The following is a speech given by an outstanding student from a key middle school in Henan who was admitted to Tsinghua University when he returned to his alma mater to give a report. If you take a closer look, you will know the answer: study hard! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Work hard to reach the pinnacle of life’s ideals

——A report by a Tsinghua student

Hello fellow students:

Today, I am very honored to stand here and give you a report on high school study. Below, I will combine what I have seen, felt and thought in my three years of high school and three years of college, and explain to you through some examples what we will encounter in high school. Some problems encountered and their solutions. I hope that everyone can learn lessons from my report, avoid detours, set goals for themselves, strengthen their confidence, and finally enter the ideal university.

How do we set goals and establish ideals

Every year in our middle school, six to seven hundred people are admitted to key universities, so in one year you will all be able to enter a first-class key university or a first-class university of prestigious universities. When I was a freshman in high school, I had this kind of confusion: My goal is to get into a good university, but why do I want to get into a good university? Why do we have to take this path of study? ***’s answer is “for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” many parents’ answer is “for the glory of our ancestors,” and many teachers’ answer is “for your future future.” The writer Zheng Yuanjie said: “I became a writer after I graduated from elementary school.” Bill Gates said, "You can become the world's richest person even if you drop out of college." After three years of training at Tsinghua University, my answer now is "Studying is the shortcut to success."

Here are a few examples to prove this point: Liu Zihong, a senior fellow of mine in the Department of Electronics at Tsinghua University, won the first place in the special prize in last year’s National College Student Challenge Cup Science and Technology Competition through his one-year study. His patent “Human Biology” The sensor chip was bought by a company for 3 million yuan. Look, a senior undergraduate is already worth millions. There are many such examples in Tsinghua.

Deng Xiaoping said: "Science and technology are the primary productive forces." Yes, let me give you another example: the red light laser pointer we have all played with, I saw it in the market a few days ago The lowest price is 3 yuan. A project we did at the Department of Information Optoelectronics, "Green Semiconductor Laser Pointer", is now available for $200 in the United States. In fact, the cost is only 10 yuan, but we did it. If others don't, we can decide everything.

I checked Forbes "Fortune" magazine and found that 100% of self-made billionaires under the age of 35 in mainland China relied on science and technology. At this point, liberal arts students may be a little unhappy. They all rely on technology from science and engineering. What should we liberal arts students do? Don't worry, I have another example here: This classmate is a doctoral student of Professor Zhu Rongji of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management - a liberal arts student. He is now the vice president of China Merchants Bank. He is only 29 years old this year. He was promoted exceptionally by President Zhu Rongji because he solved more than ten years of bad debts of China Construction Bank in a city in Hebei within one month. What he relies on for reuse is his excellent professional knowledge and professional skills.

There are many examples of this: they took the shortcut of studying, and it took them a few years to reach a height that others might take decades to reach. Because first-class universities will give you comprehensive professional knowledge, teach you how to quickly learn new knowledge, and give you a broad perspective on the world. This is what I call "the path to study is our shortcut to success." No matter how much energy you spend on studying, it's never too much.

We should now understand what our efforts are for today, and we should also strengthen our faith and strive to get into a first-class university. The question now is what kind of university should we go to?

Many students may not have any idea now. Your grades can indeed get you into a good university, but we must be aware of the differences between different universities. The academic style, teaching staff, and scientific research funding of famous universities are incomparable to those of ordinary key universities. Universities ranked after the 30th in the country are too bad for you, so I hope everyone will set their goals higher.

The current grades of the students here vary from high to low. Maybe the students at the top are thinking about Tsinghua University, Peking University, and the University of Science and Technology of China, while the students at the bottom may be thinking about Hebei University, which is also good. My point of view is that students should at least aim to be at the level of Fudan University or Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Don't doubt your ability. To give you my own example, I was ranked over 140th in my grade when I entered high school, and later I was ranked 200th. But I have always believed that I will definitely enter Tsinghua University in the future and work tirelessly towards this goal. Many of my current college classmates have had the same experience as me. Faith is a very wonderful thing. When you believe in your bones that you are at the level of Tsinghua University, your actions will show the qualities of Tsinghua University in every aspect.

