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On June 7, 2023, candidates in Beijing walked out of the examination room.
China’s annual university admissions exam, the “gaokao”, kicked off on Wednesday (June 7). In one language test paper used in several provinces, the essay questions asked candidates to write their thoughts on quotes from Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
It is rare for China’s college entrance examination to include quotations from current leaders in the college entrance examination composition. Previously, only the poems of Mao Zedong, the founding leader of the Communist Party of China, had appeared on the test paper. Mao Zedong wrote a large number of poems during his lifetime, and was hailed as a “thinker” and “master of poetry” in the Communist Party of China. His poems such as “Qinyuan Chunxue” have been included in Chinese textbooks for middle schools in China.
According to Chinese state media reports, in the national college entrance examination, the Ministry of Education set the national B-volume essay questions as “Blowing out other people’s lamps will not make you brighter; blocking others’ path will not make you go further.” “, “A single flower is not spring, and a hundred flowers bloom together to make the garden full of spring. If there is only one kind of flower in the world, no matter how beautiful the flower is, it will be monotonous.” think.
The title emphasizes that these two sentences are “General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech, which expresses universal truths in vivid language.”
According to public information, the first paragraph comes from a speech delivered by Xi Jinping when he attended the high-level dialogue between the Communist Party of China and the world‘s political parties in Beijing in March this year.
The second paragraph is the content of Xi Jinping’s speech at the UNESCO headquarters in March 2014. This sentence is used to promote the concept of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” proposed by the Chinese government.
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This set of language test questions is used in 12 provinces including Henan, Shanxi, Jiangxi, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Shaanxi.
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This year, there are seven sets of test papers for the Chinese subject of the Chinese college entrance examination. Among them, four sets of test papers are set by the Examination Center of the Ministry of Education, and Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai set their own questions. Therefore, there are 7 different composition test questions.
This set of national volume B with “idioms” as the composition topic is set by the Ministry of Education. The regions used include Henan, Shanxi, Jiangxi, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shaanxi and other 12 provinces and regions, covering a wide range of candidates.
On China’s censored social media, the essay title sparked heated discussions among netizens. Some netizens said, “My first impression is that China-US relations. The United States has tried every means to hinder China’s great rejuvenation. The process of anti-globalization is harmful to others and not beneficial to itself.”
Netizens on some overseas social media criticized the essay title as “political invasion of education”. Others pointed out that it was asking students to make “political statements.”
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Critics said the essay question was for students to make a “political statement”.
It is not common to directly ask candidates to write college entrance examination compositions based on quotations from leaders. In 2017, the second national volume asked students to write their feelings on famous lines including Mao Zedong’s poem “Counting the romantic figures, but still looking at the present”.
In recent years, as Xi Jinping’s personality cult has intensified, China’s propaganda department has continuously stepped up its praise of Xi Jinping. As early as 2018, some TV stations launched variety shows about Xi Jinping Thought. For example, Hunan Satellite TV, which is famous for its entertainment variety shows, broadcast a TV question-and-answer program “New Era Study Conference” to study Xi Jinping’s thoughts.
Educational activities on the theme of learning “Xi Thought” have been carried out in various places, and many universities have established research centers for Xi Jinping Thought.
After Xi Jinping’s successful third term in office, there has also been an upsurge of praising Xi Jinping among senior officials. After the publication of “Selected Readings of Xi Jinping’s Works”, Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and secretary of the Central Secretariat, who is regarded as Xi Jinping’s confidant, emphasized that it is necessary to promote Xi Jinping’s thinking “into the brain, heart and soul.”
In addition to the national volume B, the composition topics of the other three national volumes are “time”, “good stories”, and “one’s own space”.
In the local volume, the composition test question of the Shanghai volume is: “Is it only because of curiosity that a person is willing to explore a strange world?” He guided candidates to write essays with the concept of “exploration”, which received a lot of praise again.
The Beijing paper requires candidates to choose one of “continuation” or “appearance” as the title to write an article. The Tianjin paper requires candidates to write their thoughts on “one generation has its mission and challenges, and each generation has its responsibilities and responsibilities”.