老外问：中国教育强调死记硬背，为何中国学生在奥赛中如此出色？

全球数学竞赛开奖，20位金、银、铜奖获得者中，有17个中国名字， 其中有6个在美国，3个在德国、法国、加拿大，也就是说，在国外 的“华人面孔”占总数的一半还多。美国网友问，鉴于中国教育强调死记硬背，为什么中国学生在美国数学竞赛中会表现如此出色？我们看看各国网友的回答。

I am a Chinese student. The school encourages us to recite some famous essays, poems and English words. We may also be encouraged to remember historical facts and events, but the same rules obviously do not apply to mathematics or any other natural science education.

我是一名中国学生。学校鼓励我们背诵一些著名的散文、诗歌和英语词汇。我们可能也会被鼓励去记忆历史事实和事件，但同样的规则明显不适用于数学或任何其他自然科学教育。

Generally speaking, Chinese students' mathematical problems in middle school or high school are more challenging than those in other countries. I do not believe that all these problems can be solved by pure theorem memory. These challenging problems have improved the average level of Chinese students' mathematical problem-solving ability.

一般来说，中国学生在中学或高中所做的数学问题比其他国家的数学问题更具挑战性，我不相信通过纯粹的定理记忆可以解决所有这些问题。这些具有挑战性的问题提高了中国学生数学问题解决能力的平均水平。

The most important reason why Chinese students perform well in international competitions is that they are good at math in middle school or high school, even in primary school, which is a great honor. Therefore, most "smart" students are very active in spending their time on improving their math skills. At the same time, a student who is good at other courses, such as Chinese, English, history, politics, and even sports, has no chance to get the same honor.

中国学生在国际赛事表现优异的最重要原因是，他们在中学或高中，甚至在小学，数学都很好。因此，大多数“聪明”的学生都非常积极地将时间花在提高数学技能上。同时，一个擅长其他课程的学生，如汉语、英语、历史、政治，甚至体育，都没有机会获得同等的荣誉。

Being good at mathematics also means having the opportunity to skip the college entrance examination and enter the most famous university in China. Winning the first prize in the national mathematics competition (ranking the top 40 in a province, among about 100000 to 1 million students) will guarantee admission to top universities. Over the years, this policy has undergone some changes, but being good at mathematics still helps college enrollment.

擅长数学也意味着有机会跳过高考，进入中国最著名的大学。在全国数学竞赛中获得一等奖（在一个省中排名前40位，在大约10万至100万名学生中）将保证获得顶尖大学录取。这些年来，这项政策发生了一些变化，但擅长数学仍然有助于大学入学。

The problems that students need to solve in such competitions are very challenging. Such competitions also help to select the national team of IMO. At the same time, students who are good at physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and have won awards in similar competitions have the opportunity to be admitted to top universities.