Did you used to write a few book/movie review?

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I remember that in my whole schoolhood, I was only once asked by the teacher to write a book review when I was no more than 11 years old, an age which was too young to understand how to write a more than 1500-word book review. Yet, I did it. Actually I didn't understand what I was reading and I didn't go through the book at all. All I did was actually copied some sentences from the synopsis of the book, pieced together paragraphs and finally my over one thousand words review was done. I know this is very ironic because as a pupil in an elementary school, or even though as a middle school student, or even as a college student(in China), there has been not a single class dealing with writing a book review or a movie review actually. This lead to the common phenomenon that even graduates find it hard to wirte an English essay more than 300 words. We don't have writing class at all, yet all sorts of exams require us to become able in writing essays all of a sudden ! Does the education condition differ in your country?