Culture Shock(1)----Education---Test Difference

Hello, guys! Since I have already been in the US for two months, I really have a lot of experiences on the culture differences between my home country and America. Everything I have experienced could be valuable for me in the future and I enjoy it very much! Writing these feelings down should be worthy and meaningful! So from today I will record my thinking of the culture shock between these two country, as my personal treasure of studying abroad! I will categorise them into different facets for several times so that make my contents more in detail in every journal! SO, let us go!

As a college student, taking exams maybe the most important thing for us taking care of. Getting a good grade always means a lot! However, tests in America and China are so different. Today I will talk about it from three point of view: the difference in test method, test assessment, and test content.

To begin with, from my point of view, the testing method in these two countries is different on time schedule and formats. In China, we can know the exact day for taking exams only few days or weeks before the exam, which is not convenient to set personal study schedules efficiently; however, in my courses in America, I always receive a time schedule in detail telling you how many exams you will take in this semester and the exact testing day. Some courses may have calendars showing you teaching contents every week clearly. Having a time schedule for exams can be very helpful. You can make the study plan and strategy as soon as possible, which help save time and avoid useless work. The other difference is the test format: it is much more diversified in American college than in Chinese. Students here may have quizzes, exams and assignments using various software on Internet, but in my last two years in my former university of China(I am a transfer student), I never took exams without using paper except several computer courses.

Secondly, I want to talk about the test assessment difference. In china, the final exam is always the most important part and you will have less opportunities to make up for it if missed. In China, students who are not focus on study for nearly the whole semester may also have chances to get a very high score if they work hard in the last few weeks. Like my dorm mate in my former University, she is an A student who never studies until the last month of the semester. However, in America, you need to gain points and scores during the entire semester. In some courses, making up for the missed exams or assignments are also possible. I take CMN102 this semester, we have 4 mid-term exams, and the professor only take 3 of them as your final score. What's more, in most courses,you will have several absenteeism chances or assignments misses without any excuses. I believe the test assessment in America is more scientific. It is a useful and effective way to motivate students keeping on study all the time not just in the exam weeks. Also, the final score could be more fair. The score counts a student's integral academic performance, and everyone needs to work hard to gain points to be a A student.

Lastly, I want to talk about the divergence in test contents area. Before I went to America, I had a misconception that exams in America must be opener and more flexible than in China. However, after passing several exams here, I gradually found the fact was totally the opposite. Actually, test contents in America are more lecture-related. Taking good class notes are much more important to get good scores. Usually, too difficult or challenging questions will not appear in the exams, instead, it may appear in your assignments or papers. Comparatively speaking, exams in china are more challenging: you may face difficult and irrelevant questions in your exams, and sometimes you need to answer very hard essay questions.

Generally speaking, test is very different in China and America. From my personally experiences, we really have different testing method both in time and format, assessment, and the content. As an international transfer student, I share strong feelings about it. I am on my way to adapt to these differences and also have fun!

Tips I want to share for getting efficient sleep

When I was in china, during the final exam week each semester, I always felt time was so limited, and then sleep deprivation happened. Since we are now college students who have a lot of study pressure and also many social activities to attend in, I believe many students have the same situation as me. Today, I want to share you guys two useful ways to get high quality sleep: NAPS and CYCLE-SLEEP. It is really a magic for me, and I hope it can also work on you!

First, what is a cycle-sleep? According to researches, a sleep cycle contains four different stages each has different function to refresh our body when we are sleeping. In a cycle, we usually begin from stage 1 to stage 4 step by step, and then go back to stage 1 reversely. It always takes nearly 90 minutes for a person to run an entire cycle containing all those steps once. Studies show that people being disturbed by others when sleeping during a cycle will feel much more uncomfortable than being awake at the point of finishing a cycle. It means if you have 3 hours to sleep, and your friend has 4 hours, according to sleep-cycle theory, you are more lucky than your friend because you can have 2 entire cycle sleep but your friend will have 2 and another unfinished one! I have followed this way to sleep since I knew it, and it really helpful. I found sleeping just for 6 hours can make me feel more energetic than 7 hours during the daytime. And it is always easier for me to be waked by others at the time of finishing a sleep cycle.

The second way to survive from the lack of sleep is called powerful nap. An authoritative survey shows that among a cup of coffee, a pound of chocolate, and a 20munites nap, people who choose naps can regain the most energy than others who choose coffee, smoke or chocolate. In fact, many great people in history had already tried this way to keep energetic through hard working, like Da Vinci, Einstein and so on. So next time if you are planning to study or work for an entire day, taking a nap at noon can bring you effort halved and result doubled.

Ok, until now, as you see, with limited time, it is possible for you to get an efficient sleep using scientific strategies. If you face problems of sleep deprivation in the future, just think about taking cycle-sleep and naps!

Introduction~~my hometown suffers a lot

I am Yuji, born and educated in a small city called Urumchi in Xinjiang province, located in the most northwest part of china. Though my family moved into Shanghai City five years ago, I still believe Xinjiang is the harbour of my soul forever. Weather there is terrific: we can go skiing in winter and ride horses passing the prairie in summer. My hometown is also famous for various sweet fruits and delicious food. Moreover, there are 13 different minorities living in Xinjiang. We have quite different cultures and living habits from other chinese people, which make my hometown a very mysterious and popular place to travel.

In recent days, maybe some of you have already heard, a big rebellion from Uigur people breaks out in my hometown. On 5th, July, nealy 150 Han people including children and women died. And nearly 2000 buses and cars were burned at that day. Until now, there are still many different types of conflicts and rebellions keeping going on. In these two days, some Uigur people used syringes containing poisonous liquid to inject into passengers' bodies and then ran away, which caused 500 people who was injected into poisonous chemicals lying in the hospital. In order to prevent more Uigur people being incited to do harmful and unhumanitarian things, all websites have been closed in Xinjiang province from July, 5th to now. My friends living there tell me it is really an extraordinary period of time for most Urumchi citizen. Before this time, they could never imagine how life might be without internet, without phone and without message signals. Tragedies happened just around them unexpectedly. Though holding a very strong belief of Chinese goverment, they still feel too nervous to live life as usual. It will cost a very very long time for people in my hometown recovering from this hurtful strike.

Staying in the US, very far away from my hometown, I find it difficult to get truth of what happen now. All I can do is just hearing news from my friends, classmates, and relatives there. However, Urumchi, my hometown, is always on my mind. Every night, I pray for people there, and wish everything could be fine in the future and my hometown could recover from this tragedy as soon as possible.

Sometimes, it is very hard to tell right from wrong for people holding different standards with different backgrounds, especially from a historical perspective. However, if we just focus on the harmless people there in my hometown, you will find it is really easy to judge who is right and who is wrong in this affliction. All I want to say is, the Han people there should control their feelings and avoid the evolution of race confrontation. Peace and harmony is the most important thing for both Han and Uigur people.

God bless my hometown~~

Hello,it is a new start!

Yeah, this is my first english version blog, I hope it can help me build the habit of english writing ~~
Have fun of ESL114 class~~

Welcome to here to see my essays and share your feelings about life and study experience~~