Shanghai University Master of Creative Writing Postgraduate Entrance Examination

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What is the creative writing test?

Create *** four examination subjects, among which politics and English II (or English I, Russian, Japanese) are national professional courses. Literary foundation and writing are independently developed by each university.

In recent years, the basics of literature include fill-in-the-blank, term explanation, discussion, appreciation, short answer and other question types. The scores vary and the test questions are highly subjective. There are generally several types of writing: abbreviation, expansion, imitation, proposition composition, and topic composition. The proportion of novels is greater than that of poetry, prose, and drama.

Post here a postgraduate entrance examination experience created by Peking University. They are essentially the same, because the core of the creative writing test is comparative literature and the foundation of writing. You can find some directions here.

Postgraduate entrance examination experience sharing:

Yu Dongchang

·Won the first place in the written examination of the Chinese Department of Peking University in 2015

·In Central Finance and Economics He once taught the history of Western philosophy at the University and Beijing University of Chemical Technology

· Founded an education company and successively tutored creative writing courses at Peking University, Fudan University, Shangda University, Tongji University, and Nanjing University, and taught study and writing

·Open general education courses, teaching literature, history, economics, psychology, Chinese intellectual history, etc.

"Yu Dongchang: My Experience in Creative Writing Postgraduate Entrance Examination"

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus once recorded that the great Persian king Xerxes rode a tall horse to inspect his armored soldiers before the battle. He suddenly thought that in less than a hundred years, these soldiers (including himself) would become a pile of loess, and he couldn't help but grow old. Tears flowed freely. Although I was not the emperor during the expedition, I naturally did not have the tragedy of "Pingxuan Ti Si Liu". But it can be regarded as a person who has experienced an inner battle without gunpowder. When he was frightened but looked back, he saw the silence and calmness of everything, and he had a "different feeling in his heart". Even so, I am still not sure that my experience has the same universality. Kant mentioned the different abilities of human rationality in "Critique of Pure Reason". I have always doubted this, but I I still decided to write this article because I imagined my article bathing in divine grace in the sacred forest of books. The other one I saw was a rising star, like a frightened bird that kept circling the tree three times in this supposedly romantic season, and a burst of sadness ignited in my heart. I also hope that my few words will help these "sad young people". This can be regarded as a kind of "purposeless purposefulness".

I have had a love for books since I was a child. When I was still in the first grade of elementary school, I read the books at home countless times. Looking back and thinking about it, many of the books were actually just sesame cakes from roadside restaurants. Although I thought they were delicious at the time, they were difficult to buy in a classy hotel. . It is precisely because of this that reading and writing have long been a fish-and-water relationship for me. I don’t know how I can live without it. Although I have paid a lot for it, I once had amazing girlfriends who broke up with me because I was too obsessed with reading, and I also had good partners who broke up because of different opinions. Let’s not talk about the past, anyway, I am walking on the road of being a master, with a smile!

Therefore, creative writing is a natural thing for me. I actually didn’t spend too much time on this exam, but more on various readings. Still in December, I stayed in an all-night bar and bookstore in Sanlitun, reading various philosophy books. Because this is where I am (Dasine). Because I was absolutely sure about this exam, I became lazy. Without going too far, let me talk about the review for this exam. ?

1. Examination of the basics of literature

For creative writing, the simplest thing is actually the basics of literature. First of all, this exam will never test unfamiliar knowledge in every corner. They are the giants in every literary history, such as Lu Xun, Tao Yuanming, Shakespeare, and Kafka. If you take away these people, the entire literary history will collapse, so there is no need to be dejected because there are so many books that you can’t read. The embarrassment of having no way to eat the sky. If we know this, we will say "Tengu - I want to swallow the sky, I want to swallow the entire universe", smile!

Because there are too few exams simply relying on rote memorization.

