Requesting an article from in previous years about the resumption of the college entrance examination in 1977

In 1977, I took the college entrance examination "Reader" Issue 02, 2007

Wen/Lv You

When I heard the news of the resumption of the college entrance examination, I was working on a farm The land is sweating like rain.

Our generation is an unfortunate generation. Going to primary school is catching up with the "destiny of cultural revolution", middle school is catching up with the "resurgence", and then going to the countryside to "roll mud and make red hearts". Everything that should not have been caught up has been caught up, and everything that should have been caught up has not been caught up. The "recommendation for college" caught up, but it happened to catch up with my "family problems". Going to college can only be a very distant dream for me.

On October 21, 1977, when I heard on the radio the news that colleges and universities were resuming enrollment after a hiatus of more than ten years, I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep all night. The next day, I quickly told a few friends about the news, but they knew it already. We talked together all night long, talking about the future and ideals, until dawn. There are only a few chances in life. The only thing that can change the destiny of our generation is the college entrance examination. We all decided to give it a try. Only one older classmate who had great hope of getting admitted to a key university, but who entered a factory early, got married and started a family, and who was a few years ahead of me, said in frustration: "I also want to take the exam, but what will happen to my family if I leave? The children are young." It's a full moon and my wife has no job. I can't just focus on my own future and leave them alone!" Everyone sighed deeply, knowing that he was a very kind-hearted person and could only feel sorry for him (a few days ago When I saw him again, he had already been laid off and was setting up a street vendor to make ends meet).

Our small town in northern Henan is very isolated. The college entrance examination is suddenly coming up, and many people are not mentally prepared at all. Especially when they learned that registration for the college entrance examination would be from November 18 to 24, 1977, and the test would be from December 8 to 9, with only more than a month of review time left, people were even more in a hurry. No one knows where to review for this college entrance examination or what the focus is. Everyone is looking for review materials like crazy. The textbooks I used to go to school were either burned or sold for tatters. Fortunately, some of the textbooks I had from middle school were still intact. I walked more than ten kilometers home overnight to rummage through the boxes and cabinets to find them. I also borrowed a copy for two people from someone else. After I read it, I ran more than ten kilometers to give it to him. In order to save me from running away, my mother spent five days and six nights copying out the entire book, which was more than 300 pages thick. When I took the thick manuscript from my mother's hands, my eyes immediately became moist. Unexpectedly, a few days later, an educated youth from the farm stole all my review materials while I was away from work. I immediately grabbed a coal truck and chased him for seven or eight kilometers before I caught up with him. Fortunately, everyone on the spot had recovered the stolen goods, otherwise he would have refused to admit it. What I still can't forget is that another educated youth took the initiative to send me some review materials. I saw that they were exactly what I needed urgently. He said: "I'm not taking the college entrance examination anyway. If you think it's useful, just use it!" (But later I heard that he also took the college entrance examination). The first one was a good friend of mine, and the latter one I still call him Can't tell his name.

Because the superiors have documents, educated youths who take the college entrance examination are required to work half a day and review half a day. But not long after, the head of the Lengquan Farm where I worked suddenly announced that we should get up at three o'clock every morning to participate in the large-scale land leveling competition of Chaichang Gang organized by the Lulou Commune at that time, and deceived us that there was no "half-day labor" at all. , half-day review" such regulations. At that time, I was really anxious. One month of review time was stressful enough, but now we have to be deprived of even this pitiful time. How can we take the exam? At this time, I was calling for help from heaven and earth, but what could I do? From then on, every day at three o'clock in the morning, when the sky was still pitch black and we couldn't see our fingers, the door of our educated youth dormitory was banged one by one, and several tractors pulled us six or seven miles away. On a hill outside, our task is to dig out the hill and build it into "Dazhai-style" terraces.

