

    More than 1,050 Senior 3 students from Shenzhen high schools attended entrance examinations at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou on Sunday.

    The examinations organized by the university are independent of the National College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) and students with qualified scores can be enrolled* by the university without taking the NCEE, the university said.

    Nearly 5,500 students from Guangdong Province attended the examinations, which included Chinese, English and mathematics.

    “The examinations were not as difficult as those organized by Qinghua University in Beijing, but a lot harder than the NCEE. You have to have a very open mind to understand the questions,” said Chen Xingyu, one of the students.

    Students from other provinces who wanted to enter Zhongshan University through the independent enrollment system would have to take examinations organized by Beijing University.

    Examination results would be announced at wsbm.sysu.edu.en in mid-March and interviews would be conducted at the end of March.

    Just when thousands of Shenzhen Senior 3 students are busy preparing for the independent entrance examinations organized by universities, concern has been raised because many thought the university enrollment reform might not help relieve* students’ pressure.

    “This new policy was supposed to help ease student burdens by providing talented students the chance to enter leading universities even if they did not do well in the NCEE. Some not-so-talented students would also have a chance to enter a better university. But now they seem to be much busier than before because they have to prepare for several examinations, instead of just one,” said Liang Qianglin, the mother of a Senior 3 student.

    Different entrance examinations had different focuses and directions, so students had to prepare for all of them if they wanted to apply for these universities. “It’s much harder than before. After all, there are many teachers at school helping students prepare for the NCEE, but not many teachers are available to help them prepare for [the other] examinations. Parents have also become busier because we have to pay special attention to all of these examinations. We know it is not necessary to take them all, but we would rather not to waste the chance,” Liang said.

    Meanwhile, some schools opened special classes to help students prepare for the examinations.

    Education experts also thought this would not be a better way to help students reduce NCEE pressure. “The purpose of these examinations was to enroll students with special talents. But if students start going to special classes for these examinations, it will become meaningless,” said Zhang Yu, a teacher at Shenzhen Experimental School.