I took part in the John Locke essay competition this summer. This is the first time that I took part in an English essay writing competition. I didn’t won a prize anyway. Nevertheless, this experience is quite precious for me– for my English study, my essay writing skills, and my critical thinking training.

I’ve never written any essays before. I’m always good at composing Chinese novels and narrations, as I love telling stories, love describing scenes and landscapes. But when it comes to write an organized professional academic essay, I hadn’t got any idea. Therefore, the whole process of composing this John Locke essay is literally challenging for me.

• 1. There are several topics that I can choose from, and I finally decided to compose a historical one. I’m interested in considering the philosophy nature of history, and thinking of the variety of people’s opinions on historical events. Hence I choose this topic: Should we judge those from the past by the standards of today? How will historians in the future judge us?

• Then after I chose the topic, I started to list an outline of the article, select my arguments by brainstorming. I asked my history teacher for advise on my proposal. She proposed that some arguments were kind of decisive and needed more evidence to prove them. Hence I started looking for historical materials, and completed specific paragraphs. The process was not easy. Sometimes I find that my original logic is not feasible, sometimes I get new inspiration– I even break away from the traditional writing format and dare to challenge the question (which I added in my intro).

• 2. Vocabulary and expressions is also one of my weakness. Sometimes I din’t know how to express in a accurate way, sometimes din’t know about a exact academic word. But I tried my best to force myself to think in English and make my essay reads more fluent. I determined to expand my vocabulary since then… :P

• 3. Though I worked hard on this essay, there are still a lot of content need to be improved. For example, I cited few references in my essay, which makes it not convincing enough. I also felt that my ideas are not that creative and always traditional, even stuffy. Hence I would like to do more critical thinking training in the future.

Whatever, here I’ll record my first experience of writing a formal essay. Hope that I can improve my skills and compose better ones one day.

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Here is my essay.

SHOULD WE JUDGE THOSE FROM THE PAST BY THE STANDARDS OF TODAY? HOW WILL HISTORIANS IN THE FUTURE JUDGE US?

Since the ‘cultural turn’ of the 1970s, considerable attention has been given to the issue of whether historians should judge the past. How historians judge the past substantially depends upon the historiographical methods available to them. In recent years, the rapid development of big data technology has enabled new modes of historical enquiry and analysis. As a consequence, how historian judge the past and the ‘standards of today’ are constantly changing. On an individual level, the way in which past societies are ‘judged’ depends on the personal political beliefs and moral values that contemporaries hold. Views vary from person to person. Some people belief that we should judge those from past by the standards of today because the lessens of the past may be practically or usefully applied in the present. On the contrary, others strongly argue against this approach, viewing the application of present standards onto the past as ahistorical and misleading. They instead propose that it is more appropriate to evaluate past events based on standards of that time.

These different positions on whether we should judge those from the past by the standards of today assume that historians can detach themselves from present standards. However, none of us can get rid of the influence of the history education we receive today. In all aspects of historical enquiry, the standards of the present influence how we understand and evaluate the past. This is reflected in the historical subjects we choose to study, the historical sources we choose to examine and the methods of historical analyze that we employ. In all this, we can never get out of our own attitudes and cannot stop using standards of today. Accepting this, the best way of judging a particular historical event is to evaluate it from different aspects, using various criteria. Such criteria include moral, economic, and epistemological standards. Whether we should judge those events by the standards of today depends on the property of each criterion.

