In 1977, when the national college entrance examination was resumed, I took this historic exam and failed miserably, hardly knowing any of the math problems and sitting bored in the examination room. The other subjects also did not do well.
I’m not happy, I’m determined to prepare for the exam again, first full blooded review it. I can’t call it a review but a brand new study. I only went to high school for one year, the Cultural Revolution began, the revolutionary suspension of classes to March 1969 to the Inner Mongolia Corps is considered to have graduated, not enough to the name of junior high school students.
A few years after leaving the Corps, the factory work has been mixed into the production section to sit in the office, so after work people go net, I took out the books from the drawer and began to study on their own, all focused on mathematics, examples, exercises all buried several times, a local math textbook, late at night before returning to the group dormitory, very quiet, the girls in the same room are asleep, but I leaned on the bed and began to silently recite history, geography, politics, unknowingly I woke up again after falling asleep and remembered a quote from Nixon’s biography: you have to give 100% effort to succeed. Gritted his teeth, and then memorized, until he was completely unable to 100% before he let himself drift off to sleep, it was three or four o’clock.
Day after day, and then tired to fall asleep without the strength to close the mouth, drooling wet pillowcase, years later slowly change over. This kind of hard practice is the common experience of students back then, it is not worth talking about, the reason why I repeat, because after the exam results, math only 27 points still failed, with the effort paid completely out of proportion. Lack of teachers, missed the best age to learn science …… many reasons it.
What I really want to talk about is the process of my exam.
The test site was in a high school in Tianjin, but the factory I worked in was in the far suburbs of Yangliuqing, where there was nowhere to apply for the exam, so I had to go to the factory’s parent bureau to apply for the exam, so I was assigned to this high school near the bureau to take the exam. At that time, the traffic was extremely backward to take the long-distance bus to the city, obviously not in time for the morning exam, so I had to go to the city a day early, but where to live? But where to stay? In those days, hotels were not allowed to stay at will, and it was impossible to stay at Tianjin colleagues’ houses. Even more impossible, most of their families of four or five people crowded in a hut! Fortunately, the earthquake huts built by families after the earthquake were still there, so I borrowed a hut built in the courtyard of the Bureau of Management, and I was satisfied that this problem was easily solved.
I didn’t know that the weather was hot, but the earthquake hut had been renovated and upgraded with mud walls and wooden doors, and it was very tightly closed and low, like a stuffy cage. Stayed up until the second half of the night a little cooler before dazed for a while, suddenly severe abdominal pain, unbearable, understand is bought to make up for dinner to eat the two tea eggs trouble, to diarrhea. I was brave enough to push the door out, in the darkness of the mess between the earthquake shed through the drill, to find the toilet. Tossing two trips to the stomach more and more cramps, so I had to bear the pain to the Authority’s infirmary in the hospital for help, under the morning star, knocking on the door and window unattended, fierce and keep knocking, finally the doctor on duty with anger responded, she was also hot just a moment to fall asleep. As soon as I saw this, I was quickly injected, prescribed medication, and told to drink more water to be careful of dehydration.
As a result, I became the object of care in the examination room, and the invigilator not only poured hot water and took medicine at all times, but also accompanied me to the toilet, which was really difficult. Luckily, I couldn’t eat these days, otherwise it would have been even more hilarious.
In this state, I insisted on taking the test until the end, and the rest was left to fate.
The scores came down and the results were okay, so I had no problem getting into the undergraduate program. After the volunteer is anxiously waiting.
I was still sitting on a big fallen tree outside the factory gate, desperately waiting for the acceptance letter. The head of the procurement section came over in a hurry and scolded me: What are you waiting for, why don’t you go run! Immediately enlightened, I quickly boarded the train to Shijiazhuang.
In the acquaintance’s home accommodation, he asked for me good path, the next day straight to the city’s first guest house, where is the admissions office premises, at this time the major institutions admissions teachers are gone, so can go straight in. I was able to find the room of the teacher of the Cangzhou Admissions Office, and the director had not left yet, and was trying to solve the last few expansion places.
Here I also want to explain the complexity of my twists and turns, after leaving the Corps I transferred to Hebei, recruited from the countryside to the factory, the factory is bent on recruiting their Tianjin youth back, without the approval of the Tianjin municipal government, can not be settled, so the account collective placed in Cangzhou, people in Tianjin work every day can go home. I am a Beijing youth mixed in an awkward situation, there are difficulties in food and housing during the examination is a small problem, the worst is that I am in Tianjin examinations are off-site loan examination, after the examination papers to be individually sealed and sent to Cangzhou, I belong to the jurisdiction of the Cangzhou examination area!
Book back to the story, the director of the Cangzhou Admissions Office saw me, understand some, quickly take me to a room, is the Hebei Normal University Department of Chinese admissions place, the only school did not go. Looking for my file, the wooden bed is full of archival paper bags, turned no, the director of Cangzhou remembered what quickly ran out, and later learned that he was going to the archives, finally brought my file bag.
Damn even the bag’s seal was not removed! As I was in Tianjin on behalf of the examination, I became a lonely overseas wanderer and was forgotten.
The admissions teacher of the Chinese department was very young, with a red face and “fresh meat”, looked at my file and said coldly: You go back to your water conservancy school in Cangzhou. I was so angry that I immediately replied, “I don’t want to go to junior college, I want to go to university, and I might as well be a second-class worker in Tianjin,” and the young teacher immediately gave me a powerful sentence: then go back to be a second-class worker!
Cangzhou admissions office director fine through, early ran out to find the head of the Department of Chinese, the old man came in is to see just that scene, he took over the conversation and asked me a few words, I have now forgotten what to ask, anyway, soon things set, he clapped the board to accept me. The old man said loudly to me and to the whole room: you have the highest language score and are the highest in this admission! This is the reason why he made the decision to admit me.
I have mixed feelings about the language, which was neglected during my preparation for the exam, and I didn’t spend any time on it at all. I think it’s because I usually like to “read blindly”, which is a big disadvantage in the Corps.
The department head finished and left, I did not need to pay attention to the fresh meat teachers, just waiting for them to busy procedures or something, anyway, dizzy, know that the nail in the coffin to go to college. The actual situation was that Hebei Normal University decided to expand the enrollment of some older candidates, so it dragged on for a day before the enrollment ended and I was caught up.
Interestingly, a month or so later, when I reported to the university, I immediately recognized the grade counselor teacher who greeted us as the fresh meat, who was a recent graduate of the Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers cadet, an excellent retention student, five or six years younger than me. The next four years of school life, he worked very hard, too young, too many students older than him, at least once he saw me, he blushed, so I had to pretend not to recognize him, until today.
I’m really grateful to the director of the Cangzhou Admissions Office, who at that time had a positive culture, and he just said, “I just want to make our Cangzhou one more to go to university. Who is he? His name is not even clear. Forty years later, is he still alive today?
Memory 290
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