2024 Yun Chenyu Anthropology Postgraduate Examination Experience Post of Minzu University of China

1. About the selection of schools for postgraduate entrance examinations

First of all, I would like to explain why I want to study anthropology: I majored in sociology at Minzu University of China as an undergraduate (due to the nature of the experimental class, I took a lot of courses in anthropology/ethnology and even archaeology), and after a few years of study, I found that I preferred the temperament of anthropology, so I chose the latter between sociology and anthropology. There is indeed an ambiguous and complex relationship between sociology and anthropology, and I won't explain it too much here—because it's hard for me to explain it clearly. First of all, I didn't want to leave Beijing, but after studying here for a few years, I liked the city more and more, and I had more and more good friends here, and I wanted to continue studying in Beijing. There are not many schools and research institutions in Beijing that recruit master's degrees in anthropology/ethnology, only Peking University (unified enrollment 3), Chinese Renmin University (unified enrollment 2), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences University (unified enrollment 1) and Minzu University of China (unified enrollment 12, but the annual promotion and exemption plan is not exhausted, and the actual enrollment number will be more), based on their own strength and many factors, they finally decided to choose Minzu University of China.

The National People's Congress does not publish the report ratio, and most of the data given on the Internet are somewhat different from the actual situation. However, it is clear that the topics of anthropology/ethnology/border security/global governance (the same volume of the professional courses in the initial examination of these four majors) are relatively basic, and there will be no particularly biased questions, and the professional courses are extremely friendly. Therefore, as long as you prepare for the exam carefully, everyone can get a more satisfactory professional course result! There is no such thing as a pressure score! The teacher wants to give you a few more points, for fear that you will not have a book to read.

2. Initial experience

(1) Public courses

In terms of politics, I am the same as most of my classmates, probably from October to brush "Xiao Xiurong 1000 questions", some students may go through "Xiao Xiurong Concise Lecture and Practice" first, but because I was a liberal arts student in high school, those knowledge points have actually been learned, and I only need to brush the questions to awaken my memory, so this also needs to be selected in combination with everyone's own situation. As for the online class, I personally think it's too much time to waste so I didn't listen to it, and I recommend students with poor foundation to try it. In fact, the review of politics only officially began with "Xiao Ba", and after getting "Xiao Ba", I finished the multiple-choice part at a two-day speed (in fact, you can also read the analysis questions to cultivate your own sense of writing analytical questions). The recommended rhythm is to finish the questions and revise them on the first day, and then read and analyze them carefully on the second day, not letting go of the knowledge points behind each option, and try to understand each question thoroughly (after all, the mock paper is made up by Xiao Da for a cup of tea, a pack of cigarettes, and a set of rolls all day long, so you still have to cherish it). "Xiao Si" is similar to "Xiao Ba", and it also uses this rhythm, but the difference is that at this time, you need to memorize the material analysis questions. Try to understand the relationship between the material, knowledge points, and reference answers when memorizing, especially the language style also needs to be imitated. In fact, the subject of politics is not difficult, but it is not easy to get a high score. In recent years, there are also more review materials on the market, but there will be no substantial differences, you only need to choose a set that suits you and eat it thoroughly, and the score will not be low.

English must be the most painful part for many students, and the same is true for me, and the anthropology test is a more difficult English I. During the whole revision process, I put a lot of energy into English, but fortunately, I was quite satisfied with the final score.

I started using the mobile app to memorize about 200 words a day in May, and after a while, I passed the first round. Then I began to review over and over again, about 250 times a day in the review stage, and I personally feel that I must memorize more words every day, and the whole preparation stage is more than a few times, and the words will naturally become familiar when I see more. Start doing the real questions in September, don't be particularly fast, and make sure to do the real questions after 2010 twice before the exam (it is best to keep the past three years of real questions for mock exams). Reading comprehension is a big part of the English language, and it is necessary to improve the accuracy of reading comprehension. There is no standard process for how to do questions, and you need to look at your own reading habits. I prefer to skim through the text first to figure out the main idea, and then read the stems and options carefully, find out the source of the answer from the text, and read it again and again until every wrong option is eliminated. An obvious feeling of doing past papers in recent years is that the proposition is deliberately avoiding some so-called "problem-making skills", so it is still necessary to read the article solidly.