There is no established set of standards that is universally shared. This is reflected in the differences in moral standards in our own time. For instance, experts have various opinions on the hotly debated issue of whether the ‘precautionary principle’ should become part of national and international law. The ‘precautionary principle’ is an approach used by policymakers to decide whether to adopt new innovations and technologies. It is commonly used when such innovations are potentially harmful and when there is limited scientific research on their potential negative impacts. Agne Sirinskiene argues that ‘precautionary principle’ is becoming or even has already become a rule of customary national and international law in her essay The Status of Precautionary Principle : Moving Towards a Rule of Customary Law.[ A. Sirinskiene, The Status of Precautionary Principle: Moving Towards a Rule of Customary Law (Jurisprudencija, 2009)] Conversely, Ken Cussen argued in Handle with Care: Assessing the Risks of the Precautionary Principle that the ‘precautionary principle’ is dangerous as it is often invoked as a way of handling risk in situations of scientific uncertainty.[ K. Cussen, Handle with Care: Assessing the Risks of the Precautionary Principle (Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 2009)] The idea that there are no set of moral standards is also true historically. This evident in contemporary conceptions of the ‘Age of Discovery’. European missionaries saw colonial expansion as a way of exporting Christianity and ‘saving the souls’ of indigenous populations who held different religious beliefs. On the other hand, the violent methods used in this period was also understood to bring many harms. Bartolomé de las Casas condemned the violence of European expansion in the ‘New World’ in his Historia de las Indias (1561). In both contemporary and past societies, there was no consensus or established set of ‘standards’ by which people understood the past.

Using different criteria to evaluate history – as a way of combating the projection of present standards onto the past – has its own set of problems. This is evident in economic evaluations of the past. Economic development in the past is often evaluated according to prevailing economic values and ideas. However, when historians project economic standards based on modern ideas of capitalism back onto earlier periods of history, they misunderstand that earlier societies did not understand the economy according to these ideas. The idea of ‘Classical Economics’ – the earliest concept of economics – only first appeared in Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations which was published in 1776. There is no doubt that the change in GDP per capita can be considered as significant measure of economic ‘progress’. However, the conception of GDP was proposed in the 1930s. The use of GDP to measure the economic success of past societies assumes that these societies sought to maximize GDP and understood this as a measure of ‘progress’. In most cases there is no comparison between the way people from the past judged economic development and the way in which we do today. For example, in the Middle Ages, rulers in feudal agrarian societies believed that their economic policies should ensure social stability. Consequently, they paid more attention to changes in the price of goods and crop harvests to determine their economic policies. They did not consider GDP per capita, nor did they need to compare their economic conditions with other countries, in their conception of their economic development. In the case of economics, historian must judge the past using the economic standards of that time.

Similar issues can be found with epistemological evaluations of the past. Knowledge from the past is often discredited or ignored if it does not fit present understanding or standards of knowledge production. However, we should not judge knowledge from the past by the standards of today. Greater emphasis should be placed on assessing the influence of past ideas in their own time and their impact on subsequent developments in knowledge. This is most evident in the historical connections and developments in scientific knowledge. Although many of Aristotle’s views were overturned by later researchers, these ‘wrong ideas’ had a great influence on people’s worldview at that time. For example, Aristotle asserted in De Caelo (350 BC) that the speed at which an object falls is proportional to its weight. According to this view, heavier objects would fall faster than lighter ones. However, Galileo, a sixteenth century scientist, repudiated this idea which had been accepted for centuries. In The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), he proposed that the object’s descending speed has nothing to do with its weight. Galileo postulated that if the air resistance of two objects with different weights is the same or can be ignored, then the two objects will fall at the same speed and reach the ground at the same time. He verified this hypothesis by dropping two iron balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Galileo overturned Aristotle’s earlier assertion and laid the foundation for modern kinematics theory, a theory which can be considered a ‘standard of today’. The issues raised by the examples of economic and epistemological standards shows that historians should not judge the past by the standards of today and instead should use a combination of different criteria to try to offer a more balanced view.

One of the major issues with using the standards of today to evaluate the past is that these standards are constantly changing with time. Considering how historians in the future will judge us is therefore difficult to ascertain. However, there are broad trends in historical methodology and analysis that look like to continue based on recent technological developments. The development of big data technology such as computer algorithms for analyzing historical data and chemical methods such as carbon dating will result in greater accuracy in historical evidence. This will enable historians to have a more extensive and comprehensive collection of historical data. Thus, future judgments are more likely to offer an objective analysis of the past and be less colored by contemporary biases and standards.

