WarlockAlan

Backgrounds

Our economic teacher organized a game called Marshmallow Challenge in her class after we finished CAIE international examinations. In this game, students worked in groups (a group had 4 students) to build a tower by using marshmallows and sticks. Our teacher would measure the height of tower and gave students tokens (1 mm= 10 tokens). It is worth mentioning that the marshmallows and sticks were charged. The first 1o marshmallows were free, but others were charged by 20 tokens per marshmallows. And each stick needed 10 tokens too.

What our group did

When we got marshmallows and sticks, we first measured their length and found that the cost of marshmallows and sticks was quite low compared the tokens you could get if you build a higher tower. As the diagram showed, you just needed three extra marshmallows and six extra sticks to enlarge the tower. (Each stick was 5 cm long, in other words, you could 500 more tokens while only pay for the cost of 120.)

So we(members in our group) built the tower together and asked our teacher to measure its height. It was 25.5 cm tall which was the tallest in our class.

Here is a photo to record our achievement.

Analysis–why we could build the tallest tower

Cooperation

We performed well partially because we cooperated with each other excellently. Each member in our group did tasks positively, we tried our best to think ideas and gave others advice through the efficient communication. For example, one of us advised to build one layer of the tower then combined the tower and its new layer through sticks, it could make sure our tower is solid enough.

Besides, when we felt that our tower would topple down, we would try our best to reinforce it.

Scientific design

We used a scientific way to design the structure of our tower. Actually, we were asked to draw a poster to introduce our tower. And in this poster, we enumerated some advantages of our design.

This is our poster.

This is our marshmallow tower.

1. Triangular structure: We have already mathematic trigonometry knowledge in primary school or secondary school. Triangular structure is the solidest structure.

2. Bearing： We used two bearings to reinforce our tower efficiently. As we know, the base was important for a tower. It would topple down by the turning effect caused by the weight.

(Simple physic knowledge, you could even find it in IGCSE physic book.

Teachers’ summary– what economic knowledges we have learned from this activity

Fixed cost and variable cost

In this game, the cost of marshmallows and sticks changed as the number of them we used were changed. In other words, the cost of them were variable cost. Meanwhile, the cost of hiring workers (we were workers) to build the tower remained the constant, so it was a kind of fixed cost.

Diminishing marginal benefits

We may find that it is easy to build the first layer of the tower. However, as the tower enlarged, you may find that it is much more difficult to add an extra layer. You needed to add bearings to support the base. In other words, with the same marginal revenue (one layer of the tower means a fixed value of extra height and thus get the tokens). the marginal cost increased the marginal benefits diminished.

The prize– we were winners

Students who built the tallest tower would get a badge. There were four types of badges (all of them have contents related to Economics on them) to choose. I took a picture of my badge. The “MC=MR” stands for marginal cost equals to marginal revenue, which is an economic concept for profit maximization.

My unique school life

Truth to be told, I lived in school dormitory, that makes my school life quite different compared with other students, since I need to live at school 5 days per week and have breakfast, lunch and dinner at canteen as well. Other students, however, just need to go to school at seven twenty in the morning and go back their home in the 5 p.m.

Daily routines

My daily routine has a little bit difference due to living in the school dorm (SWOT Analysis )

Students in my class are asked to go to the classroom at 0730. Then we have 30 minutes reading time. From 0800, we have lessons at different periods. We have 10 periods at school every day and we’re allowed to go back home at 0500.

Advantages

I get up at six fifty every day in the school dormitory, then I go to the school canteen to have breakfast at seven o’clock. I get up late compared with my classmates since they have to spend time commuting. Even though, they still go to the classroom nearly 0730. In contrast, I arrive at my classroom at 0720 and even have 10 minutes spare time to do the self-study.

Disadvantages

I have no choice but to have terrible meals at school every day. It sometimes makes me feel sick and decreases my efficiency of study.

