Everyone pleased with new university entrance exams

The two-day University Entrance Exams concluded yesterday with educational officials, test-takers and cram-school teachers approving of the contents.

"The essay topic was very creative," Huang Jung-tsun (黃榮村), the new Minister of Education, was quoted as saying as he commented on the Chinese subject test on Friday at Taipei's Cheng Kung Senior High School.

The school was one of many locations across the nation that hosted the entrance exam.

The essay topic of the Chinese subject test was called "descriptive writing."

It asked the test takers to write an essay on elders in Taiwan based on seven excerpts from an elder's diary that detailed his physical and emotional states.

Another section of the Chinese subject test that was talked about a lot was the "rewriting section," in which test takers had to rewrite a love letter that was originally full of wrong idiom usage.

"Personally, I found [the topic] rather interesting and appealing as a youngster," said a test taker surnamed Hsu from Taipei Municipal First Girl's High School.

In addition to the Chinese examination, social science and math tests were also held on Friday while English and natural science tests were held yesterday.

"Overall, I found the content of the English-subject test agreeable and lively," said Lin Hsin-tai (林新代), an English teacher at Ru-lin Pre School, a private cram school

Lin was referring to the content distribution of the English-subject test such as grammar usage, reading comprehension and vocabulary.

"It was pretty even and had no serious one-sided tilt," Lin said.

The English subject test featured names and terms such as Harry Potter, Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Amazon Rainforest, racism, cloning and the World Tennis Tournament.

"I thought the contents were up-to-date and interesting," Lin said. "But some students might have had a disadvantage ... if they were not fans of Harry Potter and tennis."

Many test takers commented on "the most precious thing in my room," the topic of an English essay question, calling it "easy to elaborate on and write about."

"I wrote about the Walkman that was given to me by my mom," said a test taker surnamed Chen, from Cheng-kung High School.

"Since I am emotionally attached to [the Walkman], it was rather easy for me to write about," he said.

Chen was among the more than 140,000 senior-high-school students who participated in the two-day entrance exam, which was considered by far the largest ever held since Taiwan's education system adopted the Diversified College Enrollment Scheme last July.

For decades, an annual testing system called the Joint University Entrance Examination (大學聯招) had been used to determine the university placement of senior high school students.

Under the new diversified enrollment scheme, all senior high school students who wish to seek higher education will be required to take a competency test in February, but can retake it in April if they are not satisfied with the results.

Together with their competency test scores, students can then either formally apply to a university or submit a recommendation from their school. Schools will only write recommendations for the best students, while the rest have to fill out applications.