When judging a particular historical event, the most comprehensive way is to evaluate the past is to consider different aspects and criteria, namely moral, economic, and epistemological standards. Whether we should judge those events by the standards of today depends on how applicable these criteria were in past societies and how they understood their own societies and the world around them.

Bibliography

Agne Sirinskiene: The Status of Precautionary Principle: Moving Towards a Rule of Customary Law. (Jurisprudencija, 2009)

Ken Cussen: Handle with Care: Assessing the Risks of the Precautionary Principle (K Cussen - Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 2009)

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaulti de Galilei: Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, tolemaico e copernicano
Isaac Newton: Mathematical Principles of Nature Philosophy (1687)

Aristotle: De Caelo

Jared Diamond: Guns,Germs,and Steel:The Fates of Human Societies(1997)

Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich: The Little History of the World (1936)

L. S. Stavrianos:A Global History: From Prehistory to the 21st Century (1970)

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I attended the International Olympics Linguistics China this year.

In the open round I got the first prize. In the final round, though unfortunately, I caught gastroenteritis, I still won the silver medal in China. Perhaps this ‘failure’ is also a reminder of the importance of being healthy. Alright, honestly, it is a unique experience to take part in this competition and I would like to record it in this blog.

As for the subject of linguistics itself, I got a brief understanding of what and how linguist study. I read several materials of this subject to get some professional knowledge, and I also experience the way linguists sum up rules from the corpus through the process of solving problems in the competition. Besides the subject itself, I tried to explore the connections between subjects either. For instance, I found a clear logic could be quite helpful when solving problems. I need to record my inspirations and my ideas, to make sure that I can find the rule step by step. What’s more, it is literally surprising that I also found that it is easier for me to understand the problems and materials in the Chinese, political and history exams. I reckon that this is because as I got a deeper understanding of the structure of sentences and words, I became more confident and less confused when reading long and obscure articles.

About the exercise I have done for preparation, I did several past papers to get familiar with the possible problems that I need to solve. Also, I searched for some professional books and videos that give some tips of how to be more competitive in this match. I organized the academic knowledge that I had learned into mind maps and notes, and added new key points as soon as I met them in the process of doing past papers. My deskmate Angle took part in IOLC too, thus we often share the difficult problems we found with each other. I really enjoy this process of exercising.

It is a pity that we don’t have a team match because of the virus. If I’m going to take part in the IOLC in the next year, I will definitely try to do some group works with my teammates.

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This is the end of my senior one(Grade 10). This year I studied in a famous normal senior high school, in which many of the students are preparing for Gaokao – the entrance examination of the university in China. Besides, I also prepared a lot for the A Level test. Though I cannot find a proper teacher in my city, I tried to study by myself. Here I got some ideas about the difference between British and Chinese Education System.

To begin with, I would like to compare the textbooks or sessions in the two countries.

①Length of study: three years for Gaokao and two years for A level.

②Subjects: Gaokao includes Chinese, mathematics, English, physics or history, and two subjects of biology, politics, geography, and chemistry, while A-level learners choose 3-4 subjects from more than 70 subjects.

③Sessions: Gaokao students study all 9 subjects in the first year of high school, and choose the subjects of the high school entrance examination in the second year. A level learners study the AS course in the first year of high school, and the A2 course in the second year of high school.

④Allocation of knowledge in different levels: Gaokao textbooks are divided by topics of the knowledge, while A level textbooks always have all the knowledge in them, but the difficulty increases with the order of the textbooks.

Secondly, their ways of testing have some part in common, while there are also some different parts. As for natural science subjects, AL focus more in the interpretation of daily phenomena, while Gaokao mainly pay attention to the analysis and calculation of ideal models. Regarding social science subjects, both of them contain multiple choice questions about the key points in the textbook. However, social science subjects in Gaokao only have got simple answer questions or short essays, whilst the ones in AL have a lot of long essay-writing questions.