Opportunities

Only a few students live in the school dorm, that means I may feel isolated from time to time. However, that also means that no one could disturb me to study.

Besides, the majority of students who live in the dorm are top students, I could learn the way how they study. But it also means the peer pressure is hectic for me.

Threats

The self-study room has a poor signal, that means it’s hard for me to use digital devices sometimes. As an international student, I couldn’t live without them in order to look through websites of different universities.

My Feelings

One of my friends used to say that it may be wise for me to rent a flat nearby my school. Actually, my parents rented a flat when I was in the junior high. (My mother has retired so she has enough time.)

But I didn’t think it was be a good choice. Generally speaking, I didn’t want to disturb my mother’s live since she had retired. In addition, I personally reckon that I must get benefits from my school life.

First, I do self-study in the evening and ask for my teachers’ help if I need it. (My teachers sometimes work overload until evening) During my school life, I have already developed the ability to concentrate myself to do self-study by reading textbooks or searching information online. I suppose I could fit the self-study life in the university rapidly since I have already lived in this life for a long time.

Second, I can avoid feeling isolated or even depressed though I live alone. Tell you the truth, when I concentrate on studying, I even forget about time. (And I seldom keep in touch with my parents during weekday.) Since culture gap exists, some international students may feel depressed and homesick when they go abroad to study, which makes them perform badly in their study. Obviously, I was not one of them.

Third, thanks to my school life, I have developed the habit to make to-do list to manage my time properly. Many students, including me, feeling relaxed and wasting their time at home.
As I don’t have any way to do the entertainment, I must study hard at school (and get great exam scores as well).

Last but not the least, I can do the majority of things in my everyday life now. Actually, many students, especially the Chinese students, having a poor ability to live alone.

In other word, I enjoy my life living in the school dormitory.

Backgrounds- why we could do it at school

Our school has a center called Steam, which aimed to provide different kinds of extra curriculums for students. This center is well-equipped, for example, it has complex laser cutting equipment, that means we have the opportunity to access laser world–laser cutting!

Activities- what we did here

We used an application online to model different objects. Then we sent our designs to teachers’ computers and they manipulated laser cutting machines by using a computer to cut wood boards. It is worth mentioning that we could bring our designs back home as souvenirs!

What I did there

Actually, I downloaded a picture about The University of Toronto on the Internet in order to make a fridge magnet in the morning. It was so successful that our Physic teacher showed my work in front of my classmates. In the afternoon, since I had already experienced the way to use the modeling application, I designed a box with cover. It took me 2 hours, and I also asked for help during this process.

My fridge magnet is here below.

You could see there are two tiny magnets to help this stick on the walls of fridges.

This is the box I made.

It’s clearly there is a cover.

The thing that made me feel quite terrible.

To be honest, I put pictures about different top universities in the Canada and UK originally on the box. However, the laser cutting couldn’t draw complicated pictures. As a result, you could only see a little bit pictures on my box!

I also made some other fridge magnets. They didn’t have clear university pictures as well. Here is an example.

My feelings– what I learned from today’s experience

For my interests

Generally speaking, on the technical level, I had learned the exact way how laser cutting operating. I was surprised that how precise the laser cutting is–the box I made was as good as the handicraft boxes the shops sold. It may boost my comprehension further about engineering–Tell you the truth, I loved handicrafts, and todays’ experience may let me decide to learn engineering in the university. (I decided to learn either Chemistry or Business before.)

For my faults

During today’s event, I didn’t consider about how precise the laser cutting could reach. As a result, I didn’t make a fancy box with different universities’ pictures. (And I wasted some materials as well.) It taught me a lesson that I should think twice before doing something. This may also explain why I made some stupid choices before. I couldn’t change the history, but the thing is that, I could learn how to behave better from my daily life.