Now I think everyone should have an idea of ??their future, so what should we do now?

Several problems I encountered in high school and their solutions

Here I summarized several annoying problems I encountered in high school, but I couldn’t figure them out clearly at the time. , now I understand.

I share it with you here, hoping that students will avoid taking some detours.

(1) Problems with partial subjects

I disliked politics, history and geography the most in high school because these subjects were not tested in the college entrance examination and I might not be able to use them in my life. Maybe there are students who hate physics, chemistry and mathematics? Some students only like a certain subject and do not study other major subjects. But why does the "idiot" Ministry of Education want us to learn these things that we may not need in our lifetime? It’s no exaggeration to say that the best I studied in high school were chemistry and biology. However, during the three years of studying electronics at Tsinghua University, we didn’t use these two subjects at all. There is reason to believe that I will never balance a chemical equation again in my life. , in the words of many people, these two subjects are the stepping stone to the college entrance examination. I didn't understand why we needed to learn these courses at the time, and I believe many of us here didn't understand either. I have told you the following example and you should understand it.

When we were freshmen, we had a required course called "Mechanical Drawing" - the main content is to draw screws on drawings. Why are we from the electronics department drawing this? Indeed, we never touched on it after that semester. Many of our classmates were very dissatisfied at the time. In order to calm down our anger, our department head told us a story. He once led a senior undergraduate student to do graduation project (16 weeks). The project he gave the student was to give a new model to the student. Computer writing applications. This computer architecture is neither a von Neumann system nor a Harvard system. The computer language it uses is completely unconventional. In the first week, the teacher first gave this student a related book to let him understand. After a week of hard work, I figured it out. This is true from week two to week eight. Programming begins in weeks nine to fifteen. Last week to write the paper. This classmate successfully completed the task. When he graduated, his tutor asked him: "Which four-year university course did you use for your graduation project? Calculus?" "No." "Linear algebra?" "No." "C language?" "No." "Principles of microcomputers?" "No... at most, English is used, because programming is written in English." "Then what have you done in college for four years? All the courses you have studied It’s no use.” The classmate was dumbfounded. But the teacher asked again: "If you are a student who has just graduated from high school, can you complete this project in 16 weeks?" "Obviously impossible." "That's right. What you have learned in four years of college is the ability to learn knowledge. Four years ago, you had to study every book I gave you for a semester, but now you have completely understood it in one week."

This story has given me a lot of inspiration for the knowledge we are learning now. You may never need it in the future, but the various learning methods, thinking perspectives, etc. you learn when studying various subjects will stay with you throughout your life. When you encounter a new problem, you can use your previous experience to quickly summarize ways to solve the new problem. Therefore, I now tell you responsibly: Don’t be partial to any subject, any subject is crucial to you.

(2) Never say that you have tried your best

Some students feel that they have worked very hard, but there is no way to improve their grades. He comforted himself, "I've tried my best." I remember there is a line in the movie "The Island": "Never say you have tried your best!" I personally feel that when you still have the strength to say "I have tried my best", you have not tried your best at all. To force. I think human potential is unlimited. Let me give you an example of myself to show you how much potential a person has.

