美國的初中學生生活

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MIDDLE SCHOOL LIFE!

Middle school covers 6th, 7th, and 8th grade in the U.S. educational system. Unlike in China, elementary school children in the U.S. do not have to test into a middle school. Unless the child is going to attend a private school (in that case testing is required), students who live in one general area usually attend the same middle school nearby.In most states in America, however, middle school students are required to undergo approximately 3 days of testing at the end of every year to see if they can pass a state administered examination. These exams usually test children in the areas of math, English, social studies and science; the tests rank the student and his/her respective school alongside all other students and schools in the state －contrary to as in China, however, a student』s personal test results are not released to the public. Generally, the material covered in these exams is very broad and the student is not expected to study extensively for the exams.

在美國的教育體系中，初中包括六、七、八三個年級。和中國不同的是，美國小學生通常不需要參加升學考試。除非這個孩子要讀的是私立學校（那就必須通過測試），一般的學生通常可直接升入各自居住區附近的中學。然而，在美國的大多數州，每到年底，中學生必須經歷大約三天的考試，完成各州的試卷。這些考試的內容通常包括數學、英文、歷史和自然科學。通過測試排定這些學生和他們各自學校在這個州里的名次，但和中國相反的是，學生個人的考試結果並不公開。一般來說，這些考試涉及的內容比較廣，題目靈活，考察的是學生一年的學習情況，而不是複習效果，所以學生並不需要很認真地複習。

Middle school is valued as an important transitional stage between elementary school (「the easy life」) and high school (「the very, very busy life」). In middle school, students attend as many as eight or ten different classes of approximately 40 minutes each. They no longer have a single homeroom teacher or set of peers whom they study with for the duration of the day. Instead, middle-school students go to different classrooms, study with different students, and learn from different teachers for each subject. The amount of homework, projects, and tests the students have to prepare for increase with every passing year.

初中的重要性在於它是小學（「輕鬆的生活」）到高中（「非常非常忙的生活」）的過渡階段。在中學，學生們每天要上8到10節不同的課，每節課大約40分鐘。每天，他們會在不同的教室、面對不同的老師和不同的同學一起學習。隨著年齡的增長，學生們的作業、設計任務（對一個課題做詳細的書面闡述）和測驗的次數也在逐漸增加。

In middle school, students begin to get involved in extra-curricular activities outside of school, such as yearbook, sports teams, community service clubs, chess club, foreign language clubs, theater, etc. While middle school students are considerably busier in comparison to elementary schoolers, they usually still don』t carry a heavy burden of stress since their grades and extra-curricular activities aren』t officially recorded.

在初中，學生們開始參加課外活動，比如編寫學校當年的大事記、參加運動隊、社工團體、國際象棋俱樂部、外語俱樂部、以及表演隊等等。雖然中學生比小學生要忙得多，但是他們的分數和課外活動不會被正式記錄，因此他們通常沒有很重的負擔。