What i did in my childhood

When I was 9, I began to show an interest in accounting and modeling. I guess I loved those mainly because I wanted to save more money. (Actually, I have been developed this habit now.) By learning accounting, I could realize the thing I didn’t need to buy and thus using my money in a more efficient way. By modeling, I could use mathematic knowledge I learned in my classroom to solve practical problems like identifying which scheme would use the lowest money to buy the most goods.

Backgrounds for Chinese junior high students

Since finance is not a compulsory subject in Chinese junior high schools, I had no choice but to give up my dreams of learning it temporarily. The majority of Chinese students, including me, did time-consuming extra-curricular work in order to pass tough examinations to access senior high schools. Despite this, I continued acquiring knowledge about modeling as I thought that it may be useful in Finance. I sometimes did self-study by downloading online books about Matlab during my senior high school years.

Special opportunity for me (being an A-level student)

In Grade 10, I was delighted to be provided with the opportunity to learn Economics at our A-level centre. I have been learning Business knowledge enthusiastically. In order to get excellent final exam results, I study this subject as soon as I finish my dinner every evening.

My experience of learning Economics at school

It is worth mentioning that we have two capable economics teachers. Whenever I have problems, they give me a helping hand to solve them and boost my comprehension further. They are like friends accompanying with me when I am in trouble, rather than simply teachers focused on teaching the syllabus. For example, I got an 80 percent mark in a mock exam, which made me feel sad. My economics teacher did not criticize me at that time. Instead, he smiled at me and said What happened?” Later, he helped me correct my mistakes and I have had much better results in exams since that time.

What I did for my further study

Then my economics teacher advised me to take part in a business contest called The Future Business Leader of America. My classmates and I achieved China top 18th in this teamwork event. During the event, I was surprised by how little I knew about economic terms and concepts, so I developed the habit of reading economic essays regularly to broaden my horizons. Thanks to the presentation we did there, I realized that my poor communication skills could have an adverse effect on my academic progress. As a result, I have practiced my speaking by giving more presentations in class.

Backgrounds

Our A-level centre organized an extra-curriculum to let all its A-level students live in a countryside for three days. This activity aimed at strengthening our teamwork spirit and experiencing lives as volunteers, so our countryside life included not only busy work, but also relaxing entertainment.

Busy work

We did a lot of meaningful activities, such as growing scindapsus aureus, making dumplings, removing weeds, using grass to make shoes and cutting branches.

Obviously, all of them above required teamwork, but the majority of them just needed us to work as a team. Each student did the same work in these activities. In other words, everyone didn’t need to specialize in a particular task and did their specific role.

Therefore, I will introduce another activity we did there–making a kind of Chinese traditional drink–soybean milk.

Making soybean milk

The step of making soybean milk is below:

1.Put soybeans and water in a stone mill.

2.Rotate the stone mill horizontally by holding a handle on it.

3.Collect the soybean milk by using a brush.

4.Put the soybean milk into the stone mill again. Then continues the steps 2 and 3 above.

Five or six students needed to work as a group to make the soybean milk. Each student had its own task. One student needed to put soybeans or soybean milk into the mill, one student needed to collect soybean milk, one student needed to wash the mill, other student needed to rotate the mill.

You can see that it’s impossible for us to make soybean milk unless each student does their own task well. I was interested in making soybean milk, (mainly because I loved drinking it)
so I chose the hardest work–rotating the mill.

And I was the leader of my group as well. With effective communications (and my strength to rotate the mill), our group made the soybean milk efficiently.

Here is a photo:

Entertainment

We had also watched a firework show. In addition, we had a talent show in a theatre. I think it couldn’t be seen as unforgettable experience, so I didn’t introduce them here.

My feelings–what I have learned from this field trip.

Generally speaking, l had learned the spirit of teamwork during those three days. We worked together, ate together, relaxed together and even slept together! We sometimes shared technique skills of doing busy work like making soybean milk in order to save effort, and we always cooperated with each other to work efficiently. We sometimes argued with each other since we had our own ideas, but we accepted each other gradually through the three-day-long work. As classmates, I believed that our common experience would boost us to care each other in the future.