When I was in high school, I was very bad at physical education. I was terrible at running 1,000 meters, and I always failed. I believe that many students here also hate the fact that this sport is up to standard. After arriving at Tsinghua University, in the first physical education class, the teacher told us that physical education is a tradition of Tsinghua University. We have to test the 3,000-meter long-distance running test every year. If we fail to run, we will not be allowed to graduate and our qualifications will be cancelled. what to do? No one who comes to Tsinghua wants to get a diploma. Most of my classmates are just as bad at sports as me. So every night at 10:30, after our self-study classroom closed, there would be more people on the Tsinghua playground. Run for half an hour and then go back to the dormitory to continue studying. After practicing for a semester, I lost 40 pounds. During the final exam, I ran 3,000 meters in only 12 minutes and 56 seconds. The fattest person in our class also finished the run in less than 15 minutes. I remember complaining to my physical education teacher in high school: "I tried my best, but I just failed the 1,000 meters." Now I think it's funny. I think the "continuous self-improvement" in Tsinghua's school motto has a great impact on me. When you feel that you have tried your best, you will often break through your limits and awaken your potential if you persist a little longer. Scientific research on thinking shows that the human brain can store all the information in libraries around the world, but only seven to eight percent of the human mind has been developed so far. So here I hope that students will work hard and try harder, and never say that they have tried their best. What is success? If you do something that people don't believe you can do, it's called success.

(3) How to learn high school courses well

Following the previous question, never say that you have tried your best, so how should we work hard? I heard many reports on learning methods in high school, and I also introduced my own learning methods to others many times. But it wasn’t until my sophomore year that I really understood how to learn knowledge well.

In our sophomore year, we took a course called "Analog Electronic Circuits", which was particularly difficult.

Our teacher, Academician Gao Wenhuan, told us: "There is a very different trick for learning analog electronic circuits and learning other subjects. Eight words - question sea tactics, question sea tactics." I was very puzzled at the time. Great teachers all say that you should talk about methods and don’t be obsessed with solving problems. Why do academicians say this? After a few things, I understood the meaning of these eight characters.

There is a student in our class who is the top scorer in the provincial college entrance examination from Shandong Province and scored 713 points (out of 750 points). I asked him, how did you learn to be so good? He said: When I was in high school, I did all the exercise sets available on the market.

If you think that the provincial champion is too far away from us, let me give another example of a student who ranked 76th in the Henan Provincial College Entrance Examination and see how he solved the questions; his IQ is not higher than that of everyone here. High because he struggled to study in the Electronics Department of Tsinghua University. He said that he had done the question papers for the six main subjects of his college entrance examination at least five times.

So I think Academician Gao Wenhuan is right. Question-sea tactics are definitely a good way to learn high school courses well. I have experienced it myself. For example, when I was in my senior year of high school, I could never do well in correcting errors in English essays. So one weekend, I corrected 50 essays in a row. After that, I almost never missed errors in correcting essays in English exams. You may think that college students rarely do questions. I don’t know the situation in other universities, but I can say without exaggeration that I definitely do more questions every year at Tsinghua than I did in my senior year of high school.

Now students will definitely say that it is easy to think of naval battles, but where do you have the time? This leads me to the following question.

(4) How to squeeze time

Next, I will tell you how a Hubei classmate I learned at Tsinghua spent his time in high school: He was in a key high school in a county. All students in their school live on campus. They have three days off during the Spring Festival every year and half a day off every month for the rest. There are 9 days off every day of the year. I don’t think our middle school dares to be so perverted, but those students from Hubei really waste too much time than we do. This also leads to the fact that their foundation is much better than ours, and it also leads to the reason that Tsinghua would rather expand enrollment in Hubei. 30 people will not be recruited in Hebei. Looking back on my high school, I regret it very much now. If I had hurry up like those students in the south, I would definitely get the top score in the provincial college entrance examination. Classmates, we are no longer children, and we have heavy responsibilities. If we still spend a lot of time for entertainment and rest, when we enter college and go out into society, we will feel that those people from southern provinces and cities are not interested in us. A lot of pressure on you.

So how do we squeeze in time?

First of all, I personally feel that everyone here is walking too slowly. What I see is that everyone is talking, laughing and walking slowly. If you go to Tsinghua University, you will see that all the students ride at a speeding pace and almost all the students walk at a trot. There is no need for us to waste time on these meaningless things. As soon as you walk into the classroom from the school gate, you can read more books and do one more question than others. Over time, over time, you will have an absolute advantage in time.