Last but not least, I concluded various ways of exercising according to the two system. For natural science subjects, AL learners should pay more attention to applying the knowledge from their textbooks in daily life; and of course they should also understand the sample questions in the book too. Gaokao learners need to do a lot of exercises to make sure they would not make any mistakes while analysising and calculating, and it’s better for them to summarize the types of different questions. As for the social science subjects, regardless of in which education system, students are required to accumulate a lot of reading. AL lerners are also required to improve their critical thinking skills.

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PS:

I’ve got a satisfactory score in the final exam- thanks to the special learning method which I learnt from Feynman! I would like to share the method here since it’s always so helpful.

• Step 1: Determine learning goals and learn by myself.
• Step 2: Teaching. My friend Amy and I taught each other the subjects we were good at, trying to make each other understood.
• Step 3: Review. Reflect on the problems encountered in step 2, such as where it got stuck and where the other party did not really understand. Record these issues.
• Step 4: Simplify. I will reorganize and understand the problems encountered, learn as much background and relevant knowledge as possible, and then re-express it in a simplified way as much as possible, trying to grasp the key points and see through the essence. Then, return to step 2.

I am so addicted to this way of learning and reviewing that sometimes I even try it by teaching no one but me myself!

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[1] Linguistics is a science. Linguists investigate how people acquire language-related knowledge, how this knowledge interacts with other cognitive processes, how it changes between speakers and geographic regions, and how language knowledge is modeled computationally.
They study how to represent the structure of various aspects of language, such as sound or meaning, how to theoretically explain different language types, and how different components of language influence each other. Linguists develop and test scientific hypotheses. Many linguists advocate the use of statistical analysis, mathematics, and logical formalism to explain the language models they observe.

[2] Linguistics is a tool, the purpose of using which is to communicate. Just like other sciences, it focuses on plenty of fundamental facts, and proposes scientific hypotheses or theories to explain these facts. When we first come into contact with a language, we can quickly understand the structure, grammar, and pronunciation of the language through linguistic knowledge to communicate with others. Compared with the beautiful literary works themselves, the inherent beauty of the rules of each word, and their wonderful evolution from meaning to sound, is even more amazing.

[3] Language is a unique way of communication for humans. It reflects the highly evolved mental abilities of human beings on the biological or psychological level, and reflects the progress of human civilization on the level. Linguistics is to study the core instinct of human language ability, through the analysis and research of spoken language, written language and even sign language, and then understand the nature of human beings. During studying I even found the connection between linguistics and other science subjects, for instance, many phenomenon that are related to difference between regions can be explained by geographic knowledge, and the process of finding the language rules always needs a lot of statistics.

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I.THE RECORD

“Have you ever lost a basketball game?”

Lost.
Lost.
Screaming shrilly the final whistle, the basketball slipped to the ground, as the opposing audience applauded and shouted vigorously. It bounced helplessly for several times on the red plastic track that the white sneakers had stepped on, and then lay down motionless, never waking up.

The net.
Empty.
I can’t wake up, an empty dream.
That perfect- almost illusory- air ball becomes my only and final glory.

The match was over.
It seemed, insensible.
That is, the sun is as dazzling as ever. It seems like every noon at which we rushed out from the classroom, it seems like every art class which we escaped through the back door, it seems like every conversation with making notes on a small book, leaving a shadow.
That is, there is an inexplicable impulse. It seems that it was just a cutscene in this familiar place. It seems that I used to work very hard to become a qualified power forward. It seems that I am also very desperate to take on the role of a point guard. However, when the game was over, how dare I say that, I worked hard, I tried my best.
That is, as Yomi said, helpless. A rebound, a tall girl, stretched out her hands. Yeah, basketball, the sport of giants. It’s ridiculous to think about dozens of shots and boards made by the opponent and only three shots from top to bottom of the team. One-third of the hit rate. Fairly high, fairly helpless.
That is, there is no expected frustration. It seemed suddenly, just annoyed. It seems such a familiar scene, I wondered where I have seen it, who has mentioned it, and when I have been told that I must pay attention to it.
That is, after the game I saw many classmates writing encouraging words for us players on the blackboard, comforting us that we have done our best. Thus I returned to the podium, picked up the chalk and prepared to write something. Suddenly, guilt slammed into the fragile flower like a heavy rain that was caught off guard, falling to pieces. It seems that I am very stubborn. It seems that I, an idealist, portrays all strategies and analyses unrealistically. It seems that I broke my promise. I played the power forward terribly. Even though I have everything in terms of steals, blocks and breakthroughs, I still can’t prevent the opponent’s short passes; I played the point guard to the ridiculous point and had no chance to use the pick-and-roll once which I cooperated with Anna in the best. It seemed that I had tried, bravely, and scored, but it was almost meaningless. It seems that I’m sorry to the Blazers and team number I love, I’m sorry to establish the belief that we must win the Warriors. It seems that I wasted, too much precious high school time, troubling the men’s basketball players and senior sisters to teach us almost mentally handicapped skills and cooperation, receiving so many professional and unprofessional guidance, analysis and encouragement, and in the end, nothing was achieved. As if I couldn’t grasp the opportunity, the two to four score and the remaining warmth of the hollow goal deceived me. As if I thought, I still have a chance to come back and score more. I never have a chance again. Holding the chalk, it was somehow weak to write anything.

