New Oriental Gaokao English Reading and Cloze

Author: Gao Liang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: "I am a veteran student of New Oriental" – this is something I often say on the New Oriental stage. During the winter vacation of my senior year in high school, I enrolled in New Oriental's Gaokao Special Training Class and became one of the earliest students in the Secondary School Department. To this day, I still proudly call myself a "Class One Graduate of Whampoa." From then on, I became a frequent visitor to New Oriental's classrooms. I have taken courses in the Secondary School Department, the Domestic Department, and the International Department, and have participated in various types of classes, including boarding, day, vacation, and regular classes. My bookshelf is filled with thick stacks of New Oriental spirit books in various editions. I have also been recognized as a high-scoring scholarship recipient at Beijing New Oriental School and received the trophy personally awarded by Teacher Yu Minhong. It can be said that New Oriental completely changed my perception and understanding of traditional education, teachers, and classrooms. Here, I gained knowledge and strength from the diverse and extraordinary teachers, and the world unfolded before me an unexpected, magnificent scroll. As a result, I quickly became a passionate advocate and volunteer for New Oriental, determined to join the team in the future and become a proud New Oriental teacher.
During the winter vacation of my sophomore year, I saw the recruitment notice for the Secondary School Department in Beijing and my youthful arrogance was reignited. Perhaps the spirit of New Oriental had already been ingrained in my bones, and I passed the interviews smoothly. In the summer before my junior year, I taught my classes – the free trial class for Gaokao Reading Comprehension. After that, I was constantly preparing lessons and teaching, facing the students', acceptance, recognition, praise, and even admiration (though, of course, I could never satisfy everyone). In short, there were all the ups and downs. Later, as someone who had always specialized in Gaokao Reading Comprehension, I was assigned a new task – teaching New Oriental's first independent Gaokao Cloze Test course. In my memory, the Cloze Test was an unpredictable and illogical type of question, yet it was also an important and easily losing-mark type of question in Gaokao. As a leader in the industry, New Oriental could not avoid it. The essence of a banner lies not in its color or shape, but in its fluttering. So, I had to brace myself and prepare to flutter: fighting with the Cloze Test all day, tireless and forgetting sleep, teaching during the day and adjusting and preparing lessons at night, in this cycle. classes, the students gave me an unforgettable 3.75 score, followed by 4.03, 4.14, 4.26, 4.44, and finally, the 4.69 score of the last summer class. Later came a long period of reflection and constant effort, and finally, I developed the confidence and composure I now display in the classroom.
Over the years, I have contributed a lot to New Oriental and received much in return, with a mix of emotions. Many say New Oriental is just a profit-driven institution, but at various meetings, I have discovered the idealistic streak and the dream of saving the country through education led by Teacher Yu Minhong and the management team. Many say New Oriental's classrooms are filled with boring jokes, but here I have found the passionate rhythm of life and the spirit of relentless struggle at New Oriental. Many say New Oriental relies on nothing but-oriented, but I have realized that where there is movement, there must be methodology; everything has its origin, and so does the exam. Many say New Oriental's teaching style is "passion," and I checked the dictionary and found that "passion" has a meaning of "deep love." Yes, it is precisely this deep love for students, for knowledge itself, and for life, along with the underlying idealistic spirit, that has supported New Oriental through its 10 years of and strengthened its century-old dream of educational patriotism.
Looking back on these years and my struggles with Gaokao, especially the Cloze Test and Reading Comprehension, I truly understand the saying "where there is movement, there is methodology." Before, I always thought the Cloze Test had no rules, but it was because my level was too low to see the rules. With some insights, the desire to teach others became irresistible, and I hope to share these perhaps rough but unique and practical insights with my classmates.
Regarding Reading Comprehension, this book emphasizes extracting and grasping the information behind the text rather than simply analyzing grammar. Language is a carrier of information. Viewing Reading Comprehension from an informational perspective will lead to many new, useful conclusions and inspirations. Many study guides provide analysis after the answer to a Reading Comprehension question, stating that the answer is a certain option, followed by "analysis": "In paragraph X, sentence Y means exactly what option Z says, so option Z is correct." In fact, this logic is absurd – deriving the correctness of the answer from the answer itself. The problem is that we don’t know the answer when doing the question; how can we know to go back to paragraph X, sentence Y to find the corresponding part? And this book can tell readers how to find that paragraph and sentence if they need to refer back to the original text.
For the Cloze Test, traditional study guides and some teachers have always explained specific problems one by one. For any given article, they can explain it perfectly, but is it possible for Gaokao to test a text you have studied? The probability is almost zero. Since you can’t cover all possible questions, methods were born. Since you can’t match every question with a method, ideas were born. The Cloze Test theory in this book aims to propose a theory, not to solve specific questions. This theory has been proven effective in New Oriental’s classrooms and is hoped to provide readers with a complete, flexible method for solving Cloze Test questions that is not rigidly tied to any specific passage.
Privately, I have also thought of establishing a doctrine, becoming a master like Teacher Yang Ji or Teacher Qian Xiangyang, laying the foundation for a course. However, I am still very clear that my cultivation is far from complete. But still, without hesitation, I have shared these so-called insights with New Oriental, this place that has carried countless honors and dreams for me. Dedicated to my classmates, past or future, you are the driving force behind my continuous improvement, and you represent countless possibilities for the future.