Not Selected for a Spot-Check Exam—How Can You Breathe Easy?
■ PLA Daily Special Correspondent Jiang Yucheng, Yan Zichang
"After all those days of effort, we didn't get 'selected'—it was all for nothing." "I feel pretty lucky—no assessment to deal with, so I can finally take a break." … Not long ago, a certain brigade of the 71st Group Army organized a spot-check assessment of basic training quality. On the evening the list of units selected for the assessment was announced, Political Instructor Xu of a certain battalion overheard a conversation among several soldiers and could not help but furrow his brow.
He initially assumed this was just a passing thought among a few individual soldiers, but after observing over the following days, he found that was not the case. The companies about to participate in the assessment were working overtime to cram on assessed subjects, while the companies not on the assessment list had visibly lost their drive—going through the motions (走过场) and running out the clock (耗时间) to varying degrees. Some individual units even converted the afternoon physical training session into free activity time. The contrasting states on the same training ground were particularly jarring.
"Does not being selected mean your training was 'wasted'? Does not having to take an assessment mean you can take a breather? Is training only about chasing scores and getting high marks?" At the battalion affairs meeting, Political Instructor Xu put the overheard conversation and his observations on the table. The string of questions left many of the officers present red-faced.
After a moment of silence, Company Commander Zhang offered an explanation: "The soldiers had been pushing themselves hard with extra training to prepare for the assessment. Now that they know they don't have to participate, it's only natural they'd lose some momentum." Company Commander Jia echoed this, arguing that since assessment rankings are circulated across the entire brigade and results affect year-end commendations and awards, it was "only human" for soldiers to think this way.
Political Instructor Xu took a clear-cut stance in response: "When all is said and done, it's the 'train for the exam' (练为考) mentality at work!" He reiterated that assessments exist to evaluate the capability levels of officers and soldiers and to provide a reference point for subsequent training—they are absolutely not the endpoint of training. Officers and soldiers keeping their eyes fixed only on assessments while losing sight of the battlefield is by no means a trivial matter and must be corrected immediately.
After the meeting, each company organized officers and soldiers to discuss "why spot-check assessments exist and what training soldiers is for," helping everyone correct their ideological deviation (思想偏差). They strictly cross-referenced the training syllabus to identify undertrained and missed subjects, compiled itemized lists, and drew up remediation plans to ensure not a single training item was omitted and not a single participant was left out. They established a "random spot-testing, routine verification" mechanism, using unannounced, open-ended random assessments to compel officers and soldiers to maintain a state of combat readiness at all times.
In addition, they submitted a recommendation to higher headquarters to stop conducting "exam-oriented" (应试型) spot-check assessments that pre-identify key areas, to increase "combat-oriented" (实战型) unannounced, open-ended ad hoc evaluations, to de-emphasize rankings-only notifications, and to strengthen after-action feedback grounded in combat standards—so that assessments can truly return to their original purpose of evaluating actual combat capabilities.
As a series of measures took effect, the scene on the battalion's training ground quietly changed: regardless of whether they were participating in an assessment, every company trained strictly in accordance with the syllabus, without a single subject omitted or a single standard lowered. In the most recent unannounced ad hoc spot-check, officers and soldiers of a certain company that had not been required to participate turned out in full strength with full equipment, and achieved outstanding results across multiple subjects.