But my teammate Charlotte said, “Thank you for letting me participate in this grand dream.” In this grand dream, there are you, and me.

This grand dream–
Comes from disputes and boiling eyes from under the plane tree, from the sincerity of tears at the first time watching the game, from the brewing of the midsummer sunshine, from the fascination with a team and several players, and from the trembling when receiving the favorite team clothes, from the persuasive fantasy that I dare not mention about the covenant to win the championship.

In this grand dream–
There are dirty hands covered with red paint, there are two little girls that were soaked in the light rain but skipping, there are some look at their opponents and smile, and there are small groups of people who are constantly beeping for advice and discussion, confident. There are full, anxiety, discouragement. The most important one is the stability, warmth and moving when we hugged our teammates.

In this grand dream–
There are the most responsible coaches, cross-class friendly matches and the most sincere promises to meet in the final match, there are simple words which brought countless warm compliments to the little girls, there are shouts from friends on the sidelines, and there is a large box of mineral water, a camera, and photos shining under the sunlight.

In this grand dream–
The ones sitting on the court, the ones holding heads tightly, the ones behind the screen. Quietly, or presumptuously, crying. Just cry, my friends. That’s not because you can’t afford to lose, that is because you love it too much.

In this grand dream, I finally understand- what is basketball, what is team, and what is love.

It seems, it seems.
In a trance, a few little girls in black jerseys rub their hands, looking forward to the next game. The heavy shadows on the red track were flying lightly. And a ball, a black ball, a perfect air ball.
“Huh.”
She smiled.

II.THE REFLECTION

How to be a qualified leader? What have I done and what more can I do?

First, envision, which is definitely the most important quality. We have very little preparation time for the game - only less than two weeks. Thus I and two coaches (who are the men’s basketball players in our class) arranged our players’ roles in the team according to their different strengths and set everyone’s training goals, with the intention of diversifying the team by maximizing each individual’s strengths. Charlotte, for example, has excellent shooting ability and is one of the few girls with a high three-point shooting rate, but not a high profile. So I suppose her to be a quarterback, grabbing the scoring opportunities outside the free throw line. Secondly, Wang is fast and aggressive, with strong breakthrough ability. What’s more, she is fairly good at making up the rebound. So I suggest she should be a small forward and score for us in the area under the basket. Thirdly, as for me myself, I seldom practice shooting, but I am good at defending, passing and controlling the ball. Although I am short, I have the ability to steal and cap. So I recommend myself to be a big striker, doing a good job of passing, and limiting the scorer of the other side. As for the two substitutes, Anna is tall, capable and stealing, and has a natural advantage in grabbing rebounds. So she is the best choice to be a center. Emily’s shooting ability is so strong that she can be another quarterback who plays for Charlotte during Charlotte’s break.

