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In August this year, Xia Ke, a high school sophomore, faced the decision of "selecting subjects".

In the previous semester, she chose the "pure liberal arts" combination of "history + politics + geography". However, she heard that a liberal arts student with a score of 601 in a province with a large number of college entrance examinations this year was rejected and had difficulty finding a job. So when the school was collecting intentions again, she thought about "changing majors".

Xia Ke’s dilemma is not an isolated case; there is a large group behind her.

Since 2014, the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination (i.e. the "new college entrance examination") has been implemented in batches in various provinces, and the last batch of provinces will take the first new college entrance examination in June next year.According to the latest data released by the Development Planning Department of the Ministry of Education, as of 2023, there will be 28.0363 million students in regular high schools across the country.

Compared with the traditional division into arts and sciences, the new college entrance examination allows greater freedom in subject selection, and students' considerations and choices are more complex.

“Freedom” in subject selection?

In December 2021, in a county high school in Guangxi, Zhang Hao had just finished the first semester of his freshman year. After the final exam, he heard the head teacher inform him that the new college entrance examination was coming and he had to prepare for "subject selection."

Before this, Zhang Hao had only heard about the division of liberal arts and science in high school. As for what "elective subjects" were and what was available to choose from, he had no idea at all.

In fact, the so-called "subject selection" means that in areas where the new college entrance examination is implemented, students have to choose college entrance examination subjects in addition to "Chinese, mathematics and English".

At present, except for the first two batches of six provinces and cities that adopt the "3+3" model, the rest of the regions all adopt the "3+1+2" model, that is, first choose one subject from "physics" or "history", and then choose any two subjects from the remaining biology, chemistry, geography, and politics. Theoretically, there are 20 combinations of the "3+3" model and 12 of the "3+1+2" model.

According to the regulations of the Ministry of Education, schools are prohibited from forcing or determining elective subjects on behalf of students.Therefore, students can freely choose from at least 12 combinations.

But in reality, some schools do not open up options and only offer eight, or even four or two combinations.

For example, after Zhang Hao was briefly "popularized" by his class teacher,He originally wanted to choose the "History + Chemistry + Biology" combination, but since the school did not offer classes, he was unable to choose it even if he wanted to.

Therefore, when the school distributed the questionnaire for the first time, he "followed the crowd" and chose the "pure science" combination of "physics + chemistry + biology", and "just checked the box and it was done."

In the following month, the school will only give students one chance to change their major. If they want to change their major, they must submit an application form, which will be signed by their parents and reviewed by the class teacher, grade group, and school. The school will also "block" them based on their existing grades."If your grades (in the original subject) are poor, you will not be allowed to switch to other subjects."

Zhang Hao didn't feel anything when he made the choice, but when he entered his second year of high school he discovered that the difficulty of learning chemistry had increased dramatically, but the school would not allow him to change.“I don’t know what I want to study or what I can study in the future. I have no idea.”

“Information gap”

According to the "Guidelines for Elective Subject Requirements for Undergraduate Admissions in Regular Colleges and Universities (General Edition)" issued by the Ministry of Education in July 2021,When colleges and universities recruited students in areas where the new college entrance examination is being implemented this year, they generally required students majoring in science and engineering to take both physics and chemistry exams, a process known as "physics and chemistry bundling."

But at that time, many students, and even some teachers, did not realize this.

Zhang Hao said that he didn't understand the meaning of "binding physics and chemistry" until he filled in his college entrance examination application. Some of his classmates only took physics and were not eligible to apply for many popular majors, such as electronics, machinery, and communications."The teacher didn't know at the time, and our class of students were also shocked."

He was also shocked by the "point allocation system". Since students choose different subjects, the actual scores of the elective subjects in the college entrance examination are not given according to the answers on the paper, but according to the ranking.

For example, Zhang Hao usually scores about 55 points in geography. When taking the joint exam with many surrounding schools, his ranking is in the "upper middle", so he can get 82 points. But if he were to compete in the whole province, his ranking would only be in the "middle", and after the college entrance examination, he would only get 66 points, "much worse than usual".

Due to lack of relevant experience, he did not realize when preparing for the exam.The point system would lead to “falsely high” scores, but no one told him about it.

But this information,Wei Meila, who was competing with him on the same stage, knew it as soon as school started.

Wei Meila's high school is located in Baise, Guangxi. The school has successively opened "career planning courses", weekly lectures by teachers from other provinces, monthly online lectures, etc. After a year of understanding, she firmly chose the "physics + chemistry + politics" combination with a wider range of majors.

