According to statistics of Free Kaobo Forum, there were 202,600 graduate students in 2002, including 38,300 doctoral students. There are 5,065,438+million graduate students, including doctoral students 108700. In 2003, China enrolled 273,000 graduate students and 640,000 were in school. Judging from the current situation, taking the exam is the idea and plan of many graduate students and graduates who have already worked. Everyone wants to know the information about the application, examination, interview and so on. This paper collects the experience of three doctoral students of different types, students and majors in Beijing Normal University. The three graduated from Southwest Normal University, East China Normal University and Zhengzhou University respectively; There are on-the-job and fresh graduates; There are those who apply for this major and those who apply for cross-majors.

First, the preparation work before the exam wins the exam in good faith. On-the-job applicants must first obtain the consent of the unit. Our experience is that we must pay attention to the following points: 1. The chosen major must be closely related to the work we are engaged in now. Generally speaking, I am familiar with my work, and I have accumulated well from theory to practice. On the one hand, it is the basis of my knowledge and skills, and it is also the basis of my support from the unit. Only by combining the development of the unit with the development of the individual can there be a premise of persuasion. Many candidates feel that their grades are good, but because of their unilateral wishes, they did not combine the actual situation of the unit, and finally got a more regrettable result. 2. Pay attention to interpersonal relationships. Marx said: "Man is the sum of all social relations". Although examinations are good for individuals, units and countries, it is necessary to pay attention to interpersonal relationships if a good thing in theory is to become a good thing in real life. We should work from the aspects of work demand, personal development and emotional identity. In the process of striving, we should pay attention to methods, avoid being simple and impatient, be more emotional and less impulsive, and our understanding and patience will eventually win the consent of the unit. 3. Correctly handle the relationship between work and examination, so that work and preparation are correct. In the early stage of the exam, we mainly pay attention to the work of the unit. While doing a good job, we should spare some time to read as much as possible. In the later stage, I mainly review, so there should be no problems at work. When the exam comes, we must implement the "extraordinary policy" and go all out to review. Candidates must pay attention to contact your tutor. Not only should you know your tutor, but you should also let your tutor know your current academic level and future research interests. You can post your published academic works and papers to your tutor, or ask for advice in person.

Second, the principles and strategies for applying for majors and schools. To apply for a major or a school, one must be admitted first, followed by combining interests and hobbies, and then the reputation and geographical location of the school. The direction of application is very important, which often determines the success or failure of your exam. If you choose the wrong direction, even if you are well prepared and strong, you may just "accompany the exam." Good schools are not necessarily difficult to test, and ordinary schools are not necessarily easy to test. The first is the major to apply for. Different majors directly determine their future career direction. Generally, candidates tend to choose the same major as during the master's degree, and some people may consider changing careers for future employment needs. This requires a correct positioning of yourself, combined with your own interests and abilities. If you change your major, you must pay attention to the fact that the major you want to apply for now cannot be too divorced from the original major. Undeniably, with the rise of interdisciplinary subjects, doctoral supervisors' preference for interdisciplinary students keeps pace with the times. If you are majoring in mathematics and statistics, it has obvious advantages to apply for the major of economic management, and it is also popular for people with science and engineering backgrounds to apply for the major of public policy and management. The success of major selection depends on one's own interest and correct judgment of one's own strength and the current political and economic situation in China. Secondly, determine the school or unit to apply for. Choose the right school according to your current strength. Often, the more prestigious schools, the more intense the competition, and the more potential can be stimulated. If you graduated from a good university with a master's degree, it is not challenging to apply for a doctor's degree in a general university, and you may not get good grades. After all, the competitiveness of general colleges and universities is relatively weak. Therefore, it has become an "open secret" for candidates to apply for two or even three or four universities at the same time. Some doctoral supervisors can't guarantee online admission, and they also suggest that candidates apply for other schools at the same time, so that they can shine in the east and shine in the west. The majors of these two or three schools should be the same or similar, and the time and grade should be separated. In addition, whether it is the senior high school entrance examination or the college entrance examination, there is a saying that people apply for "big year" and "small year". The success of Cobo is the result of many factors. Luck is also a factor. Every school and major often apply for more this year, and may be less next year. The competition in this major is fierce this year, and it may not be fierce next year. Some schools are still dissatisfied with the report. For example, in one year, the number of applicants for individual majors in Beijing Institute of Technology was less than the number of students enrolled; The number of examinees in a major of a famous normal university in the south is roughly equal to the number of students enrolled. In this case, as long as your professional courses and foreign languages are not too bad, you may be admitted. How to seize this opportunity? It's just an exaggeration