However, I missed two points, which were the ones of the most important reasons we lost. First of all, my idea is too idealistic. We are an all-round team, but the other teams do not have such a detailed division of labour. I imagined other teams to be so formal that I thought they would be as well-equipped as we are, with conventional strategies. In the reality, however, the vast majority of women’s basketball teams in our grade don’t have a quarterback with great shooting ability, so they didn’t choose to attack from long range. In the end, they controlled the rebound and we lost even all the choices of holding the ball. Secondly, other teams chose to let each player develop different abilities, such as shooting, stealing, defense, attack and so on, precisely because each person’s ability is not outstanding. On the contrary, we ignored the training of disadvantages. The quarterback didn’t know how to defend, often ending up leaving the other side empty-handed; I never thought to shoot as a big forward and point guard. Here’s an example that can prove me wrong, where the quarterback actually didn’t get a chance to shoot in the final game and I was forced to shoot and scored for our team.

Second, engagement. This is the point where I like our team best. Every long breaking, noon, afternoon school, we went to the playground training. What’s more, I often invited the school team’s older brothers to guide us, also asked other team leaders to play training matches. As the whole school students know, our team will always started training every day the earliest, at the same time ended the latest. However, what they don’t know is that, after returning home, I would also send a summary of the daily training to the chat box, and we continued a heated discussion in the QQ group.

Third, energizing. I appreciate our team very much since the teammates are very warm and considerate. We bought each other drinks and snacks. We hugged each other when felt depressed. I also said a lot to encourage everyone before the game to build their confidence.

Fourth, enabling. I’m not the best player in the team, but I’m always keen to share what I’ve learned with my teammates. For instance, I would teach the teammates who weren’t good at defending how to observe the attackers, and I would also tell the center how to move to the best position.

Fifth, excellent execution. For myself, I watched a lot of short videos of NBA games to learn the skills of the basketball stars. At the same time, I surfed the Internet to consult a variety of information about strategies, and I asked around friends and predecessors who have a broad knowledge of basketball as will.

Sixth, persuading. During my communication with the teammates, parents, opponents, and schoolchites, I learned how to express my opinions and asks euphemistically, and I finally understood that the most important thing in a successful conversation is sincerity.

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Recently I am doing research on programme study of physical sciences, social sciences, education and geography, which are my favorite subjects. In the following article I intend to discuss some of my ideas on them.

【1】PHYSICAL NATURAL SCIENCE

This subject area concentrates a lot on discovering the interconnections between apparently discrete subjects, as the blurring of boundaries between the different sciences which all offer people a fundamental understanding of the way the universe works.
It acquires a lot of skills as well. Physics students always need to gain an insight into different scientific methods. To achieve this goal successfully, they need to develop their intellectual skills, such as critical thinking, analysis, problem-solving skills. During specific programs, they must use their research skills, including data management and analysis, critical analysis, specialist research methods.What’s more, communication and presentation skills also play an important role in their study, including written, oral, non-verbal. Organizational skills are often required in order to improve themselves, such as independent working, managing time. When cooperating with others, they need interpersonal skills, such as teamwork, negotiation, delegation, flexibility, adaptability. These various skills are highly valued by employers of all types, as a result they can be qualified for a range of jobs like teaching and researching at the very forefront of current scientific knowledge, tackling some of the most important challenges, research strengths, and successful academic collaborations and professional accreditation.
It is interesting to note that professors not only want their students to be someone have strong academic ability, but also wish them to become someone who progresses their area of science, someone with their own ideas and opinions who initiates rather than imitates.

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【2】POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Politics student study how government work, how public policies are made, and also international relations. To study and practice, they write reports and essays, attend lectures and seminars, hear from politicians, go out to have placement and industry experience, and undertake data-analysis training. I also did some researches on the disciplinary major of Politics and History, as I’m quite interesting in it. This major links major disciplines in humanity and social science, provides historical context to your studies in political science, and also develops your transferable skills: intellectually rigorous arguments based on sound, independent research and analysis. Last but not least, I was a little bit worries that whether this subject is sensitive because of the various of political views and ideology. Fortunately, a teacher in Cambridge told my not to worry about that because in college we study it in an academic angle, not including our personal statements.
Economics student focus on how consumers, firms and government make decisions that collectively determine how resources are located, by make sense of governmental policy-making, the conduct of businesses and the enormous economic transformations throughout the world.

