26/03/2017
"CHAIRMAN MAO: Our present method of conducting examinations is a method for dealing with the enemy, not a method for dealing with the people. It is a method of surprise attack, asking oblique or strange questions. This is still the same method as the old eight-legged essay. I do not approve of this. It should be changed completely. I am in favour of publishing the questions in advance and letting the students study them and answer them with the aid of books. For instance, if one sets twenty questions on the Dream of the Red Chamber, and some students answer half of them and answer them well, and some of the answers are very good and contain creative ideas, then one can give them 100 per cent. If some other students answer all twenty questions and answer them correctly, but answer them simply by reciting from their textbooks and lectures, without any creative ideas, they should be given 50 or 60 per cent. At examinations whispering into each other’s ears and taking other people’s places ought to be allowed. If your answer is good and I copy it, then mine should be counted as good. Whispering in other people’s ears and taking examinations in other people’s names used to be done secretly. Let it now be done openly. If I can’t do something and you write down the answer, which I then copy, this is all right. Let’s give it a try. We must do things in a lively fashion, not in a lifeless fashion. There are teachers who ramble on and on when they lecture; they should let their students doze off. If your lecture is no good, why insist on others listening to you? Rather than keeping your eyes open and listening to boring lectures, it is better to get some refreshing sleep. You don’t have to listen to nonsense, you can rest your brain instead."
, and we are holding a forum to discuss both foreign and domestic problems ... Do you think our state is likely to collapse or not? Imperialism and revisionism, in concert, have struck right up to our borders, do [you] democratic personages