Third, how to grasp the key points to improve performance. There are more and more candidates taking the exam, and the difficulty of the exam is also rising. Grasping the law may get twice the result with half the effort. There are * * * similarities and differences between the professional examination questions of doctoral students and master students. * * * Similarity is to examine the ability to analyze problems with basic theory. The difference is that master students have to test some basic knowledge, while doctoral humanities test mainly examines the grasp of academic trends and the analysis of practical problems on the basis of basic theory, and does not test noun explanation and short answer questions, mostly for big composition questions. Cobo must read widely and study hard. These don't need to be repeated, but mainly talk about the test-taking skills. Grasping the professional focus is the key to any review exam. Generally speaking, the doctoral examination questions are impartial, but it is not easy to answer them well, especially in many professional basic courses. How to focus on the doctoral exam? First, clear the questions over the years. The question type is the form of the exam, which is closely related to the content of the exam. The general exam topic has been decided, and the exam content has been basically decided. Examination questions and past examination questions can be obtained from the applicant school through classmates or friends. General examination questions have a strong continuity, for example, some colleges and universities love to give information questions. In this regard, we must first find the relevant principles, which require solid basic skills, and then analyze the data and talk about your views in combination with reality. Some people still need to tell the source of this information. Generally, such materials are the thoughts of people who have great influence on this major at home and abroad, such as pedagogy. Not Confucius, Laozi or Cai Yuanpei, Dewey, Herbart or Rousseau or Pestalozzi. Some schools like to read book reviews, mostly "brief comments on famous books you are familiar with". Therefore, you can read a famous Chinese and foreign book of related professional courses in advance and write a book review in detail, so as to be prepared. Second, infer the direction of the problem. Generally speaking, the examination questions for applying for schools and professional basic courses are given by teachers with academic prestige in the applicant, and most of them are given by the person in charge of doctoral programs for applying for majors. Inferring the teacher, you can basically judge the content of the question. Through literature retrieval and online inquiry, we can find out the papers, works and research topics published by these teachers in recent years, especially in the last two years. These are roughly the topics of the exam questions. Because the tutor is familiar with and interested in the recent research, he tends to put forward such a topic. Through various channels, try to understand the academic background of teachers who may give questions, such as age, academic point of view, research field, graduation school, etc. In addition, we should also pay attention to the relevant research of other teachers who apply for the school, because the information he has may also belong to the teacher who gave the question. The topic of last year's exam will not be tested this year, but the adjacent content is generally the content of candidates. Education, for example, took the national education examination last year and may take the compulsory education examination this year. Third, we should grasp the "core elements" of the tested subjects. Any subject has a series of key points, which must be clarified. Even if the test questions are not within your focus, using your "core knowledge", the answer will not be too far away. In other words, the basic principles, concepts and knowledge of specialized courses must be possessed. As long as these basic things are thoroughly understood, there will generally be no problems. Some things in the textbook are "foil". If you don't have enough energy, you don't need to look at it at all, and generally you won't take the exam. In this way, the content of the possible exam will be very proficient, and the exam results will be easy to improve. My exam book is a simplified one. Because this version is concise, focused and easy to remember. Every subject has some universally applicable "truths". Grasp these "core knowledge" firmly, and make the language beautiful and the data accurate. Once you encounter any questions you don't understand, write them out. English examination for doctoral students is a threshold to hinder doctoral students. With the improvement of the overall English level of candidates, the effectiveness of English examination is declining year by year. Some people are good at foreign languages, but they fail in specialized courses. Once a foreign language crosses the line, some majors in Beijing Normal University do not consider foreign language scores, but rank according to professional course scores. However, for quite a few people, foreign languages are still a stumbling block. The difficulty of doctoral foreign languages varies from school to school, generally between CET-6 and TOEFL. In recent years, we have found that the English difficulty of Kao Bo has improved, mainly due to the large vocabulary. How to prepare a foreign language? Our experience is to attend English training classes. Simply reading books and doing problems by yourself may not have good results. Beijing and other places offer many CET-6 English training classes every winter vacation. If you are a university teacher, you can go to our school to listen to English classes. If you apply for a Cobo English training class, you'd better sign up for it. This kind of tutoring class has certain pertinence, which is conducive to improving grades. In short, we should review it in a targeted way.