"Group classes" and "shift classes"

It is not just the students who have changed. Deng Hai, a chemistry teacher at a key high school in Liaoning, clearly feels that"The workload has increased."

In 2018, he was responsible for teaching the first batch of students taking the new college entrance examination, including a history class and a physics class. Each class had a different learning progress and way of thinking, so he had to write two or three times more lesson plans."You cannot use the same lesson plan to teach two classes."

The student choices are different every year, and matching class types and teachers is also a problem.

Deng Hai found that due to the increasing number of students who chose "physics and chemistry" in recent years, the three history teachers in the school only taught two classes, while he had to teach two or three classes alone; while Shen Jia, a history teacher in a high school in Beijing, found that due to theThis year, the number of students choosing history increased from 2 classes in previous years to 5 classes, and the school had to temporarily transfer teachers from junior high schools.

"Mobile classes" also bring challenges to teaching management.

Yu Shou, a high school class teacher in Shenzhen, introduced that in the 2021 "History, Biology and Politics" class she teaches, there are two students who have chosen different subjects. During chemistry classes, they have to move desks and chairs to other classrooms to "go to other classes."

One day, when she passed by the "mobile class" classroom, she found that these two students did not go to class. Later she learned thatThe two students were admitted to a top class, but they could not keep up with the progress. In addition, they usually sat in the corner during class and often forgot to send and receive homework."They said, 'It's better to study on your own'. It's the same whether you leave or not."

For example, in Yu Shou's grade, there were 64 students from two classes who had to squeeze into a classroom that could only accommodate 40 people and "jointly attend" political classes.

Cai Linyi, a head teacher of a key high school in Zhuhai, said that if a class has four combinations,The teacher has to find 4 class representatives just to collect homework every dayIf the school is large, students may have to walk across the grade corridor to ask questions to teachers during evening self-study.“Answer questions for 2 minutes, run for 5 minutes”。

Facing the new model, schools and teachers are adapting. For example, some schools put the "group class" in the middle of the corridor and unify the class time of the "mobile class"; some teachers adjust the teaching plan and update the cutting-edge knowledge of the subject every year according to the new college entrance examination standards. As Yu Shou said:"The new college entrance examination has been a work in progress. It feels different every year. There is no answer that everyone agrees on, how to teach and how to learn."

return?

After several years of adjustment, teachers and students interviewed in many places found thatThe new college entrance examination subject selection is "returning" to the traditional division of liberal arts and science.

Deng Hai introduced that among the 12 classes of the 2021 class, the traditional combination of "pure science" and "pure liberal arts" accounted for half, and in the 2024 class, there were two more "pure science" classes. Cai Linyi also pointed out that the number of students choosing "side door" combinations is decreasing, from more than 700 to more than 400, "everyone knows what is beneficial."

From the actual situation,Whether from the perspective of major selection, learning results, or college entrance examination rankings, traditional combinations are more "competitive".

Yu Shou pointed out that the traditional liberal arts combination of politics, geography and history are mutually reinforcing and are easier for liberal arts students to learn.If a Physics candidate rashly chooses Geography,They cannot pass the exam as well as liberal arts students, and they have to compete with liberal arts students with high scores in the college entrance examination.“It will widen the gap between the two levels”Moreover, the teaching quality of unpopular combinations is difficult to guarantee."The grades of students in flexible classes are not as high as those in fixed classes."

but,Many "special talents" also benefited from it.Long Zhang, a history teacher at a high school in Shenzhen, said that two years ago a student insisted on choosing the unpopular combination of "history + chemistry", and ranked first in the liberal arts of the school in this year's college entrance examination.

Some of the teachers interviewed also found thatMany high school students often choose their subjects based on their emotions."I study history because of poor grades" and "I want to be in the same class with my best friend" and other "weird" reasons are common.

Wang Fei, a high school teacher in Shenzhen, said that seven boys in her class asked to change classes on the grounds that "there are too many girls and it is awkward to take physical education classes"; one student changed his major three times in one month just because he had a conflict with his classmates.

In Wang Fei's opinion, excessive "freedom" in subject selection is not necessarily a good thing."Only those with clear self-awareness and strong self-control can pay for more choices."

At this time, the same choice appeared in front of Xia Ke again. She decided to "take a chance" and turned to the "physics + chemistry + politics" combination, "using two years to catch up with others in three years."

(To protect the privacy of the interviewees, Xia Ke, Zhang Hao, Wang Jia, Shen Jia, Deng Hai, Yu Shou, Long Zhang, Wang Fei, and Cai Linyi are all pseudonyms in this article)