Secondly, our ten minutes between classes is also very valuable. I didn’t realize this until the second semester of my senior year in high school. By making full use of the ten minutes between classes, we can squeeze out nearly two hours a day, which is better than others. Do one more set of questions. Besides, we'd better not watch TV. When I was in high school, I had to watch TV every day. At that time, it was mainly because I wanted to save face. I watched sports games and evening news to chat with others, and watched TV dramas to brag with others. Pretend all day long that you don't work hard but have good grades. In the final analysis, you still want others to say you are smart. My current point of view is that people who are told "he is smart but just doesn't learn" are the stupidest people. No matter whether you are really intelligent or not, if we spend too much energy on things that have nothing to do with our future, we are the most irresponsible to ourselves. Many of my current classmates at Tsinghua University have never watched TV during their high school years - including the Spring Festival Gala. Some of my classmates have not even watched TV since junior high school. Now in school, every dormitory has a TV. But the TV in our dormitory is almost never turned on. No one watched a European Cup after final exams. There was no rest and relaxation for everyone after the exam. Everyone was preparing for courses in the next semester, preparing for the TOEFL and GRE exams, or learning some practical techniques. What everyone thinks about is using others' rest time to enrich themselves and give themselves an advantage in future competition.

Students, don’t think too much of Tsinghua students. Among Tsinghua students, at least a quarter of the students have superior IQs. The IQs of other students are not much higher than those of you here. I think what they have more than you is just their attitude towards their future. Tsinghua students have a very awesome spiritual power. They can give up any temptation for the sake of their goals. Even on New Year's Eve, Tsinghua's self-study classrooms will be overcrowded. In the words of an American professor: "Students of Qinghua, no Saturday, no Sunday, no holiday!" (Students of Tsinghua, no Saturday, no Sunday, no holiday), it is this spirit that created the myth of Tsinghua, otherwise It is difficult to get into Tsinghua University.

Some students may say: You are right, but it is difficult for us to persist, and we can only be passionate for three minutes at most.

After that, I don’t want to work hard anymore. Okay, let’s discuss how to keep our blood warm.

(5) Put pressure on yourself

When I was chatting with Mr. Xu Jimin, a professor in the Department of Precision Instruments of Tsinghua University, I said: "I think students in the Department of Electronics are under too much pressure. "Professor Xu said: "How do you cultivate talents at Tsinghua? It's through pressure!" Yes, great pressure can bring about the motivation of a giant. Some students said: "The pressure on high school students is already too great." I think now that we had too little pressure in high school. To be honest, some students at Tsinghua University don’t like studying that much. For example, I am a little tired of studying. However, Tsinghua's requirements are extremely strict. If you fail one subject within four years, you will be disqualified from pursuing research, and if you fail three subjects, you will drop out. Therefore, the elimination rate of some departments in Tsinghua is 30%. It’s so scary, so we all have to study like crazy.

Even more disgusting than us is MIT in the United States. My freshman counselor is now studying at MIT. The email he sent me said that in his first class at school, the professor announced the assessment requirements to them: "Take my class, and the final grade will be one A, two B, half C, and half D." That means half of the people will fail. The elimination rate of MIT is higher than that of Tsinghua University. This is also the reason why MIT students will be hired by major multinational companies with high salaries as long as they obtain their diploma.

Let me give you a few more examples to illustrate the incredible things people can do under tremendous pressure.

When I was a sophomore, we had a summer semester for *** two weeks. On Monday morning of the first week, we had a two-hour class in a classroom and learned the computer VHDL language. After class, the teacher asked us to program an opu with a main frequency of 30M before Friday. Everyone went crazy because they had no idea what he was talking about in the morning. Later we learned that this course would take one semester in the electronics department of other universities. But the teacher made it very clear, if you can't do it, you will fail. So everyone frantically went to the library to borrow books, and read them without sleep or food. On the first day, they couldn't understand, but on the second day they understood a little bit. On the third day, they programmed a few simple programs during the day, and started formal programming at night. At three o'clock, I worked on Thursday for two days and one overnight, and passed the acceptance test at 8 o'clock on Friday morning. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But then on Monday morning of the second week, the teacher told us to hand in an ultrasonic range finder on Wednesday afternoon. After another two crazy nights, I handed in the ultrasonic rangefinder on Wednesday afternoon. Before this, we never imagined that we could do so much in such a short time, but we accomplished it under tremendous pressure.

