This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.

Recently an organization surveyed 68 top scorers in the national college entrance exam (gaokao) and found that their families’ approaches to education were strikingly similar, and the learning traits of these children were also very similar. Here are the survey results.

1. What they are passionate about is not studying but thinking

The top scorer of Anhui said: “Enjoying learning is the highest level.” Top science scorers are usually passionate about logic and reasoning; top humanities scorers all love reading and are good at expressing themselves, and chatting with all sorts of people can be one of their hobbies.

This habit of thinking well and thirsting for knowledge comes from the inspiration their parents gave them in early childhood. For example, the mother of Sun Meng, top scorer of Anhui, said: “If it was a scene, we took the child to experience it as far as possible, so that the child would ‘write from real feeling’ rather than make things up.”

2. Top students also need the nourishment of love

Behind the top students there is no pack of whip-wielding tiger moms and wolf dads. The top scorers all describe their parents like this — “relaxed, trusting, like friends.”

One saying explains the relationship between love and grades well — when a child’s grades are poor, it is mostly from a lack of security; their energy is used up in inner conflict.

3. Deeply influenced by their parents’ teaching by word and example

The children seldom mention their parents’ verbal teachings; what they talk about more is how their parents’ actions influenced them.

Dong Jiyang, top scorer of Anhui, said: “Occasionally I’d get tired of studying and not want to read. Mom and Dad would notice, but they wouldn’t say anything; they’d just turn off the TV and sit down to read. Seeing them reading, I felt too embarrassed not to read.”

4. Good habits are inseparable from “independence from an early age”

Old people often say: “The tighter you grip, the more tired you get; let go, and you’ll feel much more at ease.” Raising children is the same: learn to let go, and you will find your child is far more capable than you imagined.

Almost all the top scorers’ parents mentioned “doing your own things yourself,” cultivating the child’s independence from an early age. One top Tsinghua student said in an interview that it was his parents’ respect and willingness to let go that taught him not to run away from problems and to think proactively.

5. Teach according to aptitude and draw out the child’s strengths

In the interviews one can see that some educational methods that are criticized did not provoke the child’s resentment because they were used on the right person.

Zhang Heng, top scorer of Guangdong, said that since childhood he had been a competitive and confident child, and sometimes inevitably a little complacent.

“Whenever I achieved something, although Dad occasionally affirmed and encouraged me, more often he ‘poured cold water’ on me, promptly pointing out my new gaps. I jokingly call Dad’s way of educating me ‘education by criticism,’ and I think it suits me very well.”

6. Read the classics and broaden your thinking

Reading world classics as a child and the great masters’ classics when older — this is the reading path many top scorers mentioned in interviews.

Sun Jingyan, who scored 148 on the Beijing gaokao Chinese paper, wrote: if you read a lot, you develop a feel for language. Cultivating reading is absolutely inseparable from parents’ guidance; Jingyan said her parents loved reading stories to her from when she was small.

Reading is the best way to rapidly acquire the science, technology and culture humanity has distilled over thousands of years. Many of the benefits of reading go without saying:

It increases knowledge, keeps the essential and discards the dross, and forms positively oriented views of the world, life and values;

It broadens your horizons: you are no longer confined to a small corner of everyday life but can roam freely through past and present, China and abroad, with learning spanning the four seas; and as the range of your reading grows, you will develop a broad mind and lofty ideals and convictions;

You can learn ways to solve problems in real life, and also imperceptibly gain a touch of bookish, cultured air.

7. Every top scorer has a notebook of mistakes

96% of the top scorers do not endorse the “sea of exercises” tactic, but 99% of them keep a notebook of mistakes they have compiled themselves. Diligence is not the golden key to high scores. Liang Siqi, top scorer of Beijing, said he usually had plenty of time to relax, but he studied very efficiently; if you have a certain plan and arrangement when you study, you won’t do everything aimlessly.

In doing exercises, what matters is quality, not quantity. In fact there are only so many question types; find all your blind spots and you are invincible.

8. Regular routines and a love of sport

Middle-school students are in a period of growth and development; if their routines are irregular during this period and they often go to bed late, it will inevitably affect their studies and physical development.

The following scenes are probably the most common in middle schools:

Every morning, especially in the first and second periods, the teacher talks on and on at the front while the students sleep soundly below;

As soon as the break comes, a whole swath of the classroom “falls over,” or a crowd rushes off to eat breakfast;

And some students are repeatedly late from oversleeping, which not only affects the pace of teaching but also their own studies.

In the interviews, 98% of the top scorers said they never stayed up late; even when preparing for the exam they went to bed at eleven, ensuring enough sleep and a regular routine, and they also exercised often.

9. There are many things more important than grades

More than scores, parents care about the child’s attitude toward learning, and most parents said that besides studying there are things they value even more.

The mother of Ding Yaqi, top scorer of Anhui, said: “As long as my child is kind and can tell right from wrong, whatever path she chooses, I will absolutely support her!” — These words speak for almost all the top scorers’ parents interviewed. More than scores, these parents value their children’s safety, health, joy and sense of happiness…

Having seen so many things in common, I believe parents will have some reflections and some reasons to feel fortunate. In fact, whether or not our child is a top scorer, our aim as parents has always been for our children to have a sense of happiness — and the right methods of family education can help us achieve just that!