At that time, most of the educated youth were only 17 or 18 years old, and their nutrition was not good at ordinary times. They could only eat two moldy cornmeal steamed buns and boiled vegetables with little oil and water in each meal. Only one meal a month. No one dared to eat the two kilograms of fine grains alone. They only dared to take them out when their classmates or family members came to the farm, because guests could not be allowed to eat moldy yellow cornstarch. At the beginning of this "land leveling competition", in order to speed up our progress so that we could win the top spot in this "competition", the farm boss improved the food for one day, that is, eating white buns as we wanted. The poor educated youth who usually only had half-full meals were frantically munching on the white-flour steamed buns that they could only eat during festivals in the past. I saw with my own eyes that a younger, thin educated youth actually ate nine and a half taels in one meal. The weight of the steamed buns nearly choked him to death... At first glance, he realized that we were not allowed to eat as much as we wanted. We ate too much, and the next day we were back to the days of eating only two moldy steamed buns per meal. Under such nutritional conditions, doing such heavy physical work and getting up so early every day, the intensity of labor can be imagined. When we were exhausted with pickaxes, shovels, and flat carts on the hills, the chickens had just begun to crow... This scene reminded me of a famous cartoon "Crowing in the Midnight."

Every day, we sweat profusely on the hills until nightfall. In the evening, it is our review time.

At that time, there were frequent power outages on the farm, so two educated youths and I sat together under a dim kerosene lamp to review. Due to the cold weather, the biting north wind blew into the house, making it feel like an ice cellar. I had no choice but to put on an old quilt with exposed cotton wool. After a long time, the smell of kerosene from the kerosene lamp was very strong and uncomfortable, and I had to wear a big mask... My two companions held the book and looked at it, and they all fell on the table one after another. They " "Huhu" When he fell asleep, he was still holding the textbook tightly in his hand. I was afraid of falling asleep, so I washed my face and poured cold water over my head again and again in order to cheer myself up. Once, in order to understand a problem, I walked more than ten kilometers after work in the evening to ask a middle school teacher for advice. I rushed back all night and just lay down when the door was knocked again. Physically strenuous work, having to review every night, the body and mind are extremely exhausted, and have reached the limit. If the door at three o'clock in the morning had not been kicked and smashed by bricks over and over again by the leading cadres, some of the doors would have been smashed. It is difficult to wake up those educated youth who have just fallen asleep. Once, an educated youth in my roommate saw that I was sleeping too late and couldn't bear to wake me up, so he quietly walked away alone. I was shocked when I woke up. Not participating in the "congress battle" was a political issue, but that day passed safely. It turned out that he, the team leader, lied about my illness and deceived the leading cadres.

In order to squeeze out a little bit of time, at the "Battle Battle" construction site, I specially picked the tiring bulldozing work that others were unwilling to do, so that I could take advantage of others to load soil into the car. In a few minutes, I can quietly glance at a book, write down a word, or memorize a formula. I also copied some review points on small pieces of cardboard, inserted them into the bulldozer, and memorized them while pushing the bulldozer. Once, I got so mesmerized by memorizing them that I almost fell into a deep ditch with the car and myself. Soon, a criticism meeting was held on the film, and work was suspended for half a day. All the educated youth came to the venue early in the morning. Taking advantage of the crowd and clutter, a companion and I quietly slipped out, got into a nearby melon shed, lay down in the hay, and spent a rare half-day reviewing mathematics. Later, a little boss discovered that I always carried a book with me when I was working and could not focus on the "battle". He was very dissatisfied. He went up to snatch my book and tried to tear it up. I immediately rushed forward like crazy and tried to fight with him. He fought hard, and he had to return the book to me. One day, two educated youths who were working with me quietly pulled me aside and said to me very seriously: "From now on, we will take turns doing all your work for you, so you can save some time." Read more books!" "No, no, aren't you going to take the exam too? This is an opportunity to change your destiny!" Unexpectedly, they said: "Well, we don't have much hope of passing the exam anyway. It’s taking me a long time, so I might as well help you more!” As soon as I heard this, tears welled up in my eyes. At that time, the lamp oil on the farm was rationed. Several educated youths saw that I stayed up all night to review the lamp oil, so they secretly brought me their own lamp oil. This little bit of lamp oil seems like nothing now, but at the time it made me burst into tears.