Another example is that our freshman English class requires us to memorize 500 words a week. I thought it was impossible. I only got 43 points in the first test. There was no other way. From now on, I would get up at 5 o'clock every morning and memorize the words until 7 o'clock before going to class. In the end, I could memorize them. So we can really unleash our potential under tremendous pressure.

Here, I would like to give you a suggestion, which is to put some pressure on yourself as much as possible. For example, you must do 500 questions within a week, and you must not score more than 140 points in the exam, even if you fail, etc. wait. Don't think this is too much. If you really vow to get into a first-class university, I think this is what we must do, and this is what current southern high school students do

(6) Emotional issues

What we still have to face in high school is emotional issues: I believe the head teacher and principal have mentioned this to everyone more than once, repeatedly giving orders not to fall in love. I personally think that the relationship we had in high school is very beautiful; when I was in high school, I really liked sitting at the same table with beautiful girls, and I also liked listening to the screams of all the girls in the class when playing basketball. When playing basketball in physical education class, if there are girls watching the game, I will definitely try my best to make a few beautiful moves. If the teacher moves the girls I like more to sit near me, I will definitely pay attention to my personal image and won't be so rude. The feeling is still very sweet: mainly because the study pressure cannot be distracted, and I think falling in love in high school is too troublesome. Let me tell you about the situation of my classmates who fell in love in high school - first of all, you have to be secretive and not let teachers and parents know. But he will definitely be discovered, and then he will be asked to talk to him again and again. In the end, I got tired of it, and there was no sweet feeling left. After being admitted to college, we all broke up. I haven't heard of any success stories myself.

Even after going to college, couples in Tsinghua University basically break up in their senior year. Therefore, many of our college classmates feel that it is better to study hard in peace of mind than to worry about finding a girlfriend, so Tsinghua University There are also terms such as undergraduate monks and research monks. It is these students who live an ascetic life that make Tsinghua's academic style well-known in the world. At our age, it is much more meaningful to learn more about how to settle down and live a life than to seek those short-term sweetness. My advice to everyone is that we might as well be high school monks for three years, and we must not blame ourselves and be distressed in the end when we find that we have wasted too much time and energy.

(7) Don’t complain about bad teachers

When our grades in a certain subject are not satisfactory, don’t complain about our teachers.

I can say without exaggeration that the teachers in our high school are all very good, or at least very responsible and dedicated. I will tell you about my experience in Tsinghua and you will understand. The teachers at Tsinghua University are all great at doing research, but almost no teachers teach undergraduate students well. Once in a microcomputer principles class, the teacher said that he would use Protel to simulate the circuit in the class today. The classmates all said that it was the first time in our lives that we had heard of this software. The teacher said: "This is a must-have software for electronic engineers", turned around and left. We had no choice but to go back and stay in the library for three days and finally learned the software. In another math class, the teacher asked us to go back and use MATLAB to draw a three-dimensional graph. The classmates all said that they had never studied it - this seemed to be a required course in the mathematics department. The teacher only said: "Never studied it? Go back and study it!" We spent several days in the library and basically finished it. Understood. Teachers assume that we have fully mastered many of the computer tools we use now. If no one teaches you what to do, it would be abnormal if you don't. Therefore, our classmates, when you feel that any part of your science is not very good, you must not blame the objective conditions. Your own efforts are the cornerstone of success. When you always complain about objective conditions, success will be further and further away from you.