It’s nothing more than a few noun explanations and fill-in-the-blank questions (of course the fill-in-the-blank questions also come with a set of review strategies). The most difficult thing is the literary appreciation question. For example, "Waxleaf" from "Weeds" taken in the 2014 exam and "Book" translated by Yu Guangzhong. These two areas are usually ignored by teachers in the Chinese Department. I later asked many friends, and they all said that they had never offered a literary criticism course. Precisely because it is not simply a container of literary theory, its appreciation also requires unique personal experience. I have read a lot of literary criticism before, such as "The Rose of Time", "Gu Sui's Poems" and "The Story of Reading", as well as various commentaries by various writers, so naturally this is not a problem. (For reference books, I will recommend them later).

In addition, I would like to add a sentence about Lu Xun’s review. Lu Xun is the pillar of modern and contemporary literature. Therefore, his examination score has remained at around 40 points in the past two years (if you include Lu Xun, who was indirectly tested, the score reached 60 points every year.) Therefore, we must not take it lightly when reviewing. The inspection of him mainly focused on appreciation topics. This has been the case in the past two years, and it is estimated that the same inspection will be conducted in 2016.

Many people also report that they cannot remember the names of the people in the works when reviewing. I propose a relatively simple method (although it will damage the understanding of the works), which is to watch movies adapted from famous works in textbooks. As for the nouns used to explain disturbing materials, I always understand them and express them in my own words.

2. Examination of writing

In fact, judging from the exams in the past two years, writing has become increasingly difficult. On the one hand, the students who apply for the exam are getting better and better, and on the other hand, writing has always been a student's weakness. Because even students in the Chinese Department have not developed a good habit of practicing writing. Because I have been trying various ways of writing since my freshman year, this is also my "specialty". What I want to say here is to develop the habit of practicing writing. Especially develop the habit of practicing argumentative essays, because due to the restrictions of the exam, the final form of examination is often argumentative essays (for example, last year's "Random" and 2015's "China in WeChat" tend to be argumentative).

The difficulty with argumentative prose is that students often have no arguments. I suggest that you read more books on Western literary theory, such as the books of Benjamin, Adorno, and Althusser of the Frankfurt School. This is great for developing your own arguments. This year’s “China on WeChat” I wrote about several thinkers Socrates, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Benjamin, Foucault, Derrida, Confucius, Mencius and Lu Xun going to a wealthy businessman’s house for a banquet, and then Aga during the meal Tong (rich man) proposed to talk about "China in WeChat", so several people argued with each other to form the entire text.

Many people think that writing is not easy to review. In fact, it is precisely the time spent in writing. Read more, watch more, and write more is always the way to go.

3. Others

I do not agree that freshmen and sophomores should start preparing for exams. In my opinion, reading and writing to form one's own benign knowledge structure is the knowledge reserve that a writer should have. No literary master can be found in the examination. My suggestion is to read more classics, and have your own classics in literature, philosophy, history, physics, astronomy, politics, etc., and try to have your own in film, painting, architecture, design, and music. Do research and try to avoid literary "blindness". The contemporary era of knowledge explosion has posed a great challenge to a writer's structure. On the one hand, we must digest the powerful intellectual tradition of the West, and we should also absorb China's existing cultural traditions. For various reasons, China's modern literature has actually not even begun yet. This requires the young people who come later to try their best to climb and transcend. Because of the current system, many young people are trapped in this homogeneous university environment. The college era may be the last golden period for studying. Therefore, opening the mouth of a giant whale and sucking in the wisdom of books is indeed the most worthwhile thing to do, but also the easiest to ignore.

Zweig's "When Humanity's Stars Shine" said that "the greatest luck for people is to know what they want when they are young."

What a sincere statement!

Conclusion: Everything that happens in life has its meaning. After all, you don’t know in advance what will play a role in your life, so go for it! There is no best arrangement or best way. I believe that those choices that time has been stolen from will be returned to you in the future in the way you like.

Fudan Exam Questions Browse:

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Creative Writing Postgraduate Entrance Exam Reference Bibliography:

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Good Well, that’s it for now. I hope everyone will be clear about where they want to go and move forward step by step. Creative writing is a good major. If you really love literature and writing and want to improve yourself, you can consider it more. If you need more relevant creative writing postgraduate entrance examination materials, you can click the bibliography link at the end of the article and contact me