Chapter 728: The Third Examination (1)
Breakfast was eaten early and taken away quickly. Sun Shan had a lazy temper, and the bell rang before he had finished eating.
While he was still able to move, Sun Shan quickly ran to the toilet.
After a night of settling, damn, there was more filth in the toilet.
Sun Shan could only bite the bullet and pretend that he saw nothing, otherwise it would really affect his mood and affect his extraordinary performance.
Sun Shan was not the only one who had the same idea. Many candidates came to use the toilet one after another.
I will be writing the test paper soon. Although I can ask to go to the toilet on the way, it will be recorded and will accompany me for the rest of my life. No one wants to have a few more "shit stamps" on their stamp paper.
Sun Shan quickly ran back to the examination room. Leng Mojun from next door also went to the toilet. When he came out, his face was gray and he looked very uncomfortable.
Lengmojun was actually very close to the toilet, and he was more than a head taller than Sun Shan. He was not very tall, but he was not thin either.
Comparing Sun Shan's situation with his, he felt that he was even worse off than himself. At least Sun Shan could move freely in the examination room and was not too uncomfortable.
Lengmojun was different. He had to bend down and lower his head to enter the examination room. Even Sun Shan felt bad for him.
The candidates ran to the toilet one after another. As they passed by, nine out of ten candidates looked at Sun Shan with sympathy, and the remaining one was as cold and indifferent as Lengmojun.
The exam bell became louder and louder, and faster and faster, calling on the candidates to return to their seats and prepare for the exam.
I don't know how many times the bell rang, and then it stopped. It was quiet all around, with only a few rustling sounds.
Soon, the paper was presented on Sun Shan's chopping board.
There was a sudden silence between heaven and earth, and soon the bells rang again.
This indicates that the first imperial examination officially begins in the first year of Zhengping.
Whether you are a dragon or a worm, you will know it clearly after taking a test.
The metropolitan examination and the provincial examination were almost the same, and Sun Shan was already familiar with the process.
The first and most important step is to fill in the information clearly. Many people ignore this step, but in fact, this step is often the most important.
No matter how well you answer the test, if the basic information is not filled in according to the requirements, all your efforts will be in vain and everything will be reduced to zero.
Sun Shan took out the four treasures of the study and filled out the information formally.
After filling in your name, resume, test number, etc., you can officially start answering the questions.
The first round was the same as the provincial examination, testing the Four Books and Five Classics.
Sun Shan looked at the questions and found that the number of questions was the same as that of the provincial examination.
The Four Books have three meanings, the Five Classics have three meanings, and there is another one that is the original scripture.
Sun Shan’s original scripture is the Book of Changes. Choose a topic from the Book of Changes to write about.
Write three essays on the Four Books and four essays on the Five Classics in the format of eight-part essay.
The number of questions is neither large nor large. It depends on how the candidates arrange their time reasonably to complete them.
Sun Shan learned from Minister He's secret study that in recent years, there were more candidates studying the Book of Songs, and the fewest candidates studying the Spring and Autumn Annals.
Among them, the number of people who studied "The Book of Songs", "The Book of Changes" and "The Book of History" was far greater than that of "The Book of Rites" and "The Spring and Autumn Annals".
Sun Shan's original scripture is the Book of Changes, which is not considered a niche book.
There are pros and cons to this situation.
The advantage is that there are a lot of annotations on the "Book of Changes", and Sun Shan can extract the essence, add his own annotations, integrate them, and learn from their strengths and overcome their weaknesses.
Just "read 300 Tang poems carefully, and you will be able to recite them even if you can't chant poems", and don't worry about having no reference materials.
The disadvantages are also obvious: because there are so many people doing research, it is difficult to stand out from the crowd, and it is very difficult to achieve good results.
For Sun Shan, the advantages always outweigh the disadvantages.
He was not aiming to be the top scholar, but only to be on the list, so he did not need to be particularly outstanding, as long as his words made sense and met the requirements.