During my research I found it is quite interesting that Maths are always important in every social science subjects. Economics need statistics of course, and maths can also help us understand logic course in philosophy and theories in policies. To be honest, this discovery strengthened my determination to study mathematics >-<

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【3】EDUCATION

One teacher in Cambridge taught me that if I want to apply for this major, I should think of the following questions.

①Reason for applying

• When I was preparing for my entrance exam for the senior high schools, I realized the important roles that teachers and textbooks play on one kid’s study experiences.
• I was influenced by my favorite philosopher and writer Rousseau and his book EMILE.
• I am really interested in the combination of education and other social sciences such as sociology, philosophy and history.

②Your advantages

• I’ve got lots of back ground information by reading various educational books.
• I took part in several competitions of social science, such as NEC and IOL. I also did some researches myself or leaded by teachers.
• I’m always willing to cooperate with others.

③Further goals

• I want to do further researches after graduation. Also, doing interdisciplinary research in PHD study is very fascinating to me.
• I want to be a writer of educational books or a educational policy maker.
• I want to make some improvement in teaching methods, such as new ways of teaching like online teaching. Also, I want to improve the composition of textbooks, in order to make sure that students can learn new knowledge in a more comfortable and easy way.

④Prepared things

• I was among the top 400 students in my city in the entrance exam of senior high. I also won lots of prizes, such as the national first prize in IOL open round.
• I am a vice president of a biology club, and I have organized plenty of activities successfully.
• I am good at written work and making speeches. I came first in a speech competition in our grade and came second in another.
• I had chance to taught younger student in my primary schools, and they were quite interested in the stories I shared with them.

⑤Five important skills that I have

• language skills- I am always confident about expressing ideas and making speeches.
• academic skills- I have done lots of written work and further study on topics that I am interested in.
• good temper- I am willing to express myself in logical and tactful ways, in order that other can understand me easily and pleasantly.
• cooperation&leadership
• association&imagination- I can respond quickly when contacting with new things. For instance, when I learn a new theory, I can always think of theories that I have learned in the past and connect them together.

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【4】GEOGRAPHY

Geography students focus on all the biggest challenges in our planet, including globalization, environmental politics, urbanization, conservation, climate change, glaciation, volcanology, Quaternary Science, the future of developing regions, culture differences and even food security, social inequalities. There are two main branches, human geography which concentrates on how human activity affects the environment and physical geography which focus on physical features and phenomenon.

As geography is a science, there are several research skills quite important to this subjects. First, high learning efficiency in lectures, practices and field trips. Second, data collection( quantitative and qualitative), storage, processing, analysis, display and evaluation. Third, the use of geographical information system mapping, a significant tool which can be used in geographical research.

And for the question of how to apply for this subject area, here’s something that I can do nowadays. First of all, I should stay up to date with news and topical issues - these are also that geography students focus on. What’s more, books, blogs, podcasts, documentaries can be helpful. I can even volunteer in the nearby geographical museum! Last but not least, I can also take part in several essay competitions and debates to show that I am competitive and passionate.

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Last month I took the AMC exam, and the result was much worse than I thought. I intend to talk about the thoughts I came up with during preparation, the reason I failed and my point of view on the subject of mathematics.

First of all, I learned a lot during the preparation process. This time includes elementary algebra, basic geometry, elementary number theory, and combinatorial problems. It is theoretical and abstract, so it is necessary to work hard on the understanding of knowledge, think more and study more. In the process of mathematics learning, what was the most valuable to me was to understand the importance of correcting the mistakes, to analyze the reasons and correct answers, so as to find my weaknesses. From my perspective, constantly looking for the causes of small mistakes is the most important way to success.

