On the contrary, because the American high school party has experienced this crazy reading and writing rhythm in high school, its adaptability in college is much better; Some graduates from boarding high schools even said that reading and writing tasks in universities are easier than those in high schools.
At Duke University, we met ... When she was a freshman, she applied to a boarding high school in Rhode Island, Portsmouth Abbey School, and reread the tenth grade. At that time, her English was not good, and her TOEFL score was only 90. Qian admits that if you apply now with such grades, you may not get into the ideal school at all. Her experience of studying abroad in Gaomei is quite representative.
You say your English is average, but we know that Gao Mei has a lot of reading and writing. How did you do that?
In my school, the tenth grade offered a very, very good, but also very, very difficult course, which was a combination of religion, history and literature. A course takes two class hours, which requires 25 books and more than 30 papers a year. This workload is not small in the university. The first book I read was Dante's Divine Comedy. When the teacher said in class, "Let's introduce this book …", I didn't react at that time. When I went back to the dictionary, I was completely confused. Why should I read this first book? I basically don't understand a word, holding the Chinese version in one hand and the English version in the other. Others will watch it for two hours, and I will watch it for four hours and slowly chew it down. Many times, you really need to rely on the Chinese version to help you understand, otherwise you won't understand at all, and you won't understand at all.
This reading is also great for American students, right? Dante should be hard for them, too.
Yes, everyone thinks it's very big and difficult. At that time, all of us were complaining that the first two weeks of the tenth grade were not people's lives ... I remember that we were in class at that time, and the examination method of a class was mainly exams, which was relatively easy; And my class is writing 30 papers, and the teacher is also very nervous.
What are your reading and writing requirements and frequency?
Basically, after reading a book and writing a paper, each paper has a different prompt answer. You must analyze a certain character and a certain theme in the book. There are long and short, and the short is probably double-spaced, 2 pages; A little longer, just 3-4 pages. Reading is about 1-2 books a week, because sometimes two books are read at the same time. Writing is also 1-2 articles per week, because besides reading writing, we also have special writing classes.
What is the difference between the writing requirements of these two courses?
Writing class is a bit like creative writing, just like domestic composition class, but it will be much more interesting. The writing of humanities courses is actually academic writing.
In fact, I knew nothing about English academic writing before. Academic writing is very logical, but I didn't quite understand it at that time. My first article is C+. I have to keep going to the teacher to show him my drafts and ideas, and then revise them. I remember one time, I went to the classroom at seven o'clock in the morning to block the English teacher-I was probably the only student who did so.
Q: What are the difficulties in writing?
The first is to understand the text, clear your mind and answer the hints. My problem at that time was unclear logic. For example, I have an argument, but I don't know how to demonstrate it, so I can build a sub-argument. At that time, I also spent a lot of time training my way of thinking. Then, I have to find reasonable arguments to support my argument. Often digress, or find the argument is not so sufficient. So to write a text outline, I need to constantly question whether I am convincing enough; Then discuss with your classmates and teachers to see if it is feasible to write like this.
The second difficulty is how to express my meaning in English. On the one hand, the vocabulary is not enough, on the other hand, the exact meaning and usage of words are unknown. Therefore, words often fail to convey their meaning. So teachers often annotate: too vague and not specific enough. What does this sentence mean?
China also has argumentative essays. What is the difference?
Maybe he went abroad after finishing his first year of high school. At that time, the composition class was mainly narrative, and there was no strict academic paper training. Moreover, although there are argumentative essays in high school, usually you only have one class to write an article, and you don't need to write in depth. You just need to give some examples and arguments. I think the depth is different. Academic writing requires not that kind of prose divergence, but logical divergence, so it was difficult for me to adapt to this style at that time, otherwise I would be off topic or unable to express my meaning.
Do I have to finish reading before I can write? For example, I know that Chinese classes in China also require classic reading, but some students may read simplified Chinese versions or something.
How can I put it? Of course, there are also lazy ways, such as reading outlines and abstracts, but I don't think you can really write a good article just by reading these. But for me at that time, it was impossible to write English books thoroughly. So I read the outline and abstract first, then the Chinese version, then find the part I want to write, and then read English carefully. It was not until 12 that I was able to read and write directly in English without the help of the Chinese version.
What's your final grade?
The first semester is B and C, then A, and finally the whole school year is A-.
Tell me about your sleep time?
Sometimes two or three hours, and ten hours when it's good-in fact, everyone does.
What do you think humanities courses have brought you?
Although the process is very bitter, one year has passed, and my English reading and writing seem to have passed. Although not very top-notch, it is enough to cope with all liberal arts. I plan to study social studies now, which may also be related to the humanities education I received at that time. In this process, I also found that this is my better field. If I didn't choose to go to Gaomei at that time, but graduated from high school to go to college, maybe I would choose those popular majors that I am not good at, such as economics.
postscript
Compared with Chen Min, an American high school party, domestic high school students actually spend a lot of time and energy on English learning, but many people's understanding of English learning is finally simplified to TOFEL and SAT. And their most common way is to recite words and brush real questions.
Taking the reading part of the SAT that most frightens China students as an example, according to the interpretation of SAT Skills Insight by its official examination institution, this paper mainly examines five skills: inferring the meaning of words; Understand literary elements; Analyze the structure and viewpoint; Analyze the author's writing skills; Reasoning and inference. These skills actually represent students' critical English reading ability, which can never be solved simply by memorizing words and brushing questions.
For a simple example, many students can recite one or twenty thousand English words, but they can only use 500 when writing, and they often use them inappropriately-because memorizing words can't really help them master them. Reciting words and brushing real questions are more like a skill training of reading ability, while extensive reading and intensive reading are the real physical exercises. There is no shortcut to physical exercise. You must read and write like an American high school party in order to really improve your reading and writing ability.