In terms of composition, I didn't memorize the template, but chose Wang Jiangtao's writing tutorial. The advantage of this book is that it explains the format of English writing, the layout of the article, and the choice of words and sentences, which is really practical. The disadvantage of just memorizing the template is that many times you can't write anything about a specific topic, and you can only use some meaningless "universal sentences" to make up the word count, which can actually seriously affect the score!! Usually, you can also classify the words and sentences you see according to the topic, and integrate a book of your own composition notes, which will have good results over time~

The materials needed for public classes are "Xiao Xiurong's Intensive Lectures and Refinements" (optional), "Xiao Xiurong 1000 Questions", "Xiao Ba", "Xiao Si", English real questions, Wang Jiangtao's writing tutorial (not the one that sprints to memorize 20 articles, but the tutorial of the large book).

(2) Professional courses

Anthropology is a relatively unpopular major in China, and there are not many reference books to choose from, but there are many theories and ethnography to choose from. However, fortunately, the topics of the University are relatively basic, as long as the basic knowledge and concepts are mastered, there will be no big obstacles in the professional courses.

I started to review my professional course in September, first of all, I carefully read the review of the more classic ethnographic works in the book "A Guide to Major Works of Western Anthropology in the 20th Century" edited by Wang Mingming. The advantage of this book is that the quality of the reviews is maintained at a good level, and the general content of important ethnographic works can be grasped relatively quickly during the preparation period. Of course, if you have enough time, it is best to choose basic ethnography and read carefully, especially the works of Malinowski, Evans Pritchard, and other classics, so that you can better understand those abstract theories in the later learning process.

Then I can start studying the textbooks, and I mainly refer to three books, namely "Introduction to Anthropology" edited by Zhuang Kongshao (Chinese Renmin University Press), "Ethnology Theory and Method" edited by Bai Zhensheng and Song Shuhua (Minzu University of China Press), and "History of Chinese Anthropology" (Chinese University Press). These three textbooks basically cover the knowledge points to be examined in the anthropology of the National People's University, and the chapter arrangement is also reasonable. I also refer to the book The Magic of the Anthropologist: A Historical Essays on Anthropology as a supplement to American anthropology. Try to understand as much as possible when reading the textbook, especially the debates and inheritances between different theoretical schools, which are often the focus of the exam. Don't be discouraged if you can't read the textbook, you can understand and memorize it later in combination with the past questions, and it won't be difficult.

There is a question bank for the postgraduate examination of anthropology at the National University of China, and every year the old questions will be eliminated and some new questions will be added to form a ten-year question bank, and the propositions will be extracted from the question bank, so the questions are relatively fixed, and it is particularly important to be familiar with the real questions and understand the real questions. But don't memorize the answers to the real questions directly from the beginning, this is less efficient and not conducive to the understanding of the knowledge points. The recommended review method is to carefully read the reference books of professional courses and take notes, familiarize yourself with the relevant theories and knowledge points, sort out the past questions, and classify the knowledge points of different question types according to the theoretical school and branch disciplines, so that the efficiency of memorization and recitation will be much higher.

In addition, you can also watch the anthropology course videos published on the Internet, such as "Cultural Anthropology" by Wang Meixia of National Taiwan University (can be found on Bilibili, the course is a public course for non-professional students, so it is more basic, focusing on conveying the basic spiritual temperament of anthropology, suitable for cross-examination students), Huang Zhihui of Minzu University of China "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology" (can be found on MOOC, taught in "orientation"/"vision", Each chapter is accompanied by a guide to a classic ethnographic work, which is suitable for accumulating knowledge). If you have any questions in the process of reviewing, you can consider Xinxiangxu's one-on-one tutoring, and the whole process of targeted tutoring can achieve twice the result with half the effort

Reference materials for professional courses include "Guide to Major Works of Western Anthropology in the 20th Century", "Introduction to Anthropology*", "Theory and Methods of Ethnology*", "History of Chinese Anthropology" and "The Magic of Anthropologists: A Collection of Anthropological History" (marked with * is a key bibliography, and it is recommended to read it repeatedly).

3. Write at the end

Nowadays, everyone thinks that the graduate school entrance examination is very difficult, and in fact it is. However, as long as you choose a suitable college major, combined with correct and efficient revision methods, everyone can achieve results worthy of their own efforts. The most painful thing in the process of taking the graduate school entrance examination is not the study itself, but the anxiety transmitted by the outside world and the deep uneasiness in one's own heart. The 2023 postgraduate entrance examination is a difficult year, when Covid-19 is still raging, and it is easy to collapse emotionally in the state of school closure, plus many students are infected for a period of time before the exam, and almost four or five days are completely unable to study. But even so, everyone persevered, and it was really not easy.

Looking back, the most important thing in the process of postgraduate entrance examination is not that we can soar to the sky if we master any peerless cheats, but that we must persist for so many months day after day, endure loneliness, resist restlessness, put our mentality in a relatively peaceful situation, polish ourselves page by page, persist until the last moment, and believe that everyone can reap satisfactory results.