Among them are many distinguished teachers and subject leaders.
The air was filled with a smell that was a mixture of tea, medicated oil, and old paper.
Although computer-based marking is now widespread,
However, in order to reflect the sense of ceremony and solemnity of this competition,
The organizers made a point of preserving the tradition of paper-based marking.
Three thousand five hundred exam papers were neatly packed into hundreds of sealed bags.
At this point, the marking process had only been underway for less than an hour.
"Why……"
A middle-aged female teacher sitting in the third row took off her glasses.
I rubbed my throbbing temples and let out my thirtieth sigh of the day.
The male teacher next to him chuckled and teased:
"What's wrong, Teacher Liu? Are you already tired after only just starting out?"
"Sigh, it's not that I'm tired, it's that I'm fed up."
Teacher Liu spread the test papers on the table.
"I really didn't expect the topic of 'waiting' to collide like this."
I've looked at twenty of these papers so far.
Eight people are waiting for the flowers to bloom, and six are waiting for the rain to stop.
Five more are waiting for their parents to come home from afar.
Be content.
The male teacher gave a wry smile.
"My situation is even worse. It's all about the pain of waiting, the pain of breaking free from the cocoon, and the fire of the phoenix's rebirth."
Kids these days use frighteningly fancy words.
But upon closer reading, it's all empty talk.
They're only teenagers, yet their writing is more world-weary than mine, a man nearing retirement.
"There's no other way, it's exam-oriented education, so we have to play it safe."
Teacher Liu put her glasses back on.
"As long as the structure is complete and the theme is correct, a score for the entry point is sufficient."
Finding something that truly catches the eye is as difficult as climbing to the heavens.
This is a true depiction of the marking process.
For these experienced teachers
The process of grading papers is less about appreciation and more about a tedious assembly line job.
Having worked for many years, they have long since developed a keen eye for detail.
Usually, you only need to glance at the beginning and then at the end.
I'll just glance at the paragraph structure in the middle again.
The quality of an article is basically determined then.
An essay takes an average of less than two minutes to complete.
A better one should be able to finish within five minutes.
In the hall,
The only sounds were the rustling of turning the exam papers and the scratching of red pens on the paper.
This mechanical rhythm,
It's like a huge, sophisticated instrument.
It ruthlessly filters out the dreams of these 3,500 teenagers.
until--
An elderly teacher sitting in a corner by the window suddenly stopped what he was doing.
His name is Yan Zheng, and he is the deputy head of the Chinese language teaching and research group at the Provincial Experimental High School.
He was also a notoriously incorruptible judge.
He was known for his strict grading, tolerating no flaws whatsoever.
Those articles that are melodramatic and affected,
People usually don't survive more than ten seconds under his watch.
At this moment, Yan Zheng was holding an exam paper in his hand.
His brows were tightly furrowed, forming a deep "川" (river) character.
The red pen hung in mid-air.
The pen tip was only a few centimeters from the paper, yet it hesitated to fall.
A minute passed.
Five minutes passed.
Ten minutes have passed.
In the grading room where every second counts, such a pause seems particularly abrupt.
The sounds of churning and tumbling rose and fell all around.
Only here, there was a deathly silence.
"Old Yan, what's wrong?"
A teacher sitting next to me leaned over.
"What kind of weird exam paper did you encounter? The handwriting is so bad that it's unrecognizable?"
Yan Zheng ignored it.
He seemed not to hear his colleague's question at all, completely absorbed in the thin exam paper.
His eyeballs moved rapidly within their sockets.
His breathing became a little rapid.
The fingers gripping the exam paper turned color from the excessive force.
The title of this exam paper,
Only four words:
"The Man Waiting to Die".
...
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