US high school Chinese test stumps internet users in China
New York exam paper was circulated on social media on the mainland and many admit they struggled to answer the questions
A high school in New York has produced an exam paper for its pupils learning Chinese which features questions that have daunted internet users in China and even a college professor.
The final exam for pupils at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School’s Foreign Language Department comprises four sections, according to a photograph of the test paper shared on Chinese social media.
The first two focus on words and idioms not commonly used in conversational Chinese.
In one part pupils were asked to give synonyms for 10 words, but they are more often used in ancient Chinese writing than in everyday speech.
Many Chinese social media users admitted they struggled to read even the first word – jiu ju – which means to live in a rented apartment. Many didn’t even know what the word meant, let alone come up with a synonym for it.
“At first, I thought the question was to write down the pinyin, but after reading it I realised I didn’t even know how to read the word,” one internet user wrote on social media.