The media reported that Sichuan had decided to carry out the college entrance examination as usual without changing the date.

Mianyang is the first area in Sichuan's severely hit regions to resume classes. On the morning of yesterday, senior three students of Mianyang Middle School, who had been away from school for four days, walked into their classrooms again. The familiar classrooms became "shaky" in their hearts. Perhaps the pressure of the college entrance examination could let them temporarily forget disasters, pains and fears.

At 7:00 on yesterday morning, senior three students of Mianyang No.1 Middle School started to enter the campus one after another. This was the earliest middle school in Mianyang City to resume classes and also the first place in the whole disaster-stricken area of Sichuan to resume classes. At 7:30, Yin Xun Gu, the principal, began to provide psychological counseling for the junior three and senior three students on the playground. He encouraged the students to correctly view this great earthquake with his own experiences of two earthquakes he had experienced, guiding them to put down pressures and not bear too many psychological burdens.

4000 Students Were Evacuated to Safe Areas within Two Minutes

Yang Wen Yong, the director of the school office, introduced that there were still continuous aftershocks now and the students couldn't get rid of the calamity of the earthquake psychologically. Many students dared not enter the classrooms today because the teaching building trembled violently during the earthquake, bookshelves all fell down and computers also fell on the ground. At that time, teachers were shouting: "Classmates, don't panic, run to the playground quickly." The principal was commanding the students to evacuate under the teaching building while bricks kept falling down and smashing beside him.

"Fortunately, we often conduct fire drills. When the earthquake occurred, more than 4000 students were evacuated to the playground within two minutes," Yang Wen Yong, the director of the school office of Mianyang No.1 Middle School said. Because the school usually paid attention to emergency response drills for such emergencies, there were no casualties among teachers and students in this great calamity. He said that most of the buildings of Mianyang No.1 Middle School faced north with the south at the back, while this great earthquake swayed east and west. Fortunately, it was like this; otherwise, the buildings might have collapsed and been destroyed more severely. Some teaching buildings of the school had cracks in the earthquake. Sichuan Province urgently gathered construction experts to inspect the buildings of each school. The teaching buildings and laboratory buildings of senior three could no longer be used. Now they could only crowd into the teaching buildings of the junior middle school together with the junior three students or possibly borrow classrooms of local universities to have classes.

Sichuan Has Decided Not to Change the Date but Have the College Entrance Examination as Usual

It was learned that Sichuan Province had decided not to change the date of this year's college entrance examination but have it as usual. Regarding such a decision, the teachers of Mianyang Middle School expressed understanding. They said that considering that the closer the candidates got to the college entrance examination, the heavier burden and greater pressure they would have, the earlier the examination was held, the earlier they could put down the burden. Meanwhile, the students could go home as soon as possible. Several mothers told reporters that having the exam now wasn't too important anymore, life was more important and it didn't matter how their children performed on the test.

Teachers of Mianyang No.1 Middle School told reporters that actually there were not many senior three candidates from Beichuan taking exams in Mianyang City. Because Beichuan was an autonomous county of the Qiang nationality, local candidates returning to the county to take the exam could receive extra points, therefore Beichuan students studying in Mianyang all returned to Beichuan to prepare for the exam recently. "Alas, they all encountered this earthquake," Yang Wen Yong said painfully.

He Sat on the Playground All Night without Knowing His Parents' Messages

"That night, the boy sat alone on the school playground for the whole night. He stared at the direction of his hometown Lixian County and cried silently," Chen Zai Qiong, a teacher of senior three of Mianyang Middle School said compassionately. A male student in her class was from Lixian County and lost contact with his family completely after the earthquake. The boy didn't say anything. After everyone fell asleep that night, he quietly sat by the playground, staring at the direction of Lixian County and shedding tears silently. Teacher Chen said that in Mianyang Middle School, there were one or two students from heavily hit areas in each graduating class of senior three. Some of them had emotions like calmness before the eruption of a volcano. On the surface, they seemed calm, but their emotions could erupt violently at any time.

On the side of the blackboard of Class (2) Senior Three, there was still a countdown sign hanging, which read that there were still 26 days left until the college entrance examination. The calendar showed the date of May 12th. Since the day when they withdrew from the classroom, none of the children wanted to replace this calendar after they returned to the classroom yesterday. Perhaps this pain in everyone's heart was something no one was willing to touch. Ji Xiao Yan, the head teacher, said that there was a student from An County in her class whose mother was killed by an advertisement board that day. When his father called to inform him, he didn't speak for a whole day. Until now, this child hadn't shed a single tear but reviewed hard every day. Perhaps this way could make him temporarily numb, the pressure of the college entrance examination made him temporarily forget sorrow. This was a kind of self-hypnosis psychologically, but the teachers worried that once the exam was over, enormous sorrow would instantly crush him.

Teachers Worry about Students' Future Tuition Fees

Nowadays, many girls living in the school often couldn't sleep at night. They were very terrified and often scared to cry when encountering aftershocks at night. Therefore, teachers of Mianyang Middle School started to take turns to stay up all night. They sat in the corridor and comforted the students' emotions immediately when they found that some students woke up. The teachers' figures also slowly calmed the children down so that they could sleep quietly. Tian Da Nian, a teacher of the school worriedly said that many rural students in his class had lost their homes entirely and only had a quilt left. They might not even be able to pay next semester's tuition fees. How could they pay for university tuition fees in the future? Mr. Tian worriedly said. He hoped that society could provide help to these students later, helping these traumatized children get rid of the influence of the disaster and live better lives.