There are only about four months left before the provincial examination.
Four months may seem like a long time, but for scholars who often spend one, two or even several years preparing for the provincial examination, four months is actually a very short time.
After ordinary children become scholars, unless they are too close to the provincial capital, they generally will not take the provincial examination immediately. Instead, they will have to wait for one or even two subjects to slowly prepare.
The Provincial Examination consists of one subject every three years, leaving out the gap time, which means that newly promoted scholars usually spend three or four years preparing for the Provincial Examination.
Those who take the college examination and the provincial examination are all very confident "question writers". These people are often called talented people, and the younger ones are even called "prodigies".
Of course, in addition to carefully preparing for the scientific examination, there are other ways to do it.
That is the quota for the provincial examination.
Every year for the rural examination, the imperial court will issue rural examination quotas to each province, state capital, and county. For a dynasty like Dachen that has been in existence for more than a hundred years, the number of scholars in each county is not particularly small. Some remote counties have accumulated one or two hundred.
For students, the rural examination quota is only for thirty or even twenty people.
At this first level, 80% to 90% of the students were stuck.
Therefore, the quota for the provincial examination is also very precious and must be carefully prepared.
The reason why Shen Yi was able to take the exams consecutively was because he was very lucky.
Jiangdu Prefecture is a major scientific examination center, and Jiangdu Prefecture's capital "Jiangdu County" is a major site for scientific examinations every year. Ganquan Academy in Jiangdu City is very well-known in the entire Gyeonggi Province and even in the imperial court. Therefore, the provincial examination
Quotas are not a big problem in Ganquan Academy. As long as the students in Ganquan Academy want to take the provincial examination, not to mention that they will definitely be allocated the quota for the provincial examination, even if they are allocated one quota out of two, there is still no problem.
of.
What's more important is that Mr. Shen is a direct student of Mr. Lu from Ganquan Academy.
With Lu Anshi's status, even if Shen Yi fails in repeated exams, let alone taking consecutive exams, Ganquan Academy can always give him a quota for exams in other places.
However, even after passing the "preliminary screening" of quotas, the competition in the rural examination is still very high. In the previous Jiankang rural examination, the admission ratio was one in 29.
You must know that being able to pass the middle school entrance examination is already equivalent to the "Qingbei" in later generations, and passing the provincial examination is almost 1 in 200 to 300 in remote places, even in a relatively prosperous city like Jiangdu Prefecture
In some places where the cultural context is relatively prosperous, the ratio is almost one in 100.
very intense competition.
Shen Yi's knowledge is considered good among his classmates. He was personally trained by Master Lu for a period of time and can be considered a young talent. However, even he has no confidence for the provincial examination.
Shen Yi arrived in Jiankang at the beginning of the year. After completing the college examination in March, there was only half a year left before the provincial examination. Now, those Qi people have made trouble for another month or two.
There are only four months left, which is a bit too hasty for Shen Yi.
Now he must calm down and prepare for the exam.
Compared with the three-way Tongsheng Examination, the Provincial Examination focuses more on policy theory. Therefore, in these four months, he must focus as much as possible on current policy theory. In addition to writing policy papers himself, he must also write as many policy papers as possible.
Look at the strategies for the mid-term examinations of the rural examinations in recent years, as well as the collected works of Cao Qian, the examiner of the rural examinations.
Although the teacher Zhao Shilang introduced seemed to be just an ordinary private school teacher in Dayifang, Shen Yi still gave Zhao Changping some trust. After getting the "composition topic" from Mr. Gu, he
I went home obediently and started writing a short composition.
Essays are also tested during college examinations. Shen Yi was also trained by Mr. Qin when he was at Ganquan Academy. In addition, he is basically familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics, and he can understand the meaning of these sentences.
It is naturally not difficult to solve the problem.
It took Shen Yi almost a day and a half to write three essays. Then in the remaining day and a half, he went out for a few rounds, visited Xu Fu and others, and went to a bookstore to buy some books that might be useful.
After taking the book home, read it carefully.