In addition, we have also mastered skills that we could only learn in the countryside, like growing scindapsus aureus. We realized how difficult the farmers were and thus saved grains and protect plants.

In other words, a meaningful memory.

Backgrounds

After finishing CAIE international examinations, our A-level center held an extra-curriculum. It asked students’ parents to provide internship and each student could choose one job to practice. Originally, I would like to work in a bank for one day. However, the opportunities to go there were limited so I made my second option—going to a laboratory to do chemical experiments.

###What we did there

In the morning

At first, we looked around a company (The laboratory was in the company). From a staff in it, we got to know what this company did. Generally speaking, it was a company for graduates from the university to do experiments, they applied for patents and the company tried to produce and sell products related to their patents. In other words, this company was a business incubator for innovation.

The stuff introduced three projects they currently did, including a new kind of insulator (which is used to replace air conditioners in rural areas), a new kind of conductors (which is used in the digital devices, I will introduce it later) and a modern technique to produce masks (by using electrostatic force).

In the afternoon

After lunch, we chose the topic we were interested in and did the experiment on our own. I chose to make the new kind of conductor with my friends.

The conductor we made– why it was uncommon

The purpose of it was uncommon

Have you ever thought about using conductors in the digital devices like mobile phones? It may be ridiculous if you hear of this idea for the first time. You may think the use of conductor make the digital devices hotter. Truth to be told, I had the same idea as well at first. Then the staffs (actually two graduates) told us they would use the conductor to combine the microprocessor (the thermal energy comes from here) and the device to release thermal energy. In traditional digital devices, only air conducts energy from microprocessor to cooling equipment, but air is an insulator to conduct thermal energy. Obviously, this innovation can make thermal energy release more rapidly and thus protecting the digital devices.

The reaction of it was uncommon

They use carboxylic acid and aluminium oxides as reactants (also need a kind of catalyst). This reaction was uncommon because its raw materials were cheap and they were not toxic or poisonous. It is worth mentioning that this reaction happens in room temperature rapidly and the product is in liquid state–which means it could be shaped easily.

Our cooperation during the experiment

You can see our team have six students.

According to the experiment plan, we split into three groups A1,A2,B1. And the two graduates were in group B2. Group A needed to do the reaction without the Al2O3 while group B needs to use both reactants and aluminium oxides.

With the help of precise equipment, we discovered that it was important to use aluminium oxides. Without it, the products we made were still poor conductors.

However, I still didn’t know how to explain this phenomenon. The two graduates simply said this reaction was a kind of additional reaction. Anyway, this experiment boosted my interest of learning sciences, especially Physics and Chemistry further.

The difficulty we met

There were too many difficulties during the experiment. For example, it was too time-consuming to use precise equipment like digital balance to weigh the mass of reactants. One kind of reactants, for example, carboxylic acid, is a kind of ropy liquid. When you add it to the container on the balance, it may stick on the wall of container.

You could see how difficult we weighed the reactants from this picture.

Besides, the reaction was vigorous when you added the catalyst. We needed to stir the reactants by a glass rod to make sure the product was uniform.

Our products and my feelings

This is the product our group A1 made. I am proud of our successful product.

I think it is meaningful to do the experiment in a laboratory today. First, I got to know what I would do in an experiment. This brought benefits not only for my practical A-level Chemistry examination but also let me know what I would do if I decide to be a scientist in the future. In other words, my today’s experience helped me to decide what subject I would learn in the university. Besides, we developed the skill of cooperation（for example, ways to communicate efficiently with each other） and strengthened the fundamental scientific skills(organic chemistry),

Last but not least, I also realized how weak my ability to do the practical reaction. I spent much more time to do this experiment and it taught me a lesson that I should practice and do more experiments by myself instead of simply learning theorical knowledge.