Just like the Chinese composition in the college entrance examination, it is very difficult to write well, but if you write according to the fixed format, it is impossible to do poorly.
Minister He said that the examiner Wei Jie's original scripture was "The Book of Songs", and he stood out among so many people and ranked first in the examination. It can be seen that he was really excellent. It was all based on his ability, not on tricks.
Some students will temporarily change their subject in order to please the master and gain recognition.
I don't know if there were any students who temporarily changed the scripture to "The Book of Songs" in this imperial examination in an attempt to curry favor with Lord Wei.
As for Sun Shan, he will definitely not change. He will not write about what he is good at, but will write about what he is not good at. Sun Shan cannot write that.
After carefully checking the seven questions, I realized that this time I was even more unlucky than the provincial examination, as I had failed to answer any of them.
As for familiarity, it is definitely very familiar.
One must be thoroughly familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics; this is the primary requirement for entering the imperial examinations.
Sun Shan studied the questions carefully. One of them was:
"If you use it, you can use it; if you don't use it, you can hide it"
Sun Shan immediately thought of:
The Master said to Yan Yuan: "If it is used, it will be put to use; if it is not used, it will be hidden. Only you and I have this."
Zilu asked, "Who will accompany you if you lead the three armies?"
Confucius said: "I will not associate with those who would brave a tiger or cross a river and not regret their death. I will associate with those who are afraid when faced with danger and who are good at making plans and achieving success."
This is from The Analects of Confucius.
"If you need me, I will do it; if you don't need me, I will hide it" means in plain words: if you don't need me, I will leave.
When answering questions, you should not only understand the meaning of the question, but also consider the context and even the context in which the person was speaking at the time.
Not only should we imagine why the protagonist said this at the time, but we should also read more interpretations of the scriptures by great scholars.
Because it is possible that Confucius, Yan Yuan, and Zilu have no meaning at all, but later great scholars added a lot of meaning to them.
In particular, we should pay more attention to the meanings added by scholars in Daqian.
Just like when we do Chinese language questions, sometimes the original author has no such intention at all, but when making the test paper and grading the test paper, the judges annotate the original author's article and add their own understanding of the meaning.
In the end, students can only fill in the answers according to the judges' opinions, not the original author's opinions.
Based on the annotations he had read over the years, Sun Shan roughly understood the meaning of the title.
Confucius said different things to Yan Yuan (Yan Hui) and Zilu, and his attitude was also different.
He praised Yan Hui.
I think Yan Hui is my spiritual soulmate, with a clean character, noble morals, and a happy life in poverty. Compared with the material pursuit of fame, wealth and power, the happiness gained from learning is far less.
To Zilu, he gave advice.
Zilu had military talent, but his reckless character was a taboo in military strategy, so he was warned that fighting a war depended not on courage and brute force, but more on caution and planning.
"If it is useful, it will be put into practice; if it is useless, it will be hidden" is the answer to Yan Hui, but in fact it pays more attention to the meaning of the following text which is not presented on the test paper.
Through Confucius' answer to Zilu, we can grasp the central idea of the question: Those who are good at planning will succeed --- those who are good at planning will succeed!
Then write an eight-part essay with a fixed format: breaking the topic, continuing the topic, starting the lecture, getting started, the beginning of the section, the middle section, the end of the section, and the conclusion.
Know the meaning of the topic and grasp the essence of the topic, then all that’s left is to start writing the article.
The eight-part essay format has always been criticized for being empty in content, not allowing for free expression, and requiring writing to be done within a framework, which can easily lead to incomprehensible articles.
However, the format of the eight-part essay is fixed and was determined one essay at a time. One can tell at a glance whether a piece of writing in this format is good or bad.
In other words, different examiners would give basically the same evaluation of the same eight-part essay, and there would not be much controversy.
The central idea of the imperial examination is fairness, justice and openness. Choosing the eight-part essay format is the most reasonable among the unreasonable ones. Moreover, anyone who can write a good eight-part essay is also a talented scholar.