On the morning of the fourth day, Shen Yi once again put on new clothes and brought three essays he had written to the door of the private school in Dayifang.
He reached out and knocked on the door. After a while, a boy came over and opened the door for him. This boy had seen Shen Yi three days ago. After seeing Shen Yi's appearance, he lowered his head and led Shen Yi to find Mr. Gu.
.
When Shen Yi saw Mr. Gu, the little old man was shaking his head and taking a group of little kids to read. However, unlike other private school teachers, Mr. Gu first read the original text once, and then stopped to tell these little kids this sentence.
meaning of words.
This is not common in this day and age.
Because private school teachers in this era generally only taught literacy and reading, adhering to the principle of "read a book a hundred times, its meaning will become apparent", few would directly teach children the meaning of literature.
But Mr. Gu taught, not only taught, but also taught very carefully and patiently.
Shen Yi did not disturb Mr. Gu, but stood quietly at the door of the private school and listened.
Mr. Gu is talking about the Analects of Confucius.
After reading a sentence, he would stop and explain the original meaning.
Shen Yi has long memorized the Four Books and Five Classics. He sometimes feels that he has fully understood these sage books, but when Mr. Gu talks about them again, some parts are quite different from what he understands. After listening to them again,
, I just feel that it has a different meaning and is of great benefit.
Shen Yi stood at the door and listened intently. Unknowingly, he saw that Mr. Gu had finished speaking an Analects of Confucius. The old man glanced at the children below and told them to study by themselves. Then he got up and walked to the door of the school, looking at it thoughtfully.
Shen Yi, the old man showed a faint smile on his face, and said: "Since you are already a middle school student, you should know the scriptures by heart, why are you eavesdropping here?"
Shen Yi came back to his senses, and sincerely said to the old man: "In the past, students often misunderstood the saints. Today, after listening to the teacher's lecture, I realized that the students themselves were shallow."
Mr. Gu laughed loudly and said: "The sage's subtle words of righteousness have been annotated by countless sages since ancient times. Therefore, righteousness has never been settled. You and I are all roaming in the palm of the sage, and we only see a few lines and a half. Today
What I said is just a family opinion, just listen to it, don't believe it completely, otherwise it will be my fault."
After saying these words, he stretched out his hand, placed it in front of Shen Yi, and said with a smile: "Have you finished the essay I asked you to write earlier?"
Shen Yi took out a few pieces of white paper filled with text from his arms and handed it to Old Man Gu. The old man took Shen Yi's article, found a pavilion in the yard and sat down, and began to read the papers carefully one by one.
The three essays were not long, and it only took a stick of incense to finish reading Shen Yi's article. After reading it, he first looked up at Shen Yi, and then said with a smile: "Some places the writing is a little bit awkward."
It’s immature, but the article is quite innovative and has some rare spirituality.”
The old gentleman looked Shen Yi up and down and commented: "Although I haven't seen the strategy you wrote, just based on these three essays, even if you don't succeed in the autumn this year, you will definitely succeed in the autumn three years later.
"
Because the rural examination is in autumn, it is also called Qiuwei.
The next spring's examination will be called Chunwei.
This rhetoric of "if you fail in this subject, you will definitely pass in the next one" is actually a very high evaluation. After all, Shen Yi is only sixteen years old. If he can pass the exam at the age of nineteen, it can be said to be a young man's pride.
Shen Yi nodded respectfully and said, "Thank you sir for the compliment."
"I never praise others."
The little old man clasped his hands behind his back and held Shen Yi's article. He stood up and said, "Let's go to the study room with me. I will correct some of your mistakes and give you some policy questions."
Shen Yi nodded and followed the old man.
As the old man walked away, he said: "Back then, that boy Zhao Zhi was somewhat spiritual in his writing, but it's a pity..."
Mr. Gu shook his head regretfully.
"It's a pity that after this guy became an official, his spirituality gradually lost. Especially the things he wrote in the past few years are nothing but gorgeous words. They have become completely vulgar..."