Backgrounds

FBLA is the largest student charity organization with the longest history around the world. It holds different types of contests related to Business every year. Because of Covid-19, FBLA China only had the opportunity to hold one offline contest– Beijing Economics National Contest (Beijing is the capital of China). This article is written to share my experience of this contest.

Since I have already mentioned a lot about how I prepared for FBLA, I will not write any more about it in this article.

My feelings about offline/online contests

Tell you the truth, offline activities make me feel much more excited than online activities. During the offline activities, I could immerse in the academic atmosphere by talking with others face-to-face in a formal place like meeting room. Before taking part into this offline Beijing National Economics FBLA contest, I have already taken part in an online Business National FBLA Contest. Generally speaking, the event was boring. It was hard for you to meet competitive students all over the provinces in China. The application used for preparing online events even had bugs at that time. For the talent show, the FBLA
official had no choice but to ask students upload their talent show videos and played videos.

Contests

It had three parts, Economic fundamentals (multiple economics choices), further comprehension (reading reference to answer questions), thinking and innovation (teamwork to answer questions). You could take part in an academic meeting (community of inquiry) if you apply for it in advance.

However, though I have prepared a lot, I still couldn’t get awards. (I got 89 in fundamental and anyone who reached 90 was national top 20th. Besides, the situation was similar in the part further comprehension.)

Analysis–why I couldn’t get top 20th awards.

I have summarized some reasons after this contest. First, I was not good at English compared with other students in Grade 11. I was only in Grade 10, and it was hard to find students in Grade 10 to get national top 20th award. Besides, although I couldn’t get top 20th, I still got great scores, they showed my preparation was meaningful. (Actually, I got the greatest scores in my school and still exceeded the majority of students at that time.)
For teamwork to answer questions, I was poor in speaking and that was my fault. It must let our group get fewer scores. In addition, a few members in our group were not capable.

My future plan and feelings about this year’s FBLA Economic Contest

My future plan

I still have many chances in the future. After all, I am only a Grade 10 student. I only need to get a few more scores to reach top 20th so I will take part in this contest in the future. By the way, in the next year, students in Grade 10 would be busy applying for universities. In other words, they won’t take part in the FBLA in the next year. And I was nearly the top student in Grade 10 so I want to get top 5th in the next year, not simply an award for top 20th. Last but not least, my preparation this year could also be used in the next year.

My feelings

Obviously, I felt regretted and sad. “Why I couldn’t get one extra point to get national top 20th?” I had this thought from time to time. Anyway, I have experienced a lot during the FBLA Economics Contest. I have met a lot of competitive students and discussed with each other about our school lives and hobbies. We came from different cities so we also talked about them. In other words, I not only comprehended Economics further but also felt relaxed during the contest.

Extra event: Community of inquiry

I applied for this event in advance and got the opportunity to take part in it luckily. It was an event that we discussed with each other to show our ideas about a given topic. This year, there were two topics A and B.

You could see the two topics here according to the FBLA official guide.

And I chose the topic B.

Further introduction about Community of inquiry

1. Each topic had 5 teams. Each team had at most 10 members. (And our team had 7 members since the other three were absent)

2. There were three parts during the community of inquiry. In part A, each team had to make a powerpoint to express their ideas to experts. In part B, each team needed to choose a representative to ask other group questions about the powerpoint they made. In part C, each team needed to choose a representative to answer questions from experts.

3. Each part will be judged. The students who performed well in any part will get the award of outstanding contributor.

4. Each team had one hour to discuss freely and one hour to prepare for the powerpoint. You were allowed to speak both English and Chinese during the discussion but you couldn’t use Chinese in the powerpoint.

What our team did to prepare for the powerpoint in part A

Firstly, we discussed a lot and tried to find our common idea. Our topic was about monopoly in big technology corporations. We originally decided to show advantages and disadvantages of it. Then we found it was time-consuming because we only had three minutes to explain in part A. Next, we only enumerated the disadvantages of it. And made the entire powerpoint finally.

