2007年度央视迎奥运“希望之星”英语风采大赛
江苏赛区参赛感想
高中组全国亚军 沈哲
I was asked to write something about the competition and how I felt about it. So I have decided that due to the course of external influences I must take it upon myself to tell you the things I felt about this competition.
This competition was first recommended to me by my teacher. I had watched outlook quite a few times before but I never thought of it as more than a TV program. I decided to enter for the first round and was prepared to go down in the first round in Nanjing. Back then I thought of it as a joke and nothing more, never dreaming that some day I would reach the finals in Beijing. The results came out and to my astonishment I was No.1 in Nanjing. You can therefore imagine my surprise and delight at this out come. I continued to compete and by the time I was going to Beijing I had taken part in 4 rounds and came out No.1 in all of them. This was why I was sent to Beijing as one of the 3 contestants in the senior high school rank.
After a very bad nights sleep on a train in which a 6 year old kid shouted for 3 hours at 2 in the morning, I found myself walking in to the hotel and later going to a meeting where hundreds of people were present. This was my first contact with people from all over China. I tried to talk with everyone but there were just too many people.
The next day we took our written exam and this was a total disaster. I ranked 28th and was out of the top 20 which meant I didn’t have a chance to compete in the finals. But luckily I did well in the second round and came up to 10th on the list, the third round was still pretty good and finally I ranked 7th when entering the finals.
The finals were really tough. All 20 contestants who entered the finals were really good because they are the best of the best from all over China. I wasn’t quite that confident and when I became number two to perform on the stage I took it as conformation that I was going to fail. But luck seemed to be on my side because I got through to the last round without ever going into the PK round. But I did really bad in the outdoor activity and that was the crucial junction which lead to my failure in the end.
This competition while having its faults has however given me an opportunity to express myself and help me to gain confidence, not to mention making all those friends. At first I was very nervous when entering the finals, when it was my turn to perform, I was so nervous I thought I was having a heart attack. But when I stood on the stage I found that I had left my fear behind, I had gained my confidence and was ready to show the judges that I had unsurpassable skills. I think that the main reason this competition is so successful is the fact that there is a lot of interactivity. This means that it isn’t a competition where you just speak and get off the stage.
大学成人组全国亚军 杨梦
读大一的时候参加过中央电视台“希望之星”英语风采大赛江苏赛区的比赛，但是初赛时就被淘汰了。这次比赛走得可谓相当远，一直比到了全国总决赛的前三甲。有趣的题型，可爱的同学，确实是非常难忘的记忆。
这次比赛与往届比有很大的变化，比以往娱乐性多，采取了类似超级女声的淘汰方法。没有积分，而且几乎都是即兴发挥，和我以前参加过的任何一场英语比赛都不一样。选手赛前不用怎么准备，对于我这种性格的人来说是很受欢迎的。同样都是面对从没看过的题目，相对公平。即兴演讲的题目可谓光怪陆离，我到现在都弄不清楚“留学生”和“石榴”有什么相似之处，只能暗自庆幸我们那组没有抽到这个题目。虽然题目搞怪，却可以充分发挥选手们的创造力，而这些创造力也许是大家平常学习生活中都没有机会发挥的。最典型的就是12进6那场比赛的PK，当罗恒的“zebra”和单筱玥的“X in the sky”让全场绝倒时，他们的才华和机智得到了所有人的肯定。比赛唯一让我们不太舒服的是，淘汰时放的音乐太过煽情，被淘汰的选手笑嘻嘻的，留下的选手和观众倒是很想哭。
比赛中被选手引用得最多的一个词组是“a time to make friends”，也巧了，比赛正值世界杯小组赛进行，大家也将这一原则贯彻到底。越比到最后，越是和一路同行的同学们打得火热。到了大三下，再说什么“我和其他优秀的选手还有很大差距”就显得比较幼稚了。我不是认为我们每一个选手都不用谦虚，只是既然我们来参加的这个比赛将快乐学习英语作为宗旨，为什么我们自己还要对自己苦苦苛求呢？每次比赛，我看到的都是自己的不足和差距——但是这次，记住NBA的这句话：季后赛中无弱队。看不到或忽视自己的优点比看不到自己的缺点更为悲哀。站到舞台上的每位选手都有过人之处，同样有不足，可是比赛是要扬长避短的，它提供给我们一个发现自己优点的机会。
我很享受这次比赛。
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