Cayla Nardiello 808
In
China you either have a successful life, or you are forced into manual labor
and work for a small wage. There is no in-between. In high-school, the rest of
your life is determined by a test you take. If you get a low enough score that
no university will except you, you are automatically a low wage worker who will
most likely do manual labor. In the articles, ‘Standards Raised, More Students
Fail Tests’ by Jennifer Medina, and ‘China’s Cram Schools’ by Brook Larmer; I
will be comparing the gaokao to any American standardized test that places you
in a category and helps determine your future. I think the gaokao is much
harder to deal with because if you are even 2 points away from admission into a
good college, you will still be forced into a life of manual labor.
If
you fail any American standardized test you still have a chance of success,
even though it might not be as high as a student’s chance who did really well.
Meanwhile, if you fail the gaokao, you are automatically screwed. Another
difference between the two tests is in the article ‘Standards Raised, More
Students Fail Tests’; “…a fourth grader had to get 37 out of 70 possible points
on the math test to reach Level 3 (out of 4), or grade level. This year, a
fourth grader needed to earn 51 out of 70 points to reach that level.” This
shows me that American tests are gaokao, but with less severe consequences if
you don’t do well. An example from ‘China’s Cram Schools’ is; “Xu scored 643
out of a possible (but never achieved) 750.” This shows me that the highest
score is so hard to achieve due to the amount of effort it takes to study, and
the difficulty of the exam.
The
two tests both determine your future, even though one has a much bigger impact.
One example of this is in the article ‘Standards Raised, More Students Fail
Tests’; “This year, anticipating a drop in passing rates, the city sent more
struggling students, about 27,000, to summer school.” This shows me that the
students who fail an American state test have to re-do their years of
education. Another example from the article; ‘China’s Cram Schools’ is; “Cao’s
family was heartbroken. His father had worked 12-hour days, 50 weeks a year,
building high-rises in eastern China… Cao… would end up on a construction site,
just like his father.” This shows that if you flunk the gaokao then you will
have no good future career.
In
all, America and China are very different in their testing situations and
procedures. They have very different outcomes when you fail the test that is
set to determine what rank of society you belong in.