The Master's entrance examination for the year 2023 ended on December 24th. As for the results of the exam, they were definitely not ideal and it was impossible to meet the national standard. The exam results are directly related to my lack of effort during the preparation period, so this article is a reflection on the preparation during this time.
Starting from March, I had already started planning for the postgraduate entrance examination. I contacted the teachers at the examination preparation institution to explain my general situation, and they recommended schools to me. I also found a senior student to tutor me in my major courses. Around June, I realized that the role of the examination preparation institution was almost negligible, so I contacted them to apply for a refund. As expected, it was not easy to get a refund from the examination preparation institution. After several communications, I was only able to get a refund of 8,000 yuan out of the total fee of 18,000 yuan.
Reflection on English#
If I were to summarize the problems during the preparation process in one sentence, I would say that I overestimated my self-discipline and underestimated the difficulty of the exam. At the beginning of the exam, I thought that as long as I completed the daily study tasks on time, I would be able to understand each subject. This process lasted for four months, during which I spent a lot of time on English. I would review vocabulary on MoMo every day and then study the translation of complex sentences. However, after studying for a few months, I found that the progress was not obvious. I still didn't recognize nearly half of the words in reading and couldn't understand complex sentences. In fact, I knew that if I continued to practice complex sentences and memorize vocabulary daily, there would definitely be a qualitative change later on. However, in order to pursue rapid progress, I gave up studying diligently and instead focused on finding so-called techniques. I spent a lot of time on these techniques. In the later stages, I completely gave up studying English and only spent less than half an hour each day reviewing vocabulary. As for complex sentences and grammar, I completely gave up on them and relied solely on vocabulary to improve my reading accuracy. As you can imagine, simply memorizing vocabulary cannot fundamentally improve reading comprehension. Even if you are familiar with the words, they will still seem unfamiliar when placed in context.
I chose to give up on the cloze test section of the English exam. During the exam, I simply chose option B for all the questions. As for the translation, new question types, and essay section, I didn't practice deliberately. I almost didn't prepare for the new question types and translation, and I only briefly memorized two essay templates two days before the exam. However, the exam happened to include a combination of charts and pictures in the essay, which I thought was the least likely to be tested. I could only write randomly without a clear understanding. There were many incorrect words and grammar mistakes.
Reflection on Major Courses#
I actually did quite well in reviewing my major courses. From the exams of the major courses, I truly understood the saying "you reap what you sow." As long as you diligently memorize the knowledge points in the textbooks, you will know the points that will be tested. Otherwise, you can only make things up during the exam. My two major courses were the history of Chinese and Western philosophy and Marxist philosophy. The questions on Western philosophy were actually quite basic and the original texts were included in the textbooks. However, in order to take shortcuts, I only focused on reviewing the questions that had been asked in previous years. As a result, there were two questions in the exam that were very basic, but I didn't review them because of my shortcuts, so I couldn't get any points.
During the review of the major courses, I may have had a perfectionist mindset, which led me to spend a lot of time organizing my notes. I focused on making my notes look good rather than focusing on the actual content. The direct consequence was that I spent a lot of time organizing notes and only a small amount of time reviewing and memorizing the knowledge points. As for memorization, I couldn't bear the pain it brought me. Memorization is a deliberate practice process, which is boring and painful. You have to repeatedly memorize and go through the cycle of forgetting and re-memorizing. I know the pain of this process, so I gave up deliberate memorization and instead looked at the notes once or twice a day, relying on understanding to memorize. This process is effective to some extent, but it is not as solid as deliberate memorization. The consequence is that during the exam, I needed to spend time recalling information. The tense atmosphere of the exam combined with time constraints meant that I could only perform at 50% of my ability. Therefore, for both major courses, I could only rely on my memory and only wrote half of the standard answers.
Reflection on Political Science#
After the political science exam, it seemed like others had a high accuracy rate, but I knew that my accuracy rate was not good. The reason was that I didn't spend time on political science. I only did the multiple-choice questions from the books "Xiao Si" and "Xiao Ba" once, and I didn't review the incorrect questions. As for the online video courses on political science, I only watched them once. I didn't even study the content of historical outlines and current affairs. I only read the analysis questions twice and had a general idea. But the biggest problem with political science was that I didn't manage my time well. Since the first exam was political science, I didn't have a concept of time and speed. These were objective reasons, but the main reason was that I wasn't familiar with the content I needed to memorize, and my speed of memorization was not fast enough.
Conclusion#
Through this exam, I deeply realized that passing an exam is not something that can be achieved easily, especially for competitive exams like the postgraduate entrance exam and civil service exam. How can you easily take away what others have worked so hard for? While others were diligently studying late into the night, I was indulging myself. Therefore, instead of being jealous of those who succeeded, I should praise their hard work and self-discipline.
Of course, after half a year of preparation, I did gain something. In order to accept the poor results of the exam, I attributed the various situations during the preparation process to my own cognitive problems. At this stage, my cognition can only reach this level. The so-called effort and self-discipline are based on reaching this level of cognition. This period of time will not be wasted. The process of learning and the problems encountered during the process are all contributing to my higher-level cognition. Cognition deepens through repeated failures and reflections. I always have to thank myself for not being content with mediocrity at this age, for trying again and again for the dream I am guarding. Even though this path is not easy and no one understands, I will always strive towards becoming a better version of myself.
To my 30-year-old self who is still working hard!