Furthermore, there are two reasons for the failure of the exam. First, as an international student, I haven’t connected the courses and examination methods at home and abroad well. In China, the majority of our scores are often answer questions and fill-in-the-blank questions, so I spent a lot of time calculating accurate results, while ignoring some unique methods for multiple-choice questions, such as inferring information from options. Secondly, because I was busy studying linguistics at the same time, I was not well prepared for this exam. I was neither familiar with all kinds of test sites and question types.

I made plans respectively in order to solve these problems. First, the first thing to do when attending a competition is always to understand the characteristics of the competition through the study of the introduction to the competition instead of meaningless blind preparation. Second, by doing exercises, you can become familiar with the question types and consolidate knowledge points, thereby enhancing the pertinence of learning and improving your ability more efficiently.

Finally, I want to talk about the subject of mathematics. Mathematics is a old subject with fairly long history, and I personally like it very much. We can infer its importance from the fact that it has been valued since ancient times. The reason why mathematics has an irreplaceable effect on human beings is because it is extremely effective for thinking training. In daily life, it can not only be used to calculate data, but also has a certain enlightenment on our way of solving problems. Learning mathematics makes our thinking ways more organized and logical. In addition, in the field of professional research, no matter whether it is social science or natural science, mathematics is needed as a foundation.

To sum up, I enjoy the process of learning mathematics, and also have the enthusiasm to learn it well.

Original link: https://fiona-f-ang.github.io/page/3/index.html

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PART 1 THE LINGUISTICS WINTER CAMP

The IOL (Linguistics Olympiad) winter camp is over today. I have got a new understanding of linguistics in the four days of online training. Before studying linguistics, I thought that it as an unpredictable subject. However, after learning it, I discovered that it is actually closely related to our world.

We learned basic knowledge, such as phonetics, phonology, language family, semantics, morphology, syntax and so on. We also learned how to solve problems. The problem-solving process is like doing fieldwork – deciphering a new language.

I learned that languages are regular. I learned vowel, consonants and their different ways of pronunciation. I also studied the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is an outstanding contribution of linguists to the world. I learned about root affixes and the rules of word formation. At the same time, the teachers prepared many related questions for us. We analyzed the expression rules of these strange languages, and then infer the meaning of other compound words and sentences through the translations we already know.

In this study, I learned many new languages, which refreshed the world in my heart. I never expected that civilizations were so diverse. At the same time, when summarying the language rules, I also found that these languages have a lot in similar. As a result, I can’t help but admire the magic of the world. In addition, during the process of analyzing, I also exercised my thinking ability. I find that I am more organized and can think more logically.

I believe that this winter camp will have a profound impact on my future research.

Thanks to my teachers and teammates!

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PART 2 LINGUISTICS & IOL AND I

I had studied interpretation for a while a long, long time ago. At that time, I was curious that each language could be converted to each other and the meanings were almost the same. After entering high school, I started to learn IELTS and learn German as a second foreign language. At this time I found that the language is indeed regular.

I am also very passionate about ancient history. When reading different materials, I found that people everywhere choose to worship the same things, such as the sun, the sky and so on. I believe that this kind of human commonality, such as the reverence for nature and the consistency of other behaviors and actions, is the reason why some common semantics in different languages are often interlinked. In other words, there are few common meanings which we can find in one language but cannot find in other languages. Furthermore, I checked the origin of human language and found that although there are many controversies about it, they are all very interesting. They are inseparable from the discussion of the unity of culture.

In the process of preparing for the linguistics exam, I participated in this linguistics winter camp. Through the introduction and explanation by the coaches, I became more familiar with the subject, and am now greatly interested in it. To enhance my knowledge and practice for the Olympiad, first of all, I organized the courseware of my coaches, maked notes, and searched the Internet for the knowledge points I don’t understand, or asked the professionals around me to help answer questions. Secondly, in my spare time, I also printed out the questions in the past year exams papers for practice, and became familiar with the method of doing the questions. Last but not least, of course, my friends and I often discuss linguistic knowledge and briefly learn linguistic probability on the Internet platform.

Original link: https://fiona-f-ang.github.io/page/3/index.html

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