There were two stories during this process. First, when we decided to only show only disadvantages of monopoly in part A, our representative of part A was a bit worried. He said he was capable enough to show all advantages and disadvantages of monopoly. (He was right, he did well in speaking English and his TOEFL score was 115.) We thought the experts may not get the points from our powerpoint if he talked too much. But he still tried to mention advantages of monopoly and failed. Anyway, we still thanked for his effort and he performed well finally. From this experience, I knew we should know how to accept and reject.
Besides, when we made the powerpoint, we were surprised to the requirement of the powerpoint–the length-width ratio of the powerpoint should be 17:4. (Because the screen had this length-width ratio.) That was so tough to make a powerpoint with this length-width ratio. You nearly saw nothing when you tried to preview it with your own laptop.

In order to prepare for the powerpoint, the members of our team ate nothing for dinner!

What I did in part C

I was the representative for part C in our group. It was a tough part since the experts would ask you questions and you didn’t know the questions in advance. To prepare for it,(Actually, it was hard to prepare for it.）I reviewed a lot of knowledge about the monopoly and even drew a mind map.

During the part C, the expert asked us how to prevent monopoly. I answered this question about imposing anti-trust laws. I used an example, Standard Oil Company, which was a monopoly company in eighteen seventy and it was split into 34 regional oil companies by the US government.

Finally I got the award of Outstanding Contributor. I felt proud of it.

My feelings about being a representative

I originally thought I couldn’t be a representative for our group. I was poor in speaking English and all members were in Grade 11 except me. However, my group members encouraged me to do it, and I performed not badly!

Of course when I sat down in the seat on the stage, I felt nervous. When the expert asked us questions, I nearly forgot all economic knowledge. Anyway, I tried to calm down and show my own ideas at that time. I tried to make me feel relaxed by paying my attention to other things (distracting my attention to being an outstanding contributor). Tell you the truth, on the stage, I just thought the lamplight towards the stage was quite bright. And when P immersed in that atmosphere, I didn’t feel nervous any more.
This was quite a memorable experience, I strengthened my skills of speaking English, met many new friends and learned how to analyze practical questions by using Economic knowledge I had learned in class.

Here is a photo about our team at that time. I will remember this unforgettable experience. I hope I will meet them in the future although it is lowly possible.

What is CTB

China Thinks Big, with the initial CTB, is a contest which encourages students in Grade 10-12 to think independently or even innovate in the daily life. Each candidate needs to find 3-9 partners to be a team. The team has to choose two to three specific subjects and study in this field. It is worth mentioning that the team needs to submit essays and/or videos to be judged by experts every week.

Brief introduction of my team and me in CTB

What I did in my team

Our group had 7 members, all members except me were girls. CTB official guide asked us to choose a role in our team. We had 2 writers, 2 people to analyze, 2 researchers and a team leader. I was a researcher, that means I mainly needed to find bibliographies and reference on the Internet or in the libraries.

Why I chose this role

I seldom used my computer to study efficiently before CTB. I wanted to strengthen my abilities to search information by CTB.

Which topic did our team choose to do

Our team chose social science as the main subject, our topic was “The phenomenon that more youngsters have insomnia, why it happens and how to avoid it “

Why I chose our team

First, the majority of my members were my responsible classmates. We could have convenient communications and efficient teamwork to do the task.

Besides, I was a teenager, and our topic was to solve the problem of insomnia in teenagers. In my opinion, insomnia is a serious problem among the youngsters today, it will make us too tired to finish our work thus decreasing the productivity. I wanted to solve it.

Special events

Handing out questionnaires

In order to find precise data about the percentage of Chinese senior high students have insomnia, our team decided to make a questionnaire. We thought twice and finally made one with 10-30 multiple choices (students with insomnia needed to answer extra questions so it is a range of number of questions) since no one would like to answer statement questions.