(8) A good body is the capital of everything

If students really want to fight for their ideals, I tell you that we must exercise well. Tsinghua’s slogan is “Fifty years of healthy work for the motherland.” The reason why Tsinghua’s physical education classes are so demanding and strict is that they force everyone to exercise well. Tsinghua's sports tradition is indeed very good. When we first entered college, our health was indeed very poor and we got tired easily from studying. Now, 20 people from our class have signed up to participate in the Beijing International Marathon this year (there are only 5,000 college students registered across the country, and 3,000 from Tsinghua University) - firstly, to experience it, and secondly, to have confidence in their endurance. Personally, I have no problem staying up a few nights now. We must not neglect exercise.

My suggestion is: we must do hard exercises during our daily recess, and we must also exercise hard in physical education class. I recommend that everyone practice long-distance running. It is best that we run 1,000 meters every day. Believe me, when you arrive at a first-class university and need to stay up late to do research, you will realize how important the physical health foundation you laid in high school is.

(9) Some learning tips

I have said before that the ultimate skill for our learning is to do more questions. Now I will tell you some small learning experiences, which I obtained from my classmates in college. They are all easy, but difficult to persevere.

The first is Chinese, the pronunciation of words and typos, the use of idioms and analysis of classical Chinese, etc. My technique is to find a Xinhua dictionary, an idiom dictionary, and an ancient Chinese appreciation dictionary. Read 5 pages a day - no more than half an hour. You are still two years away from the college entrance examination. If you persevere, I believe you can read these dictionaries several times before the college entrance examination, which will be very beneficial to the Chinese-related questions in the college entrance examination.

Then there is English. You can use this holiday to memorize all the college level 4 vocabulary. If this vacation is not enough, you can use a few more vacations. This is not difficult for us, as long as everyone pays attention. Again, believe in your own abilities. Now there are many students at Tsinghua University who got full marks on the GRE after two months of preparation, and memorized 20,000 words in two months. The huge amount of words has huge benefits for our college entrance examination English. Don’t doubt your abilities. Zhang Liyong, a migrant worker who works as a master in the Tsinghua 15 canteen, uses his spare time to learn English; he scored 630 points on the TOEFL test (full score is 670). It is not easy for Tsinghua University’s top students to score 600 points on the test. I often chat with him while eating, and he squeezes out any time he can to learn English every day. His basic English education is incomparable to everyone here - migrant workers have almost no formal education, but he has now been admitted to Peking University. Look at the power of adding up to something small.

Some of my hopes for everyone here

After listening to this report, students may feel that I have exaggerated in many places and cannot do it at all. And I say, as long as you have the belief in your heart that you will never give up until you take the famous brand test, I believe that with your IQ, you will definitely have the strength to hit the super famous brands. Now students in other high schools in our province are still studying in the original way. As long as you start studying from high schools in the south from now on, you will have a huge advantage over other high school students in Hebei in the final college entrance examination. I hope that in one year, at least some of you will be admitted to Tsinghua University and Peking University. If you persevere and do what I'm saying and the people around you don't, eventually you'll find that your performance will improve by leaps and bounds.

Finally, I would like to give you a few words of encouragement.

The first sentence is what Professor Zhu Rongji asked everyone when he spoke to the students of Tsinghua University: "Be a human being and learn, and pursue perfection." There are no major problems with your grades, but our goal is to get into a prestigious university, which requires you not to make mistakes in details and never lose points that shouldn't be lost. The pursuit of perfection requires us to seriously study our own problems even if we score 99 points. Because one point difference in the college entrance examination may ruin your dream.

The second sentence is the school motto of Tsinghua University: "Continuous self-improvement and virtue."

I hope that the students here will not shrink from any difficulties. Even a moment of frustration can never dampen the passion for winning. At the same time, we must also correct our mentality and respect our teachers and competitors.

No matter what your grades are in the past two years, you still have one year in high school, which is enough! Work hard,

students. Your destiny is in your own hands, seize the time and start running from now on after leaving this classroom.