At that time, some well-connected people pretended to be sick or found other reasons to quietly leave the farm and go home to review. I really envy them. They no longer have to do heavy physical work and can have fun every day. Plenty of time to review at home throughout the day. And because I am a child of the "Five Black Categories", I don't dare to "pretend to be sick", and I can't get "approval", so I have to be cautious. Because the main leaders of the farm once announced at the educated youth meeting: "If anyone does not perform well in labor, as long as I say a word, he will not be able to go to university even if he is admitted to university!" In the political situation at that time, "political review" was a How important this is is beyond the imagination of today's people. At that time, let alone going to school, even if I published a four-line poem in a newspaper, the newspaper would send an official letter to my employer to investigate whether the author had any political problems. The “Registration Form for Candidates in the Henan Higher Education Entrance Examination” that was sent to us two months later to fill out included a special column: “Whether immediate family members and major social relations were arrested, prosecuted, or supervised during the 11th Line Struggle” Censorship, isolation review, naming and criticism, etc.”

The college entrance examination is only a few days away, and the farm boss still refuses to let us go, and makes us get up at three o’clock in the morning to work like animals. Work. Fortunately, the superiors issued a timely notice asking all educated youths taking the college entrance examination to go home and prepare for three days, so I had three days of golden review time. But three days was too short after all, and it was impossible to review it thoroughly. At this time, I actually thought that if someone could give me a month of review time, I would be willing to exchange it even if I worked as a long-term worker for him for two years. On the day we left the farm, the educated youth helped those of us taking the college entrance examination to stop a large coal truck on the side of the road (at that time, the ticket for the ten kilometers from the farm to the city was only 2 cents, but we educated youth could not afford to ride on it). I was about to climb into the soot-filled truck and embark on the first and last college entrance exam in my life. Suddenly, a little girl of eight or nine years old appeared in front of me: "Uncle, if you leave, you will come back." "?" When I saw it, it turned out to be the little girl from the neighboring village who often came to our farm to play. She often asked me to tell her stories. "I'll be back!" "Then I'll be waiting for you to tell me a story. Your story hasn't been finished yet!" However, I haven't gone back thirty years since I left.

For the first college entrance examination after ten years of the "Cultural Revolution", there were so many people applying for it. At that time, there were more than 4,000 candidates in our small city. The youngest was sixteen years old, and the oldest was Thirty years old. My admission ticket number is "3165", which is a number I will never forget in my life.

On December 8, 1977, when I stepped into the examination center of No. 4 Middle School in Hebi City, I couldn't calm down for a long time as I looked at the large and small candidates rushing in to take the exam. At 8:15 in the morning, a crisp bell rang through the campus, and an exam began that those who took the exam will never forget. I remember that there were two essay questions in the Henan Chinese language test paper that year, one was "Applause for the great situation of grasping the outline and governing the country", and the other was "My heart flew to Chairman Mao Memorial Hall". The essay score reaches seventy points, accounting for more than half of the Chinese language test paper.

During the two days of the exam, I got up before dawn every day and didn’t even bother to eat. My kind mother always heated the rice over and over again, and I often ate it casually while reading. A few mouthfuls. The long period of heavy physical labor made my body extremely weak. On the second day of the exam, my feet were so swollen that I couldn't walk. It was my father who pushed me to the exam room on a bicycle. When I was sitting on the back seat of my bicycle and saw my aging father pushing me step by step towards the examination room in the cold wind, I felt an indescribable sadness in my heart. For the first time, I discovered that there was something on my father’s head. There are so many gray hairs.

When we arrived at the school gate, bicycles were not allowed to enter.