Then we handed out it in our school, which had 3000 students, we got nearly 2300 effective questionnaires.

A funny story during questionnaire process

Our team leader printed sentences on the Internet to encourage insomnia people on the insomnia, each questionnaire has its own sentence.

I realized that we could reach interest innovation just in our daily life!

Video

As we performed well in online contest (I will mention it after this section) we reached the final national contest.
Before entering it, each team had to send a video to the official, it would be judged by experts and professors.
I made a brief presentation in the video as I read many references about insomnia, that means I could say some academic terms to show we are capable enough to do research.

Hard challenges from CTB– frequent deadlines

If you ask me what impressed me a lot during the CTB online course, i must reply you about the frequent deadlines. We submitted essays every week since deadline was once per week. You would be disqualified if you miss any deadline. One group of my classmates were even be disqualified by that!

What I have learned from it

I should obey all rules once they are told to me. I once think I could miss some deadlines until my classmates were disqualified.

In addition, we should finish our duty on time.

Achievement

This certificate shows we were excellent during online CTB contest and we had the chance to do the presentation in the national contest.

A quite big challenge to us–national contest

Backgrounds

All competitive groups which finished all deadlines could
access in the national contest.

That means unlike other contests, all teams here have responsible and adequate members, we have much more competitors compared with other contests.

What we did there

Each team needed to submit a video about their topic and feelings of taking part into CTB.

Besides, each team ought to choose 3-4 members to prepare for an online presentation. It would be judged by experts and professors.
But i needed to prepare for IELTS, that means I didn’t have enough spare time to do the presentation.

Final score

Actually, we didn’t get award in the national CTB contest. Absolutely we felt sad
for a while at that time, but then we remembered the interesting and meaningful experience during our CTB journey. We all felt happy at last.

###What I have learned from CTB

First, I knew how to communicate with others efficiently. We preferred face-to-face communication since we could identify whether or not others listen to others by eye contact. Previously, I tended to chat with others by social media, but I didn’t think if my communication was efficient at all!

Second, I knew how to manage my time wisely. CTB official gave us tasks every week during online contest, which took place between September and December, 2020. At that time, we had to deal with different school subjects. I developed the habit to make a to-do list at that time.

Third, I met different friends and widen my horizons there. Two girls were not my classmates, they were my classmates’ friends. They were good at different tasks, one was keen on analyzing, and the other did well in searching information. We undertook different tasks by efficient communication. In other words, we developed the ability to do the teamwork.

Finally, as the researcher, I read different books about insomnia, the most impressive one was The Sleep Revolution, with the author Arianna Huffington. During this process, I develop my skills of reading and extracting information. Besides, l acquired knowledges of avoiding insomnia. I used to be insomnia since the peer pressure was hectic, but I was much better now. My studying efficiency also increased and I got much higher scores at school than before.

an unforgettable experience for me

Backgrounds-What is FBLA

The Future Business Leader of America, with the initial FBLA, is an international contest of business and economics. It is the biggest charity organization of students all around the world, with over 100 years history. Each year, FBLA had its own contest, it would include different parts, such as Business Plan, Entrepreneurship and Economics.

What I did in FBLA

Exam at school

Students who wanted to take part in FBLA needed to do an exam. The questions in this exam were depends on the topic you chosen. I chose the topic Business Plan. The top three students at school would get the opportunity to access national FBLA exam.

I prepared a lot (I would mention it after this section) and got great scores. (Not only I could access national contest, but also the top 2% in the eastern China competition area.)

National exam

In national exam, each team would get question in advance to prepare for a presentation. It is worth mentioning that each team needed to use a powerpoint to support their presentation.

According to the official guide, the contents of powerpoint must contain business plans of setting up three different companies. Our team had three members, so we decided to split the powerpoint into three and each one made one business plan of his own company.

Mistakes during our presentation.