Four, the review of professional courses can be divided into the following two stages:

1. Learn about academic trends. After determining the drama market and research direction, candidates should immediately find reference materials for review in the enrollment brochure or the website of the school where they apply. Be sure to look through the professional magazines in the past two years, see the hot issues discussed by everyone, browse the journals of the school in the past three years, and get to know the papers published in this major. It is best to think about hot issues before the exam and put forward your own views and opinions. In particular, candidates should check the articles published by their tutors in the last five years and their monographs in recent years on the China Journal website. Some ideas, data and theories should be mastered, especially the teacher's thesis. If you encounter similar topics, you can move up, which is of great benefit to the improvement of your grades. Pay special attention to teachers' views and positions on some controversial issues. If time permits, it is best to collect relevant information around this issue. Usually the tutor will check these intermediate questions of the students. Recruiting doctors by tutors is also a process of seeking collaborators. If you find someone who knows your research field very well in the past two years, and even have compatible or similar views (such as writing scholars, works and general differences that are contrary to the tutor's views on the test paper), it will definitely bring good feelings to the tutor. You can get in touch with the tutor's doctoral students in advance and ask for the exam questions of last year's professional courses (the repetition rate of general professional courses is 10%-30%, but colleges and universities do not provide professional courses), or ask him to provide the notes of the first semester's professional courses (most of the teachers' recent concerns are among them), or ask him to talk about the tendency of the exam questions and the feelings and experiences of the exam.

2. Review stage. After spending half a month collecting all the information, we should draw up a general review plan, including time and schedule, review methods, self-examination forms and so on. What needs to be noted here is l) In terms of time, there should be enough time for the review of specialized courses, and the review density should gradually become stronger in the future. (2) The energy arrangement should be detailed and appropriate. It is generally required to review the content of the textbook at least three times. For the first time, I have a general grasp of the textbook, which aspects are discussed in this textbook and what kind of logical system is between them. The second time, draw the key content, remember it properly, and master the general knowledge points of the textbook, especially the essence, general context and main points of the book. Personal reading habits may be different. You can take reading notes or draw pictures in books, and then sort out theories and opinions. Here we should pay attention to the method of comparative research, that is, compare the similarities and differences of various theories, so as to establish our own position. For the hot issues in the current research field, try to find some materials to look at and think about these issues preliminarily, so as to have a clear point of view and record what you have learned. If the first two times are self-study and digestion, and the third time is direct preparation, it should be placed near the examination date (preferably within one month). Its purpose is to make what you have learned before not be reflected in the examination room. (3) One point in the review content needs to be emphasized separately, that is, to read several non-designated exam books for the courses you have studied. Many tutors like to write book reviews and so on. For fresh graduates, professional course review has advantages and disadvantages. The first advantage is that I have just done a master's thesis, and I have a comprehensive grasp of the theory of this major, especially the frontier theory and current hot issues; Second, if you are a tutor who applies for our school, it is easy to find information. You can even attend the tutor's professional class one or two semesters in advance, so that you can get close to the teacher professionally and emotionally, which is very important for the next interview. The first disadvantage is that many master students focus on finding jobs and have been exposed to this major for a short time; Second, the lack of specific practical experience and social capital. It is often more difficult for candidates who apply for cross-majors. Before deciding to apply for the exam, you must analyze your strengths and weaknesses. When reviewing, you can also give due consideration to the previous professional accurate written test and interview, so that the tutor feels that your original professional foundation is relatively solid. Applying for this major is a turn of personal research interest, rather than changing careers after the failure of the original major. However, when reviewing specialized courses, the preparation time and energy should be obviously increased, and the time allocation should be tilted towards specialized courses. At the same time, when reviewing professional courses, we should start from the basic textbooks of the major, learn the courses of master students and even undergraduates of this major, and have a general grasp of the general education courses. For the designated courses of the exam, we should read them repeatedly and make a breakthrough.

