Yesterday afternoon, I just finished the great Nantong second mock exam (sadly, the candidates from the physics and chemistry stream are always one step behind), and after finishing, I thought I'd talk a bit about it.

I have to say, the entire exam paper had some challenging aspects. The top 10 students in the regular class can barely manage to tackle it. Here in the Nantong region, it's okay (of course, this is only true for the top high schools in each district, like the two Haizhong schools, Qidong High School, and so on). As for the other lower-tier schools and the rest of the six cities in northern Jiangsu, it’s full of complaints, with some saying that Nantong should just do it on its own. As for our school, going to Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications would be considered a Waterloo (after all, out of more than 800 students in our grade, there are 150 at 985 universities, and nearly 400 at 211 universities), but even if you go to Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, you’re still among the top 5% in Jiangsu province. Of course, there are many factors involved here, which are difficult to explain, so I’ll skip that and talk about myself.

As of today, the results are not out yet (0328), but based on the official answer key that has been released, I can roughly estimate my score. I expect to be in the top 200 of the grade, but I’m not sure if I can make it into the top 150. However... I made a mistake of almost 40 points (sigh, only 71 days left until the college entrance exam and still making mistakes…). The small, trivial mistakes accumulated too quickly. Now I realize that I keep getting the basics wrong + my problem-solving wasn’t thorough enough. Let me give a few examples:

• Math

  6. $alpha = -log_2 5$, $y=kx^{-alpha}$, but I forgot to cancel the negative sign, losing 5 points.
  7. (3) The team captain has 2, but I only considered 1 during the exam, losing 5 points.

• English

  4. I heard the listening content very clearly, but I overlooked the word before in the question.
  5. I never thought a question would span across 2 paragraphs.

• Chemistry

  4. I couldn't compare the radii of $ext{Cl}^-$ and $ext{Mg}^{2+}$.
  5. A. I made a subjective guess on the concentration comparison between $ext{SO}_3^{2-}$ and $ext{H}_2 ext{SO}_3$, ruling out the simplest solution...

Often, you realize, wow, I made mistakes here and there. It's really a pity, but you really haven’t practiced enough. Many things require practice to form conditioned reflexes (this is usually a good thing, as it helps you save time on difficult problems). Also, the direction is crucial. Fellow students, please pay attention to the next sentence:

The direction is more important than your effort.

If your direction is wrong, no matter how hard you try, it won’t work. What are the directions in learning? It can be a subject you're not good at, or a knowledge point you're weak in. As long as you find an area where you have a gap, focus on it and fill it in. Don’t waste time doing entire mock tests or basic questions that you won’t make mistakes on. Yesterday, when I went to find the chemistry teacher (because I knew I did poorly and was scared), she scolded me, saying, “You’re making mistakes on these basic questions, so what’s the point of doing so many other questions?” Thinking about it, she’s right. Luckily, there are still two months left, and there’s a chance to make up for it.

So, the exam is over, and now let’s talk about some random stuff.

Development

Although I don’t have much time to play with the computer now, I can still have AI do some tasks. Yesterday, when I got home, I asked AI to write a password feature for the Mix-Space support and authentication page, created a pull request (PR), and five minutes later, I checked my email and saw that Innei replied, thanking me but saying they wouldn’t consider it for now. Then I realized! He directly disabled the Pull Requests feature in the core repository! (Last time, it was with mx-admin. Not long after I created the PR, the whole feature was disabled). This... I don’t know if I should feel speechless or guilty, but it’s also a bit bewildering. If Innei reads this article (the probability should be low), well, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not criticizing, I just don’t really understand why this is happening... but anyway, he’s a big shot, and maybe he’s not willing to accept my messy AI code.

There are only 71 days left until the college entrance exam. Good luck, bro!