Truth to be told, because of Covid-19, our national FBLA contest was held online. When we did the presentation, because of the problem of the Internet, our powerpoint didn’t slide smoothly.

At that time, we were nervous. Then we calmed down and still performed well!

Final score

We achieved top 18th in China.

This is the certificate.

This is the medal. (Students from top 11th to top 20th all got this medal.)

What our team did to prepare for national exam

We were classmates and thus we could do the face-to-face communication every day. At first, we discussed with each other to make sure our companies were different types. Then we asked for our economic teachers’ help. (We had a FBLA club at school.) She advised our companies could have relationship between each other.

After a long-time discussion, we chose to write business plan of these three types companies: A company to produce clothes, a company to hold events and a company to combine sole traders/retailors and producers. The process of discussion was tough since we had different ideas. But generally speaking, we showed respect with each other.

When we finished our powerpoint, we also send it to our teacher and she helped us to change, delete or add contents. For example, one of our team members, Judy, she deleted a lot of contents as we had only totally seven minutes to do the presentation.

Last but not the least, we repeated reading our powerpoint together for many times to make sure we got high marks for coherence.

What I did to prepare for FBLA

To get high marks to access national contest

Each student got an official guide at that time. There were many past paper questions and I did the majority of them. I also review our economic books to master the concepts of economics.

To perform better in presentation

Tell you the truth, I was poor in speaking English, (By the way, my partners did well in it.) so I didn’t want to fall behind. I practiced a lot in my spare time. For example, I couldn’t speak complex years or percentages fluently at that time, so I repeated such numbers and even made hints on the powerpoint to avoid saying wrong words.

My feelings to take part in FBLA

I loved FBLA, mainly because I have learned a lot from FBLA. As I mentioned before, I strengthen my knowledge of economics/business and English speaking ability.

During the process of preparation, I also learned how to do efficient self-study. For example, I made to-do list or forced me to read at least 10 pages official guide. I used to play with my phone when I do self-study. Obviously, mobile phone distracted my attention. Thanks to my experience of attending FBLA, my productivity had increased a lot.

In addition, I learned to manage my time properly at that time. I guess I developed this habit because I was really busy at that time. The hectic pressure forced me to manage my time wisely.

Backgrounds

UKMT is the initial of United Kingdom Mathematics Trust, which is a Mathematic Contest aimed at encouraging students to practice and analyze Mathematics. 30 multiple choices are needed to be answered in UKMT.

My reasons to attend it and feelings

I am keen on learning Mathematics and doing well in analyzing and tackling practical problems in terms of Mathematics. When I heard of UKMT, I reckoned that it was a good opportunity for me to strengthen my fundamental mathematic skills in order to learn better in the future for further Mathematics. In addition to show my abilities in Mathematic field, I also wanted to learn about the style of Mathematic questions in countries except China. Tell you the truth, I have never done such kinds of questions since I was getting used to finish questions from China. Thanks to UKMT and my efforts, I got to know structures of exams in other countries.

I also found an interesting point through my experience of UKMT: Unlike exams in China, a student would lose points if he writes wrong answer in multiple choices in many foreign Mathematic exams. That means he couldn’t guess answers.

My preparation of UKMT and the final result

In order to achieved my goal of getting gold certificate, I previewed past papers and chose papers from 2015 to 2019 to practice, which was a process that quite brought benefits to me. I learned not only some specific ways to solve problems, but also the quality of being diligent. I wanted to give up from time to time when I prepared it. However, I insisted in completing it since it was my first time to contact foreign Mathematics questions (I really would like to achieve something in this field like characteristics of analyzing or certificates of contests, so I spent one hour doing related questions during that period)

I finally achieved gold certificate. (I got 103 out of 125, while the requirement for gold certificate was getting 86 points.)
However, I did some mistakes because I was daydreaming at that time, I wish I could do it in 2021 and get higher scores (maybe 120, nearly full marks)