breaking point

tomorrow's the chinese b exam. less than 24 hours.

i can't quite accept that like 13-14 years of learning chinese will (hopefully) culminate tomorrow. having struggled with chinese every year since primary 3 (i do remember winning a prize for top in chinese in primary 2 or something), through the gep years and even on to higher chinese and now chinese b. i don't think it's a problem of lacking foundations... i don't know what.

this brings to mind a weird incident in primary 6 where i topped a class test for chinese (out of nowhere; i'd been actually about average in p6 gep), but only because the sections were tian xie han zi, tian xie chi yu, wan cheng ju zi, zao ju and duan wen tian cong. (the first two, and to a lesser degree the third and fourth are learnable by memorisation) in a way this seems to somewhat parallel cases where people 'mug' math compared against jarrel's "the exams are essentially over" being left with only math papers. similarly, i have been surviving chinese to some extent by mugging, cause i don't have a flair for it...

on one hand, the pressure of taking chinese as an examinable subject will hopefully be off. on the other hand, there'll be a new kind of pressure in the sense that i'm concerned as to what will happen to my chinese after the exam. as in, my standard of the chinese language. slipping from higher chinese to chinese b, my standards have dropped quite badly. i don't want to let those 13-ish years of learning chinese fade away into oblivion. which means i must actively pursue keeping my standards up...

i've made some arrangements with my chinese tutor, and made it a point to read the free half-english half-chinese 'my paper' as and when i can, but will it be enough?

i hope so ... the clock ticks down...

jk

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明天就是我的中文B考试。考试之前剩下的时间，连二十四个小时也没有...

我其实难以接受这个考试能这么快地来。明天，我学了13-14年的华文就会被考察。从小三开始，我的华文其实已经有问题了；它非常弱。我相信这不是基础的问题，因为在小二，我在2.2班的华文成绩最好，得到奖。我在高才班和中学的高级华文课程一直地更华文“挣扎”，好多次只是刚刚及格的。

我想起了一个发生在小六的事情，我从这个事情能看到为什么我的华文一直不强。我们的班有一个小测验，我考到第一名。这可说是个意外惊喜，因为填答案是，运气特别好，但是我相信不是。那次的测验有五项：填写汉字、填写词语、完成句子、造句和短文填充。填写汉字和填写词语其实可以死背词语手册的，完成句子和造句也可以这样。我在这四项都考到满分，只是短文填充失去了几个分数。这好像好多学生希望可以死背数学的问题--我对语文没有什么“天才”。

从一方面来说，做好考试是减轻一种负担，因为以后（希望）不需要做华文考试了。但是，我对于自己的华文水平也不禁有点担心。我从高级华文换到IB课程的中文B课，水平已经降低了。学习语文是逆水行舟的，我们不近就会退。

我跟华文补习老师已经做了一些预备，也特地去读“我报”的华文报章，但是这两项会不会足够？

我希望它们会足够。时间越来越近...

jk.