Fifth, the improvisation of written test and interview skills courses is also very important. Pay attention to l) time arrangement and reasonable allocation. The examination time is 3 hours. After getting the test paper, take 5 minutes to browse the test questions, so as to be aware of it. For difficult questions and digressions, you should prepare 1 hour, while for familiar questions, you should answer them within half an hour as soon as possible. (2) The order of answering questions is easy first and then difficult. For uncertain topics, you can estimate the approximate length needed. It is best to write each question on a new page. (3) Elegant and fluent writing, but not at the expense of answering questions. Font size should be moderate, too small for reviewers to see clearly, too large for people to feel that there is not much content. (4) Write an outline first and then put pen to paper. In this way, the thinking of answering questions can be clear, and the key content will not be missed because of nervousness. (5) The number of answers should be more than less, and the liberal arts can prepare the number of answers per 10 point 1000- 1200 words. (6) Focused and clear thinking. This requires candidates to get the exam questions, know what the tutor wants to know, and then focus on doing it. Be sure to make your point clear at the beginning of the paragraph, otherwise it will make people feel puzzled. (7) rigorous thinking and strict logic. Write a short essay about each question. Unlike Kao Shuo, the tutor doesn't expect every candidate to give the same answer to some questions. As long as you have your own opinions and can reasonably demonstrate them with corresponding arguments, the tutor will see your academic ability from them. (8) Difficult questions are off topic and treated calmly. Every candidate will inevitably encounter questions that he is not familiar with or has not reviewed. This requires candidates to use certain answering skills. First of all, make sure that no matter what topic is within the scope of the topic, make a fuss about the topic itself. For example, the topic is literally divided into several aspects. Explain in detail what you are familiar with, talk less or bypass what you are unfamiliar with, never say something unprofessional, or just make some emotional comments on this topic, and try to use academic language and newer professional vocabulary. In short, we should justify ourselves, make the paper clear and answer enough questions. With the increasingly standardized and scientific doctoral enrollment, the proportion of interview results in admission is increasing. Most colleges and universities conduct interviews after the written test, and some colleges and universities will inform the interview separately according to the written test results. Some schools record the total score, and some schools record it as a reference score. In any case, although the interview is not decisive, it will affect the admission. Regarding the interview content, it is mainly to examine the candidates' logical thinking ability, adaptability, oral expression ability and certain professional knowledge. Examiners usually ask about your graduation school, work experience, master's thesis and published papers, and then ask some related questions according to your research field, and some will ask questions in English. About interview strategy. The number of interviews is generally greater than the number of admissions, especially after the written test, which is equal to all candidates' interviews. Therefore, the interview time of each candidate will not be very long, usually a few minutes. There are basically two kinds of test-taking strategies: one is to attack at the right time, talk about what you are familiar with in detail, show your brightest side to the examiner, and simply answer unfamiliar questions; The second is to wait patiently for the teacher to talk about the problem. You should be a good listener. Don't answer in a hurry, you can ask again if you are not clear. The key is to master the time. It is better to talk less than to talk too much. The order of the interview has an impact on the candidates' grades and impressions. If you can choose, according to statistics, the middle position of a stage is the best. Therefore, whether on-the-job, fresh graduates, or cross-majors, we must do our preparatory work well. Grasp these points, and basically you will succeed in the exam.