The first mistake of exam-oriented education lies in the teaching goal, which may be the most easily perceived mistake. The fundamental purpose of school knowledge teaching is to let our students understand and master scientific knowledge, scientific principles and correct values, and then form the ability to use these knowledge, principles and values for creative activities, rather than just remembering symbols and words that express these knowledge, principles and values. Explained by the model of the relationship between subject and object in communicative education proposed in On Pan-education, as a complete educational process, a teacher, as the subject of educational activities, should use various tools such as language, graphics and expressions to correctly express the knowledge, principles and values that he wants his students to understand and master in a way that he thinks is easy for his students to understand, and then his students are the subject of educational activities. Examination-oriented education has only completed half of this process, that is, teachers present written symbols expressing knowledge, principles and values to students, and students remember these written symbols for retelling in the exam, but the knowledge, principles and values expressed by these written symbols are often not well understood and mastered. In a teaching process that does not really give students knowledge and principles, how can we expect students to form creative ability?

The mistake of exam-oriented education lies in its teaching methods, which regard teaching and recitation as its most important and sometimes even the only teaching methods, while thinking, discussion, reflection and exploration, which play a key role in mastering, understanding and constructing knowledge, principles and values, are placed in a secondary or even neglected position. It focuses on making students remember the words and symbols that need to be repeated in the exam, and the principles and concepts expressed by those symbols are put in a secondary position. As long as students can repeat these symbols in the exam or repeat an operation process with these symbols, it is regarded as the success of education by this educational theory. Moreover, exam-oriented education also uses a series of mechanical processes such as "speaking-remembering-practicing-testing", which seriously squeezes the space for students to think and explore freely. In this educational process, learners are almost completely deprived of the opportunity to use what they have learned to solve problems and create products, and even some basic experimental demonstrations in the teaching process are replaced by videos. All these have seriously hindered the development of students' ability to solve or explain problems.

The main mistake of exam-oriented education lies in the wrong interpretation of the relationship between teachers and students. It does not explain the relationship between teachers and students in the education process with the communication between subjects mentioned above, but interprets the education and teaching process as a process in which teachers change and shape students through their own education and teaching activities, so it also puts forward slogans such as "there are no students who cannot be taught, only teachers who cannot be taught". The educational theory adapted to this kind of education intentionally or unintentionally misinterprets the theoretical model of intersubjective communication that explains the relationship between people in educational activities as specious slogans such as "teacher-led, student-centered", which actually devalues or even obliterates students' dominant position in educational activities. Under the guidance of such educational theory, exam-oriented education has become a process similar to animal training. In this educational process, people's autonomy and initiative are ignored, how can we expect people's creativity to develop greatly?

Fundamentally speaking, the mistake of exam-oriented education lies in the wrong understanding of the educational process itself. It understands education as a process in which teachers change students' thoughts and behaviors through their own activities, rather than a process in which people create themselves as the main body in common social life. Kailov's pedagogy theory of the former Soviet Union was introduced to China in the early 1950s, and it has occupied the leading position in the education field in China for a long time. This theory attaches great importance to the so-called "indirect experience" in the teaching process, ignoring the truth that all experience can not be separated from the subject's own activities (including thinking activities). Kailov also pointed out in Pedagogy that teaching is to make "students accept the truth (knowledge) known and acquired by human beings" through the study of textbooks, and students "do not undertake the task of discovering new truths". On the other hand, deeply influenced by the theory of behavioral psychology, exam-oriented education has developed a set of so-called "indoctrination teaching method" on the basis of "shaping" educational ideas. In this teaching process, teachers often take the attitude of preaching and teaching to solve doubts. In fact, the formation of knowledge can not be separated from the activities of people as the subject, from the construction process of the subject, even if it is as simple as opening your eyes to see things, it can not be separated from the process of constructing an image of an object in your brain according to the light stimulation signals received by your eyes. The so-called "indoctrination" teaching can't really be realized. Without learners' active activities, as Socrates in ancient Greece said, no one can instill knowledge into other people's souls, just as no one can put vision into the eyes of the blind. Examination-oriented education forces students to memorize a large number of symbols, but fails to enable students to form and develop their own understanding and ability. How does it cultivate creative talents?